The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1850-04-11


end. 10 the supposed event of peaoeable dsso-
luton, the North would find enough to employ it's
shipping proftably If England adopted re-
strictive policy she could be made to suffer from
if liberal one, we know enough of
Yankee ship-Owners and ship-masters to know
that they would suffer no loss from fair, free
competition
Suppose the dissolution, SO lightly talked of,
should be violent what them How much cotton
would be raised during state of war between the
two sections with the danger Of servile war
constantly impending? But suppose it raised,
where is its MARKET The half million of bales
is no longer taken by the North a majority of
the operatives are converted into soldiers the
slaves who raise the cotton cannot undergo such a
transformation. What good would the cotton
crop do the South, with all her ports blockaded as
they would be- by the North, which has the ship
ping and the country
This question of Dissolution Of the Union, as
to its consequences has two sides, and the reflect
ing men of the South will require something more
! than meagre distorted paragraphs from news
papers to enable them to reach sound conclusion
the subject s-....
Among the wild speculations of Disunionists,
there is one which contemplates the formation Of
the cottOn-growing States with Cuba, into great
cotton, tobacco, sugar, and coffee-producing en-
pre- holding intimate commercial relations with
! Great Britain And how is Cuba to be incorpo-
rated into such confederacy? Will separation
| from the North effect that object? What power
would the South alone have for its accomplish,
ment2 Is Spain waiting for an opportunity to
throw the island away7 Is it not certain that its
Captain General has instructions to emancipate
and arm the slaves, should it become necessary, to
battle invasion and suppress insurrection! How
would the South meet such crisis Without a
navy, with three millions Of slaves in her Dor
ders and separated from the North, how could
she conquer Cuba? And would England, sus-
tanning such relations as she does to Spain, ever
anxious for the fate of Cuba, and pledged to the
enforcement of an anti-slavery policy wherever
she has the ,sewer-regard with indifference q
contest in which the Government of her ally,
aided by enfranchised slaves, was struggling to
save so rich possession from the grasp of an
invader? The REIMBURSEMENT of the slaves in
Cuba would put an end at once to a large portion
of the slave trade which England for so many
years, at so vast an expense Of life and money,
has fruitlessly sought to exterminate The South
alone could never obtain possession of Cuba.
Another dream of Disunion is the command of
the Mississippi-one Of the great highways for
Western produce. large proportion of the pro-
ducts of the West now finds its way to the East
by Railroad, Lake, and Canal. Lines of easy
communication between East and West are mul
tiplying every year, attracting more and more of
the wealth of the West to Eastern seaports. Still,
large shipments will continue to be made to the
South, and the navigation of the Mississippi must
be forever free
But the Disunionists dream of commanding
this navigation. Let US see. Were dissolution
peaceful, negotiation would settle the question :
it would be found that the unrestricted naviga-
ton of the Mississippi was as beneficial to the
States of the Southern as to those of the North
ern Confederacy but, suppose this should be
made question, the sword would have to settle
il, if peaceable. means failed. Never would the
immense wealthy, teeming West permit its natu-
raj connection with the ocean to be interrupted
| by any power under heaven.
J, never AbuIa aDs, aAiae wa sne navtgstfcn fthe
Mississippi were ordained, Free Forever, by a
perpetual and an unalterable covenant.
1t were folly TO say that the North would not
suffer damage from Dissolution of the Union.
Its entire business arrangements would for time
be thrown into confuson-it might find itself
frequently embroiled with its Southern neigh
bora military spirit would be stimulated by the
supposed necessity of keeping up large war
establishment weighing heavily on the resources
of the People But all these evils in still higher
degree, would press upon the South, which would
be less able to bear them-beside other evils un-
known to the North. Brazil contains two millions
Of slaves but there is nothing in her institutions
to educate the blacks, infuse into them ideas of
human rights and there is no free and powerful
Government on her borders imbued with hatred
of slavery The Southern Confederacy, contain
ing three millions Of slaves, would be Republic
with institutions founded, so far as the white race
was concerned, upon the doctrine of equal rights
Its slaves, already enlightened than those of
Brazil, undebased by the importation of African
pagans, and growing gradually in intelligence,
would see, adjacent to them, an anti-slavery Re-
public-and they would remember that the Union
had been dissolved, chiefly on the ground that
the People of that Republic had refused to extend
the area of the bondage of which they were the
victims These considerations, even supposing
that the system Of slavery had continued despite
the commissions of revolution, show that it would
be growing element of weakness and peril
to the new Confederacy. But why reason thus
Judge Underwood of Kentucky in a speech de-
livered in the Senate few days ago. admitted
frankly that Dissolution Of the Union would be
the destruction of slavery in all the border States
and how long would the system stand in the
States further South after its violent subversion
in the Northern tier The Disunionists talk as
if Slavery were a natural condition-n harmony
with the laws of human progress-with the gene
raj sentiments of mankind with the spirit Of the
age, with the will Of God-exposed to no more
danger from civil commissions than the sacred in
stituton of the Family. What an awakening
from their hallucination, should they be able to
consummate their fell purpose OF Disunion! The
first blow struck in civil warfare, would revolu-
tionize the institutions Of the South but free
States, recognising the equal rights of oil their
inhabitants, cou,l suffer from no such cause.
War would hush their domestic discords, and
drive them into a closer union while it would
develop into intense activity the elements of in
testine strife and commoton which now slumber
in the slave States.
We deprecate DisuniOn, not because of its
peeamiary evils-these sink into utter insgnif-
canoe 10 the light Of higher considerations The