that different portions of confederated America possess each some
peculiar advantage for this essential establishment. The more
southern States furnish in greater abundance certain kinds of naval
stores--tar, pitch, and turpentine. Their wood for the construction
of ships is also of a more solid and lasting texture. The
difference in the duration of the ships of which the navy might be
composed, if chiefly constructed of Southern wood, would be of
signal importance, either in the view of naval strength or of
national economy. Some of the Southern and of the Middle States
yield a greater plenty of iron, and of better quality. Seamen must
chiefly be drawn from the Northern hive. The necessity of naval
protection to external or maritime commerce does not require a
particular elucidation, no more than the conduciveness of that
species of commerce to the prosperity of a navy.
An unrestrained intercourse between the States themselves will
advance the trade of each by an interchange of their respective
productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal wants at home,
but for exportation to foreign markets. The veins of commerce in
every part will be replenished, and will acquire additional motion
and vigor from a free circulation of the commodities of every part.
Commercial enterprise will have much greater scope, from the
diversity in the productions of different States. When the staple
of one fails from a bad harvest or unproductive crop, it can call to
its aid the staple of another. The variety, not less than the
value, of products for exportation contributes to the activity of
foreign commerce. It can be conducted upon much better terms with a
large number of materials of a given value than with a small number
of materials of the same value; arising from the competitions of
trade and from the fluctations of markets. Particular articles may
be in great demand at certain periods, and unsalable at others; but