(says Mr. Calhoun), who can only be influenced by the almighty dollar, will cypher up the value of this trade—­this new market for our products, worth perhaps twenty millions of dollars yearly—­they may find an excuse for incurring even the tremendous and awful risk of a war with Austria, but which there is less danger of than there is with Governor Brigham Young, in Utah.  They may find a substantial interest involved that is worth taking care of.  Governor Kossuth may be assured it is of more consequence than sympathy.  It is a wonderfully sensitive nerve in this country:  it controls most of the others.—­Sympathy, in this case, can take care of itself.  It does not require any nursing.  The interests involved should be attended to.  It seems to me that this position as to our commerce with Hungary cannot be attacked in front, in rear, or on either flank.  It is by far more forcible and powerful than the ex post facto argument in favour of the Mexican war, that it got us California and its gold.  So far as the general welfare of the country is concerned, free trade with independent Hungary, and its certain ultimate results, would be more invaluable than all the cargoes of gold that may be brought from the Pacific coast, if ten times the present amount.”

That is the opinion of a distinguished American citizen, identified chiefly with the interests of the South.

As to me, I beg permission to sketch in a few lines the reverse of the picture.  If we fail in our enterprize to check the encroaching progress of absolutism, if the despots of Europe succeed to accomplish their plot, the chief part of which for Russia is to get hold of Constantinople, and thus to become the controlling power of the Mediterranean sea, what will be the immediate result of it in respect to your commerce?

No man of sound judgment can entertain the least doubt that the first step of Russia will and must be, to exclude America from the markets of Europe by the renewal of what is called the continental system.  Not a single bushel of wheat or corn, not a single pound of tobacco, not a single bale of cotton, will you be permitted to sell on the continent of Europe.  The leagued despots must exclude you, because you are republicans, and commerce is the conveyer of principles; they must exclude you, because by ruining your commerce they ruin your prosperity, and by ruining this they ruin your development, which is dangerous to them.  Russia besides must exclude you, because you are the most dangerous rival to her in the European markets where you have already beaten her.  And it will be the more the interest of Russia to exclude you, because by taking Constantinople, she will also become the master of Asiatic and African regions, where also cotton is raised.