Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/107

 \\' 'ilium L. Yancey in History. 99

ject lay in the movement, already more or less advanced, to secure Cuba for the United States, and also in the then pending scheme of General William Walker to conquer the Central American States and erect a government there with institutions similar to those of the Southern States. African slavery, it was believed, would flourish well in those tropical, yet fruitful agricultural regions, while the Southern States were much in need of sympathy in the fast ripening purpose of the Northern States to invade our institutions and destroy them. More than that, it was hoped that if Texas could be well supplied with African slaves in order to protect herself against North- ern interference, she would readily consent to divide her vast and bounteous area into five slave States, thus checking in the Senate the tide of Congressional usurpation of Southern rights.

The Southern Commercial Convention of 1858, met, according to appointment, at Montgomery. The membership was so great that the State capitol could not by any means contain the meeting. It was the annual season of empty cotton warehouses at that cotton shipping port, when, perhaps, 100,000 bales each year were loaded on steamers for Mobile. An immense brick cotton warehouse, thor- oughly lighted, was hastily floored, and plank benches provided for the meetings of the convention. It was a most noble gathering of men the educated, earnest, prosperous democracy of the South, come to deliberate for a week in a pending crisis which involved their all. They felt deeply the awe of the situation. They acted calmly.

It was at this great and decisive meeting that the memorable de- bate occurred between Mr. Roger A. Pryor, the young editor of The South, a weekly, published at Richmond, of extreme Southern rights' character, supported by William Ball. ml Preston, and Henry W. Milliard, on our side, and William Lowndes Yancey, a lawyer, of Montgomery, on the other side. The report of the committee from the Knoxville meeting of the year before was submitted by its chairman, J. D. B. De Bow, editor of De Bow' s Review, a South Carolinian then domiciled in New Orleans. The report was favor- able to the re-opening of the trade. Just about that time some five hundred Africans had been landed from a slaver on the coast of Georgia, and prominent Georgians were being pursued in the Fed- eral courts as participants in the crime of importing them.

De Bow's report was debated and postponed for action until the meeting of 1859, appointed for Vicksburg, Miss.

Referring to Mr. Yancey's speech, or rather speeches, for he spoke the greater part of two days, Dr. McGuire says: " Mr. Yan-