The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1848-09-08


all naked, and such as occasionally flourish at the
rancho in cotton shirt have acquired it in the way
OF extra compensation. With an aggregate Of
some twenty thousand OF such Indians, at all times
ready to work for the smallest allowance of the
coarsest food, it would be impossible by act of Con-
gress to establish negro slavery in California. A
Southern negro would starve upon the quantity
and quality of subsistence which would fatten
three or four California Indians A bounty of one
hundred dollars upon every negro slave taken out
to California, would not insure the establishment
of negro slavery there. The fact is, it can never
be established there while the thousands OF
| wild and Christian Indians that infest the Dor
| ders OF the Sierra Nevada continue to exist.
For all practical purposes, therefore, we see
that the question of "iree SOIL" regards
New Mexico and California, is sheer humbug.
The soil can never be any thing else than "free,
and, by far the most OF 1t so entirely free as to
be totally uninhabted until the day of the prophet
shall come when the desert of the Great Basin
shall blossom like the rose.
And yet the cry of the /" free soilers, is not all
moonshine. The mass OF them, we suppose, have
no more geographical knowledge of the territories
about which they are contending, than had the
administration in the outset of its career. We
doubt whether even John Van Buren,, that gra-
cous and promising prince of the stump, can tell
us the course of Mary's river in the Great
Basin, or whether it sinks in the sands, or
empties into the sea - or the locality of the
Salt Lake-or whether the Sacramento runs north
or south into the Bay of San Francisco; and,
even upon the map, one of the most conspicuous
rivers in California, we doubt whether he could
find out the San Waw-keen. And yet there is
practical reservation of the most comprehensive
import, at the bottom of this free soil organiza-
ton.
The buffalo hunt is the life-giving pabulum
to the Buffalo Convention. The buffalo hunt
makes the :" free soil'' question practical,
papable, manifest question. The buffalo hunt
gives it a shaping of the highest moment; and a
single word will suffice to make it clear.
He who believes that we are now to stand
still - that we are to expand no further that
the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in perpetuity
defines the southern boundary of Anglo-American
occupation, is in remarkably slender minority.
Every indication tells us that our population must
60 on expanding to the South-that this buffalo
hunt is but repetition of the Texas operation, and
that, whether the hunt is arrested or prosecuted,
the population of this Union must continue to press
into Mexico, until by conquest, by annexation, or
independent occupation, her territories will be
absorbed 1t is with these territories, yet to be
occupied by the Saxon, and to the island of Cuba
more particularly, that the free soil doctrine has
its only formidable practical and significant appli-
cation. Here it assumes truly formidable shape,
and one of the greatest practical moment.
In this view we recognise the importance of
General Taylor keeping still on the Wlmot pro-
viso; for, in the present distracted condition of
Spain, and her overwhelming indebtedness to Eng
land, the necessity may, at any moment, arise, of
nterposing to the purchase of Cuba, to prevent its
falling into the possession of Great Britain.
In one word, the " free sol" platform, in refer
ence to the exclusion of slavery from New Mexico
and California, the ground upon which it appears
to be exclusively advocated, sdownright stupidity;
but in reference to the buffalo hunt and the isle of
Cuba it is question involving the suppression of
slavery, the extension of our borders and the divi-
sibility of the Union.
This brings us directly to the policy of the
South. Upon the naked question of the proviso,
as the contest is prolonged, the South must con-
tinue to yield the wall. II the South, then, would
hold its peculiar institution at its discretion it will
resist the further acquisition of territory to this
Union, or it will be fanked by " free soil' on
every side. We expect them to pursue this policy
of selfpreservation; and though Mexico and Cuba
may be revolutionized through instrumentalites
from the United States, we expect the South to
encourage their separate nationality, rather than
their incorporation into this republic.
Finally, it will thus appear that although Anne
rican enterprise and emigration may overrun and
occupy all the continent and islands, to the pass of
Panama, that between union and disunion. the
line Of Guadalupe Hdalgo fixes permanently the
South ern boundary of the United States