The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-10-28

The heads of the Federal expenditures whic
we have examined give fair notion OF the rest
and IL may be safely assumed, that while the
South has paid seven-ninths fthe taxes the North
has had seven-ninths Of their disbursement. The
military and naval expenses, the civil and dipo-
| matte, are partly in salaries, but chiefly in con-
tracts. As TO the salaries, II is well known that
the North receives much the most and it is equally
notorious that nearly all the contracts are given to
her citizens. II may be supposed that they are
the lowest bidders, and that If Southern bidders
made better offers, they would get the contracts.
But before they can do so, they must be placed on
an equal footing. The large capital, which the
South has i'm the foreign trade must be restored
the hands of her citizens for it is the Of this
capital for which the Northern man pays no.
thing, and the concentration by the Federal fiscal
action OF all our commerce in his cities, that en-
able him to command all the lucrative contracts of
Government. H8@
We have no means of computing the exact num-
| Der of persons at the North who live upon the
Federal Treasury. Far the larger part OF the
custom house and land officers, as well as Of the
other civil officers, are in the free States. II we
add all these the 20 odd thousand PENSIONERS
and postmasters, the contractors and the holders
or the public debt we shall be safe in estimating
the persons at the North, who are directly depend
ent on the Federal revenues, at 900. Add their
families, and we have army of 300 900 tax con-
sumers in the free States nearly all supported by
the slaveholding tax payers.
Let US now compare the present condition of a
Northern and Southern parish, each containing
100 families Of six persons. In the former, we
shall find that there are some three OF its families
| who derive the whole, or part of their income,
directly from the United States Treasury, while
there is no such family in the latter, il be Ike the
majority Of the slave holding communities of
the same size. If the Northern parish happen to
be on the coast, every bay, and inlet, and creek
eminent, and lights shine every twenty odd miles
along the shore, to protect its mariners. In the
Southern parish, the vessels must find their way
through the shoals they best can, for there has
been no survey, and no warning beacon cheers
| the storm for hundreds of miles. The Union
spends ten dollars in cutting roads and canals,
cleaning rivers, and constructing harbors in the
Northern parish, where it spends one in the
Southern. And 10 secure these benefits, the par
sh in the free States pays in taxes 1888, and
receives back in disbursements ~ 1850; while the
same number of families in the slave States
pay 81 $40, and receive only S27O. The ex-
cess OF 81 $50 goes to be distributed amongst
the Northern parishes. This is not all, for the
hundred families Of the Southern neighborhood
are deprived of the profits of using over $4,000 OF
let the hundred Northern families Use over Us 900
of it, whole year, free Of charge. When the
two parishes join in war against common foe,
the Southern must send five times as much of the
expenses and yet, when the contest Is over, II
must suffer its partner to seize all the conquests
and at the same time to kidnap its property and
attack its domestic peace. CAN insolence-can
, tyranny go further Or can history show u more
; degraded community than the Southern must be
l If it submits
When we regard this course OF taxation ant
: disbursement, we cease to wonder at the growth
: Of the cities of the North, or the palaces tina
cover her comparatively barren soil. McCullocl
n remarks, that England's enormous expenditure
o during the great European war, in the beginning
t, of this century, offered new employment and re
81. hnn dred, Of or hat he
o taxes only served to stimulate their industry ant
z invention, and that, nearly all the public deb
3 was due at home, it may well be doubted whethe
: the whole effect not to increase her wealth
d However this may be, we can easily imagine how
] vast would have been her profits and prosperity
had these taxes all been paid by some foreign ma
ton while she had the advantage of their disburse
mcnt, or how wretched anu miserable would be
I ther people, had the vast sums levied from them
been expended for the benefit of strangers in far
: distant countries. Yet the first is Lnt pic
n ture of the state Of the North under our Un;on
the last would be Of the South, but for her great
national resources, and the recuperative energies
e Of her people and her institutions. In this Gov
$ uxuriant growth of the South transported
!, beneath wntry skies, to the rocks Of New Eng
a land The primal curse is partly obliterated TO
o them by Federal agency, and the command ii
n changed into "Thou shalt live by the sweat o.
l. the brow of the Southern stakeholder" The
). wages Of Southern labor and the profits Of South
: ern capital are swept Northwardly by this current
Of Federal taxation and disbursement as steadily,
and more swiftly, than the Gulf stream bears the
D waters of our shores. Well may the North de-
clare that the Union is invaluable, and sing hymns
to its perpetuity!
3 For all this crying injustice, the South has &c
3 blame her own weak concessions, much the
! grasping exactons of the North The free States
have only used their power for their interest
6 and when has human nature ever been such, tina
do 9th
!: "For why'-the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That he should take who hath the power,
And he should keep who can!''
Perhaps the free States may, like Give when
confessing the plumber of the East, marvel at its
facility, and "stand astonished at their mod
Grafton" The white population ofthe South has
kept pure the blood Of their revolutionary fathers
The few emigrants who have settled in the South
have been quickly assimiated in character by the
superior numbers of her people, and have thus
added to her strength. Not so in the free States I;
their population has increased faster than at the
South but the difference is entirely due to the
emigrants Of Europe, who are rapidly increasing
in number. In 1910, the arrivals were under one
hundred thousand and last year four hundred
thousand sought our shores, which number is
greater than the whole natural increase of the
people Of the North The tide cannot stop at this
point. Mr.. Webster has proposed and his pro-
posal is approved by all who eager to court
the foreign vote, to give quarter section of the
public lands to every foreigner who may choose
to settle on them. What countless swarms of
needy adventures will pour out of the great Eu
ropean hive to accept the bounty? The free States
can no longer assimilate such crowds to their ma
tives the superior numbers will overpower and
change the native character. And it is for these
strangers, to provide lands to be given away to
all nations Of the earth, that the citizens of the
South are to be excluded from the common do
main! The old likeness Of interests, of cbarac-
ter, and of feeling between the sections, is fast
wearing away under these influences. The free
: States filed more and more with a manufac-
turing and town population; the slave States pre-
serve the old country character. The people of
: the former losing the revolutionary associa-
tons which were one Of the bonds Of our Union
II some still trace back to fathers who fought side
by side with the ancestors of the Southern people
) at Monmouth and at Eutaw, still greater mum
Der can remember no such past; their sires were
then in other lands, or perchance were here, but
in the ranks Of the foe. There is no sympathy,
no common feeling among these people, to weigh
against the deep-seated and growing hostility to