secede from the Union; * second, an authenticated copy of the ordinance of secession; # third, a resolution of the convention uniting with Alabama in the invitation to the State of Delaware to send commissioners to represent her at Montgomery, Ala. ; * fourth, a resolution of the convention appointing commissioners to Delaware and other States and defining their duties. * I beg leave respectfully to ask you to take into consideration these documents exhibiting the objects of my mission, and if you approve the measure to lay the same before the Legislature.

You will perceive that the prominent object of my mission is to invite the co-operation of Delaware in the formation of a Southern confederacy. Georgia, in the movement she has made, has not acted in haste or with precipitancy, nor without calm deliberation and after having counted the cost. She did not withdraw from the Union till she had lost all hope of being able to maintain the rights and equality guaranteed to her by the compact into which she had entered and to enjoy the domestic tranquillity which was one of the prominent objects of that compact to secure to her. She has now passed the Rubicon and with no intention of taking any steps backward. Already in alliance with other of her sister and neighboring State who have formed a provisional government and intend speedily to organize a permanent government upon the basis of the Constitution of the United States, she looks with interest to those of the slave-holding States who have not yet cast in their lot with her and from whom she has been compelled to separate not without feelings of deep and poignant regret. They have heretofore battled with her for the same rights, triumphed with her in the same successes, and mourned with her under the same reverses. Although it is well known in Georgia that Delaware, in proportion to her population, has not as deep an interest in the institution of slavery as the other border slave-holding States, yet it is well known that she is identified with Georgia in interest, more so in sentiment, in principle, and in sympathy, and, it is confidently believed, is destined ere long, under the force of events rapidly crowding upon her, to be identified with her in action and in her future destiny.

It is no part of my duty to indicate to the State of Delaware what course it may comport with her honor or her interest to pursue, yet pardon me in making the suggestion that the cotton States are agricultural in the pursuits of their people and have heretofore been dependent on the Northern States mainly for the products of manufacturing and mechanical labor. Hereafter they will look for these products across the Atlantic if they cannot be furnished by States in alliance with them. Those Southern border States, therefore, who are far advanced in manufacturing and mechanical skill have now tendered to them the entire South for a market and that without a rival.

One other consideration: Free trade, or an approximation to it, will probably prevail in the Southern confederacy. Delaware has her sea-ports. Is it unreasonable to suppose that under the high protective tariffs that will prevail in the Northern confederacy that those sea-ports may attach to them, when they can sell goods at lower prices, because imported under a lower tariff, an extensive and valuable commerce which never heretofore has reached them? But on this subject I forbear. I have only to add that it is the sincere and earnest desire of the State of Georgia that all the slave-holding States

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*Embodied in Journal of the Georgia Convention, January 18, p. 57.

#See January 19, p. 70.

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