of emancipation in
Missouri is most important. Missouri is larger by more than 6,000 square
miles than any State east of the Mississippi, and occupies a central
position between the North and the South, the East and the West. She is
larger by 16,458 square miles than England proper, containing a
population of nineteen millions. She is larger by 1,098 square miles
than New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Delaware. She
is larger by 5,264 square miles than all the New England States. She has
a greater white population than the aggregate numbers of North and South
Carolina and Florida, or of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, or of
Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, or of Florida, Arkansas, South
Carolina and Mississippi, or Louisiana; and a larger white population
than all Virginia, East and West. She had, if disloyal, by her position
and large white population, more power to imperil the Union than any of
the slaveholding States. She has been true--she has suffered much in our
cause, her fields and towns have been laid waste, thousands of her brave
sons now fill our armies, and thousands more have fallen in our cause,
and we will be recreant to truth and justice, to the safety of the
Union, and forfeit the nation's pledge, if we do not now aid her in
becoming a Free State. The southern boundary of Missouri (lat. 36 deg.) is
several miles south of Nashville, Tennessee; but, if we take altitude
also into consideration, then, according to well established
meteorological principles, the southern boundary of Missouri is at least
a degree south of Nashville, reaching the northern boundary of Alabama.
There is then a very large area of Missouri well calculated for the
production of cotton. To accomplish this, the levee system of the
Mississippi must be extended from the southern boundary of Missouri to
the first highlands in that State, above the mouth of the Ohio; and a
proper system of drainage adopted. These lands would thus be entirely
secured from overflow, and greatly improved in salubrity. With these
improvements, Missouri would contain an area of rich alluvial lands,
well adapted to the profitable culture of cotton, embracing an extent
capable of producing at least one million of bales of the great staple.
These lands, considering latitude and altitude, would possess a climate
similar to that of Middle Tennessee and North Alabama, where cotton is
already cultivated with great profit. If emancipation pre