March 17, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
While Mr. NILES has taken up the question of Navigation, we see that Mr. CLAY, of Alabama, has taken up that of Citizenship. The object of the one is to prevent the South being inundated after the war by a host of Yankee emigrants, possessed of the rights of citizenship, and exercising a baleful influence upon our institutions, domestic and political. The object of the other is to cut off the navigation privileges hitherto accorded to our Northern foes in the waters of the South, to compel all foreign nations trading with us to trade direct, and not through Yankees or British, and also to build up, as far as practicable, a shipping interest of our own. We regard both these subjects as of great importance to the future well-being of the Confederate States. We are pleased to see that there is a disposition to urge measures upon the consideration of the body. We trust the temporizing, dilatory disposition of Congress will give way to straightforward statesmanship, which has some view to the time which is coming. Action of this kind is absolutely necessary to our substantial independence and prosperity. It will exercise no influence upon the duration of the war. Our success in arms will best determine that question; and when the North is satisfied by experience, and has had enough of unsuccessful fighting, we will get our own terms. Until then, so far as their volition is concerned, we will get no peace. So, too, if the French Emperor is to end the struggle by raising the blockade, measures of the kind proposed by Messrs. MILES and CLAY to protect the South from Yankees would certainly not retard his operations in behalf of the laws of nations, justice, and the mutual interests of France and the Confederate States. On the contrary, they would indicate earnestness and sagacity in the secession of these States. We invite the Southern Press to the consideration of these great topics. Few subjects are more important in the settlement of our affairs.