Page:Journal of Florida Secession Convention.djvu/53

 Under this arrangement, your Committe are of the opinion that all mail service for this State, except that for Key West, may be had. In regard to this, your Committee would suggest that all mail matter for that point may be carried by the now existing routes to Tampa; and thence by a weekly line either by sail or steam to Key West; and if by steam, (and if not prevented by a state of war,) the mail may go through to Havana. This service by steam, your Committee are informed, may in all probability be effected at a very inconsiderable cost by means of a steamer now engaged in cattle trade, and running regularly from Tampa to Havana. All the foregoing suggestions, however, are based upon the presumption that there will be no hostile collision between the existing Federal Government and the seceding States. Should we, however, be mistaken in this, and should the blind infatuation of Northern fanatics, or the weak vacillation of Mr. Buchanan, proceed to such extremity, then all commercial intercourse becomes illegal; and it will be neither to the interest, nor consistent with the safety of the Southern States to permit the interchange of mails. But your Committee cannot be brought to believe that either the present or future President of the Northern Confederacy can be so absolutely insane as to imagine that he can, by force of arms, effect a voluntary Union of States. Union by force is involuntary, and hence a misnomer. But should it end in this, your Committee rely with great confidence on the fact that the interests of the great commercial cities of New York and Pennsylvania are so entirely dependent upon an unrestricted intercourse with the Southern States, that the great cotton factories of the North and East depend so wholly upon the South for the raw material, that the subsistence and indeed the very existence of the laboring class of these States, that great artery through which passes the pulsations of the whole frame-work of Northern society, rests so completely and fully upon employment—constant, daily employment by these interests—we feel assured that any Government seeking to break up all these interwoven and dependent interests, will find at home an enemy sufficiently powerful to bring it to terms. Under these impressions, your Committee recommend the adoption of the following Ordinances, to-wit: 1st. That the laws of the United States in relation to post-offices, mail routes, contract, and all other postal matters, heretofore made, and in force in the State of Florida, at the date of this Ordinance, so far as the same may be applicable to a single State, shall remain and continue in full force in this State until the same shall be altered or repealed under the authority of this Convention.