"How long," he asked, "will the great naval powers of Europe permit you to impede their free intercourse with their best customers, and to stop the supply of the great staple which is the most important basis of their manufacturing industry ?" "You were," said he, adding taunt to argument, "with all the wealth of this once great confederacy, but a fourth or fifth rate naval power.

What will you be when emasculated by the withdrawal of fifteen States, and warred upon by them with active and inveterate hostility ?" In a tone of patronizing liberality, Mr.Slidell gave assurance that the new confederacy would recognize the rights of the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries to free navigation, and would guarantee to them "a free interchange of agricultural production without impost, and the free transit from foreign countries of every species of merchandise, subjected only to such regulations as may be necessary for a protection of the revenue system which we may establish." Had Mr.Slidell been less inspired by insolence, and more largely endowed with wisdom, he would have remembered that when the Union contained but six millions of people, they were willing to fight any one of three great European powers for freedom of access to the sea for the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi, and that it was from the first a physical impossibility to close it or in any way restrict it against the rights of the North-West.

The people of that section, even without the prestige of the national flag, were immeasurably stronger than the people of the South-West, and were, unaided, fully competent to fight their way to the ocean over any obstacles which the powers behind Mr.Slidell could interpose.

In the mere matching of local strength, it was sheer folly for the States of the lower Mississippi to attempt to control the mouth of that river.
SPEECHES OF BENJAMIN AND SLIDELL.
Mr.Judah P.Benjamin spoke in a tone of moderation as contrasted with the offensive dictation of Mr.Slidell.

He devoted himself mainly to answering an argument which came instinctively to every man's mind, and which bore with particular severity upon the action of Louisiana.