The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-11-19
THE LATE PENNSYLVANIA EIECTIoN.--A WORD
ABOUT TARIFFS.

lhe least prontaDles perhaps, OF all the employ
mcnts is that of measuring and weighing the obstacle
over which somebody stumbled few days ago, and
near breaking some useful and valuable bones
We encountered, it is certain, at the late elections
in Pennsylvania, reyerses and it is only be-
cause the doctors disagree about the disease that
we are led to all examination of the patient now
Bome have charged that Lecomptonism was the af
Fiction under which the democracy suffered, while
others are equally confident that it the failure of
tho existing tariff system to keep all the people Of
the mining and manufacturing districts in employ
ment The case being thus narrowed down, it is
clearly possible to get at the true of the dis
aster 1t was, we convinced, mainly and almost
exclusively what the Pennsylvania people regarded
as defective revenue system. We may estimate
them in this as quite unreasonable; but, after all,
there many excuses for the indulgence of these
impressions. In the mining and manufacturing dis
tricts there were thousands of working men thrown
out of employment. They were told that the ina
bility of the proprietors to provide them with
work was due wholly TO the fact that foreign
manufactures, Goals, &C., could be introduced into
this country and sold at rates below the cost
of mining. manufacturing, and marketing of kim
dred articles of Pennsylvania production We say
they were told so by the Pennsylvania propretors.
In point Of fact, there general stognaon in BUSH
ness and this equally applicable to foreign and
domestic affairs No iron, coal, or manufactured arti
clos, such as are produced in that State, were i'm
ported and hence it is clear that our Keystone
neighbors did not and do not now suffer much from
that source. But they out Of their usual
Payments and made to believe that their misfor-
tunes were due to the reo-trade proclivities Of the
democratic party. They were told that this was
tho case; and, although the proprietors knew
that the suspension Of general business, thus cut
ting off much of the demand for Pennsylvania
products, was the real cause of the difficulty,
the great masses of laborers did not 80 under
stand the matter, and voted in accordance with
the views they had imbibed. A great hue and cry
was gotten up in Philadelphia and carefully fostered
and promoted, about Lecompton, or, more correctly
speaking factional spirit fomented and car
ried into the elections which operated very much
against u.s.
AS matter of historical and curious interest we
give the following extract from article in the
Pennsylvanan touching the votes in the various To-
calitieB where the two influences, Lecompton and
the tariff question, have had fair opportunity to
be felt.
Speaking of the returns that paper says
'They show to a demonstration that defeat did not
proceed from the anti slavery, but from the mining and
manufacturing disrctsfrom section Of the State which
has always stood up firmly amidst the widest agitation
Of the slavery question Take for evidence the vote in
the counties of Allegheny Beaver Bradford Butler Erie
Elk, Indiana, jefferson, Lawrence, Mexican, Mercer,
Potter, Susquehanna, Woga, Venango, Warren, Wash
ington, Wyoming, and Wayne--in all 20-being those
in which the question Of slavery has uniformly welded
the greatest influence and it appears that the majority
against Mr. Frost the democratic nominee for the canal
commissioner. and open and avowed Lecompton man,
was but ,8l8 votes whilst the counties in 1856
cast majority of 49, 478 against Mr. Buchanan for Pres
dent, bcng democratic gain the soil counties Of Me State
siucs 1856 Of 10, eco!
Then turn to the manufacturing and mining dis
tricts composed Of the counties of Carbone, Centre
Chester Clarion, Huntingdon, Blair Lehigh, Schuylk
Llzerne, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Montrose, Berss
Dauphin, and Armstrong, is in all and it is that in
these Mr. Frost beaten by $500 votes whilst in the
counties in 1866 Mr. Buchanan had %, 06l MAORI
ty being change against the democratic party Of GIG
votes by deducng from this aggregate the total ma
jority against Mr. Frost in this State 1884, and it will
appear that the entire change since 1856 produced in
these fifteen counties.
II is perfectly fair to infer from these facts that
disasters in Pennsylvania have nobetter other
cause foundation than the false charge that the
people of the mining districts of that State had been
thrown out of employment by an inadequate and de-
Btructive revenue system. In other words they
were told that Mr.. Buchanan's administration was
properly chargeable with all the ovcrtradng, extrav
agance, and folly of the last ten years, leading to
general suspension Of business and to very great
depression in every department of American,
English, and Continental industry. They were the
first to feel this sudden shock, and in the very
nature of things will be the last to recover
from it, The farmer also feels it, and 30 does
every mechanic and laborer in the country. 1t is
well known, for instance, that single house in the
city Of New York, which had employed seven or
eight hundred sewing girls, obliged to dis
charge five hundred Of them not on account of the
tariff, but because there 10 longer sufficient
demand for the articles they employed to man
ufacture. SO it was in the mercantile community
they all suffered by the inability Of their debtors to
pay and in the absence of nearly all demand for the
goods they had imported purchased in the prose-
cution of their regular business. There was limit
cd amount of foreign orders for great agricultu
raj products, and thus the price of those products
ran down half leaving the farmer to suffer, and
to cut off his usual expenditures and reduce the
price and turn away aborers The fact is, if Penn
eylvana laborcrs have suffered more than others, it