The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-03-10

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poraries generally do not know what view to
take Of the new phase of the irrepressible con-
fiict which is springing up between labor and
capital in the North, and the Tribune and Times
are both silent on the subject; but the Evening
Post shows its hand in an article which we re-
publish elsewhere to-day, and believes that the
laborers and capitalists Of New England, "liker
man and wife, may have their little tifs, but,
like man and wife, they will come together
again."
We doubt not that the laborers and capital
lists of New England will come together again
On the common ground of mutual interest, but
1t will only be by the establishment of mu-
tual respect for each others rights. This may
not be entirely attained by the present agita
ton among the laborers, for hunger brings it,
unequal pressure to bear with greater force upon
them than it does upon their employers, and
they may be forced to cede now some portion
of their first demand. But this respect for
mutual rights, upon which the reward of in
dustry and the return Of capital in New Eng
and depend, has far wider range and
much greater influence than those merely at.
tending the shoemaker strike. This strike it.
self has in no small degree resulted from causes
which have grown up from the violation of mu-
tual rights, ramifying throughout the country.
Under the protection of the constitution two
vast systems Of labor and production have
grown up in the country, which are reciprocal
in their influences, and complementary and
necessary to each other. In the South the
institution Of domestic slavery, aided by the
natural elements of soil and climate, and the
skill and capital Of the white race, has created
a social activity in production and exchange
which has made its influence everywhere per-
ceptible: Beginning with less than three hun
dred thousand slaves, in about three-quarters
ola century these have multiplied from natu-
raj causes to four or four and a half
millions Of laborers, and the staple of
their production, cotton, has become a great
fact, pervading the whole civilized world.
1t supplies the looms Of both New and Old
England, it employs the hardy mariners of Mas
sachusetts and Maine, it quickens the trade of
merchants in thousand different forms, and it
enters into the clothing of the sage and the
savage alike. In NO other part of the world can
community Of equal numbers be found whose
industry is 30 widely felt and so universally
beneficial Is is that of the four and half mil
lions Of slave&in our Southern States.
The growth of this great hive of industry in
The South has been accompanied with an equal
Development in the North. Under the FIRE.
pressible harmony existing between the two
regions, bound together by the common guaran-
tees of the constitution, the labor of the South
has called into existence the spindles and
looms, the shoemakers and the sailors, the manu-
facturers and merchants, the miners and iron
workers Of the Northern and Central States.
Stimulated by the great demands of the South,
the industry Of the North has prospered
and waxed rich. The annual returns of
spring and fall brought hosts of pur.
chasers from the markets of the South
to the workshops Of the North, and what.
ever difference there might have existed
between them on social, or religious, or politi.
cal views, they all felt that under the constitu
ton they enjoyed a mutual respect and guaran.
tee for each others rights.
But new and an insidious foe has come up
to sap the constitution and to violate the rights
of the South. twenty-five years ago it com.
menced with few abolitionists In New England,
and, advancing with successive steps, it has
sundered the Methodist, the Baptist and the
Presbyterian churches; it has attacked tract
societies and domestic and foreign missions; 1t
rent in twain and destroyed the whig
and American parties; it has partially sepa-
rated and threatens to break up the demo-
cratic party, the only political organiza-
ton left with a national membership; and
now, within year, it has begun to work for
the severance of the commercial and Industrial
relations between the North and South Backed
by such men as Seward, Garrison, Phillips and
Theodore Parker, fanatical crusade has been
begun which has alarmed the entire South,
which must look first to selfpreservation.
Seward is now the leader and the expounder of
this crusade. He is neither statesman nor a
sound philosopher, but only demagogue
and an agitator. Beginning public life on
an andMasoric crusade, lie has chung to
power BY stimulating every fanaticism, and
now he leads in the PRONUNCIATION of his brutal
and bloody doctrines against the rights of the
South and the guarantees of the constitution.
1t is this abandonment Of mutual respect
for each others rights that has led to the
causes Of the shoemakers' strike in New Eng
land, and which, If persevered in, must lead to
a similar conflict between labor and capital in
every other industry there. The Southern
planters and traders. alarmed at these indica-
tons Of broken brotherhood, have diminish.
ed and will continue to diminish still further,
their demands for the products of New England
industry. This decreases the ability of the
New England employer to pay for labor, and
forces him to put down prices. 1t is from this
cause alone that the bosses were forced to re-