by Diane Fontaine Maury-Corbin

“ Although this would not strike the shackle from a single arm, nor command a single slave to go free, yet it would relieve our own loved Virginia of that CURSE. Such an act on the part of the State would cause slave owners generally either to leave the State with their slaves, or to send them off to the Southern markets. [4] But they would be still slaves in our own country. We must take things as we find them, and if we would be practical and do good, we must deal with mankind as they are, and not as we would have them. ”

“ In 1845, M. F. Maury read a paper before the Virginia Commercial Convention on the COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS OF THE SOUTH. In it he says, “Geographically speaking, Norfolk is in a position to command the business of the Atlantic seaboard. It is midway between the coasts, has a back country of surpassing fertility, of great capacity and resources. The waters which flow past Norfolk into the sea divide the producing States from the consuming States of the Atlantic slope, the agricultural from the manufacturing ”

“ Virginia saw these advantages some ten years ago and slept upon them. She sees that Nature has placed them there, and made them hers. She never dreamed that man could take them away; but man HAS....
“BUT GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE ARE NOT THE ONLY COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD WITH WHICH COMMERCIAL TRADE IS DESIRABLE. 'LET THE SOUTH LOOK TO THE SOUTH! BEHOLD THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON! [3] In 1837 commenced the second era of ocean steam navigation, though twenty years before that the South had sent out an avant courier from Georgia ”

“ His papers on THE DEFENCE OF THE GREAT LAKES AND THE WEST, and his advocacy of the ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN SHIP CANAL as a measure of national defense, created a profound impression, particularly in the North West, and were received with enthusiastic commendation. ”