New-York daily tribune., 1851-07-16

nest and thence was the agitation of 1850,
in which slavery lost the prize of all this
long career of scheming and exertlon. At
ter such a result, it is not strange that the ex-
citement is not at once allayed IN that region
II is not strange that the States which
opened the ball with such zeal, should stay
to dance late in the morning after the lnvol-
untary participants whom they forced into
the giddy round have gone home and are at
rest. But that so vehement and heated an
entertainment should take place at all is al
together their own business. 1t is to be
hoped that they they will have had enough
of it this bout and retain no disposition to
try again.
Another fact worth attention is that in
these elections the great body of the former
Wing party is found in the Union ranks,
while as if by natural proclivity, the side
of disunion is in great measure composed
of Locofocos. This is also due to the fact
that the Wings were guiltless Of the COM
mencement They did not plot annexation,
war and slavery extension, but were content
to stay at home, mind their own business and
increase the power Of their states and the
country in the legitimate way Of industry,
and Of that improvement in the condition of
ali classes resulting from improved agricul-
ture, manufactures and internal commerce.
These were the principles of Southern
Wings, and they were faithful TO them until
carried off in the general flood of feeling
consequent on the war. And as they were
not concerned in the concocting of the plot,
they feel in themselves no disposition to
avenge its failure and therefore it is that
they are now logically on the side of the
Union party, while their former opponents
predominant upon the other. When the
present elections are over, they will of
course, be found where they were before,
strengthened by their course throughout the
entire controversy.
1t is vain to wish that this little struggle
now going on at the South or the great ma
tional one of lS49-5O had never taken place.
For our part we have not expressed such
wish, but there are others who have. For
such the true way would be to go back to
the start, and wish that Texas had not been
taken from Mexico There was the begin
ming of the matter, and all that has happened
since has been only its consequences. And
yet how few would now wish that were un-
done. You may prove to them that the act
was an unwise One-that we did not want
Texas, any more than we did California or
-Mexico-that the Republic would
have been this day vastly richer and more
powerful had the labor and capital wasted
in the war, or since sent into those distant
regions, been applied at home on the vast ex-
tent of fertile, uncultivated lands in the old
States, and in building and working facto-
ries to consume the surplus product of
those lands but what of that The glory
of fogging the Mexicans, the grandeur of
owning territory stretching from Ocean to
Ocean, and with thousands of miles of
coast, is more than an answer for all the
wealth and life we have lost, and all the
good we have failed to achieve for ourselves,
our children and the world We submit to
this answer; we, too, believe that contin-
gent blessings attend the evils we have
hinted at But we deny utterly that those
who rejoice in these acquisitions and their
present fruit have any right to deplore the
recent Free Soil and Slavery agitation
throughout the Union, or the settings of it
which are now served up in the elections at
the South. For the one has followed upon
the other by an inevitable necessity, and if
the South is longer disturbed than the North,
she may usefully reflect that the whole af-
fair is of her own creation.