The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-12-09


'0uN"y
THE WEALTH. PROSPERITY, AND POWER OF THE
SOUTH AND WEST.
We have no belief that the North would tolerate
poor spend-thri partner in the political affairs OF
this country and we are equally confident that the
South would promptly repudiate her connexion with
the North if the latter in condition OF poverty,
degradation and want 1t is, in fact, because both
sections wealthy, prosperous, and powerful that
they are able to maintain the bond of union by which
they are held II so happens that their productions
are wholly unlike. This dissmilarity extends to
agriculture in all its varieties nsomuch that the two
sections are conducting the most profitable industry
of the whole world without any essential competition
with each other. They clash at no important point.
Antagonisms are far complete between the East
and the West than between the North and the
South. The latter are more identified in profit
able and mutually advantageous trade growing out
of the cotton products of the South and the manufae-
turing industry of the Eastern and Middle States.
Southern aborers clothed by these, while
between the two regions there is not sin
gle antagonsm-a point of hostile COMPETE
the other. Their labor is complete partnership,
and, as far see, immensely advantageous
to both This can hardly be said of the East and the
West They are grain regions; but the fomer are
also great manufacturing and commercial people.
Revenue laws tax the West largely without return
ing them any corresponding benefit. The home
market theory is pure fiction
Any single State on the plain Of the lakes produces
enough to fatten all the manufacturing laborers of
the country. The West demands the markets Of the
world for their products, which limited and re-
stricted by impost laws The South are interested
in great degree in the policy, but not to the
same extent, for they have large market for their
products in the manufacturing, and, indeed, indirect
ly in all the gran-growing States. They furnish the
raw material TO the manufacturer and he distributes
it in fabrics to all parts Of the country.
The West contribute largely 10 the commerce of
the East. They vitalize, in connexion with the
South the business of our great cities. They main
tain our foreign trade and thus pay into the federal
treasury the revenue which supports the general
government. The West is rich, and the South is
rich They are powerful, self-sustaining, ndepend-
ent. If'Mere is section of the Union more de-
pendent than another upon the federal government,
it is New England They, too, are rich prosperous,
and happy but they have few original elements of
ket, because their commerce and labor is supported
by demands from other sections of the Union. They
cannot compete with the great West in the produc-
ton of grains, nor live without the support they
receive from the South
Where, then, is the antagonism between the labor
of the North and the labor of the South2 Upon
what principle is hostility between the two to be
maintained? Their interests do not clash--they are
not travelling in opposite directions. Neither is
poor--both are prosperous. Has their unexam-
pied success resulted froma conflict of rreconcilablc
interests? Have they grown rich in warfare upon
each other ? Has the South levied taxes upon the
North and the North, in selfdeence, imposed coun-
ervailing duties upon the South? Is their industry
crippled by hostile egisationby efforts to destroy
each other? Mr.. Senator Hammond draws picture
of the South which bears few of the lines and an
giles Of care, depression, and misery. He says:
.sWhy the South numbering twelve millions of people,
possesses already imperial domain that well sup
port hundred millions What does she need to
seek beyond her borders what has she to fear With
such seacoas and harbos such rivers mountains, and
plains full of all the precious metals, fertile in
SOIL genial in climate producing in such unparalleled
abundance the most valuable agricultural staples of the
world capable of manufacturing to any extent; and
possessing the best social and industrial systems that have
yet been organized she might have sunk into sloth
from of prosperity had she not been kept the
alert by tn, fierce assaults of envious world assaults
which at time alarming it has been in fact scarcely
than wholesome exercise to repel exercise which
has made the most virtuous and of the most
lightcned and most powerful people who flourish on
the globe.
Perhaps Mr.. Hammond has overdrawn his account
little, in thus claiming supreme power, enlighten
ment and prosperity for the southern people. 1t
does not appear, at all events that they have long
been engaged in an exhausting warfare upon the
people of the North and we confident the latter
arc equally exempt from all the evils Of such srug
GLE Then what nonsense is it, that politicians
are utterng about the antagonisms of northern and
southern labor2
THE NAVY.
There can be no doubt of the fact that, in compar-
ison with our commerce, navy is the smallest OF