The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-04-28
From the ST Louis MOI Democrat
THE POLICY OF THE SOUTH OPPOSED
TO THE PROGRESS OF THE WEST.

Casting aside all party antipathes or predi-
lections, it is becoming apparent to soberinquiry
that the schemes entertained by the politicians
Of the Southern States conflict with the meas
ures calculated to foster the development of the
West. We should be sorry to accuse one see-
ton of the country of bearing i'll will towards
another, if rrefragable testimony, placing it be-
yond doubt, did not exist in the records of Con-
gress. Fear is the secret of this enmity. Such
men as Teombs, Hammond, Hunter, and Ma
son, foresee the sectional insignifcance of the
Gulf and Southern Atlantic States, in the over
shadowing grandeur of the populated West
Last summer, Representative from South Car
DINA, Mr.. Boyce,) in addressing his constitu-
ents, expressed his gratitude to Heaven for that
barrenness of soil and aridity of climate which
his prejudices or his ignorance attributed to
the far Western ATTITUDES. But the truth is. a
most Incorporating struggle is now pro-
crossing between the masses and the planters,
for the possession of the unoccupied Terrific
ries. The planters are not so DESTROYS of seiz-
ing them for themselves, as of excluding the
tide of settlement from them by sweeping acts
of Federal power. Land for the landless is
the taunt which the political aristocracy of
America cast in the face of honest industry.
The epithet which history applies to a spend
thrift king is flung at the working men of the
is the latest synonym of the planters vocabu-
larry for white slaves mud-Sills, base mechanics,
DC. The contest for the possession of the
national domein, which lasted so long in the
Roman Republic, and which is the KEY of its
internal politics, has openly commenced in this
country and here, as we'll as there agrarian-
ism, or a fair division of the public domain,
has become the terror of the patrician class
and the desire of the people. Ali this was we'll
illustrated by the proceedings Of the Senate to-
wards the close of the last session of Congress.
The interests and desires of the people in refer
ence to the public lands found partial expires
sion in the homestead bill. That measure pro-
posed to endow every citizen, native, natural
lied, or inchoate, with l60 acres of land, on the
one condition that he settled upon it, perma-
nently. The political and social benefits which
it would produce are cognizant 10 the slender
est reasoning powers. From the purlieus of
our large cities; from the over-crowded nations
of Europe from the Businesses of the cotton
States, where slaveless white men feel the in
visible adamantine walls of caste segregating
them from the community at large from the
exhausted and petty farms of the old States,
divisions of the grand army of industry would
proceed to the prairies of the West, and found
new commonwealth. But why pursue this
train of thought2 1t unfolds panorama
which represents the ideal America of our pa
triot statesmen. One nation and a hundred
States-the wildness of nature subdued through.
out the whole continent, and zones of prosper
GUS yeomanry replenishing the void which has
existed since the deluge, are results deducible
from the great scheme of Western policy, of
which the homestead bill is the Introduction.
Such vision was as distasteful to the planters
as the newly-created world to the enemy of
man: They voted against the bill, but it passed
the House, because numbers are represented
in that body. In the Senate they refused to
act upon it, assigning frivolous and vexations
pretexts, and barking their speeches with in.
suit and defiance. The debate that night fur
nlshes a vivid commentary ON the nature of
the antagonistic policies of the country. The
planters did not content themselves with the
mere negation of the proposition which they
refused to consider. They presented counter
proposition, which was not startling because it
had been promulgated by their press. Repudi
ating the homestead bill as the con6scation OF
the public property for the support of pauper-