The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1858-10-30
From the Missouri Democrat.
THE GOLD SOLUTION OF THE NEGRO
QUESTION


THE GOLD SOLUTION OF THE NEGRO
QUESTION.
1t was the discovery of gold that effected
a solution of the negro question in our ter
ritories of the Pacific. No sophistry of
politicians could resist the living forces that
were sapping those new commonwealth; no
artful postponing of industrial interests to
pride OF caste, and the patriarchal idea could
be had in the presence of such masses of
laborers and such fraternity of work. True,
the effort was made first to claim California
for the slave system, second to divide it,
third to effect a lodging in Oregon, but the
world knows how ignomniously each and
all failed. The relation between toll and
return was so direct, the conflict Of race SO
evident, that no one could be blind to the
consequence, and slavery consequently
never set foot in our possessions on the
Pacific.
1t seems not at all improbable that like
solution of the same vexed question is soon
to be found in the valley of the Great West
and that the slopes of the Rocky Mountains
equally with those Of the Sierra Nevada are
to witness that practical determine ION of Il
territorial policy. The accounts which we
have from the yieinisy Of Pixies Peak, Cherry
Creek, and the sources of the Arkansas,
may be exaggerated, although we do not think
they are, yet they indicate the outlines of
that vast auriferous region known to extend
southwark, embracing the spurrs Of the Cor
dillera, the San Juan Mountains, and the
broken ranges of the Sierra Madre. Re-
mains of a former civilization indicate this
to have been worked under the Aztecs as one
vast gold field. Mexican researches and In
dian tradition likewise bespcak for it the same
fame which recent geological reconnaissance
attests it to possess. Indeed, it is related
on good authority, that so late as 1886, a
party of French trappers camping at the
base of Pixies Peak, and discovering the
shining particles in the bed of the stream,
collected and transported to Laramie wag-
on load OF the deposit, which was pronounced
by the savans there to be ''fool's gold," and
was accordingly thrown aside. All our ag-
gregate information therefore and some of
it is of a very reliable and scientific charac-
ter, points to this central section Of the
continent rs soon to claim, in an exclusive
manner, the attention, labor, enterprize,
and competition Of the white races that are
thronging Westward in search of deposits
Of the precious metals. We have no doubt
that this fact will start out of the future as
brilliantly as ever did the colonization of
California out of the past, and that millions
Of miners will be picking and pulverizlng
quartz along the Foun,aine qui Boul in the
future just as they are about the sources of
the Feather and Frazier river in the present.
This will impress upon the social growth of
the mountainous regions of the continent
and the adjacent pastoral lands, a civiliza-
tion very far different from that which the
late administrations and southern politicians
have both so confidently hoped for, and so
persistently worked for through every de-
vice Of strategy and legislation. In the
presence Of the Gold Mountains of the inte-
rior the Dred Scott decision with its negro
propaganda clauses will sink into absolute
rldicule. No Brazilian curse will ever
Africanize that Ell Dorado. That which
through long struggle has been initiated as
the policy of freedom upon the plains of the
adjacent table lands, will also obtain under
these fortunate auspices in all the interme-
dlate provinces from Arizona to Utah.
Of course we shall expect the conflict; we
shall see the attempt made; we shall see the
pACssCu tDB -TuH-
ches," and visiting the ''diggings" with the
negro on its back but shall never see the
'institution' occupy another foot of the inte-
rior basin of the United States. or defile the
sierras that dominate that basin with their
accumulated treasures. In complicated av o.
cations, in drudgeries Of life, in sparingly
remuneratiye employments, there is large
room for the sophsitries of those who up
hold the slave system, and hence we find
that, in the tillage of the earth, and in the
service of the person, its advocates have not
been slow to make an impression in its be-
half upon the prejudices of many eommuni-
ties. But whore the labor question is naked
in its presentation, direct in its relations,
and exciting in its ambition, there is no
prospect of establishing a conventional sys-
tenn of impoverishment such as negro slavery.
For this reason we claim the late gold dis
coveries as pioneer disclosures, planting the
banner of Free Soil and Free Labor in the
heart Of the nation, and we claim the Mount
ain States of the centre rs the home of the
white race in all future time. In those re-
mote regions where accidental systems, and
dependent associations were SO liable to
obtain, it perhaps needed some great mani
festations of nature such as the aforenamed
to compress population and opinion into
true channels at the onset. With the vicious
taints of Mormonism in Utah, peonage in
New Mexico, and Buchananism at Washing
ton, it might have been difficult to mould the
encompassed territory into due proportions
OF freedom; but now we may well feel as
sured that new cluster of commonwealth
will spring up there, founded in all the es-
sential principles of industrial faith and
social progress. The States of the Pacific
will give hand to the States of the Atlantic
across tier of free communities, and build
ing up by their conjunction the great high
way of the world, will claim its transports
and exchange for the labor of our own color
and the wealth of our own people. Are we
premature then in pointing to the sands that
glitter upon the afRuents of the Arkansas
and the Rio Grande as containing in them
selves the solution of social problem, and
the repression of social evil which the rich
moulds of the west failed to arrest, and
which the unparalleled effort of a new terri
tory barely checked in its progression.-
Shall We not say that the Wilmot Proviso is
found in the clutches of the Rocky Mount
aims, and that the ordinance of 'S7 is revived
in the gold fields Of Kansas and New Mex
leo.
SAD SCENE.
Whilst passing yesterday in a neighbor-
hood whore tho va(lo,y fo,or b,a boo, ,.t,o