The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-11-13

The Question OF the Hour. and i:s
Dangers.
The impression that Ii > people Of the South
are in earnest Is beginning to take hold of the
public mind here, and the effect il seen in the
general giving way which the market for pub
Lie securities presented yesterday.
When 1t Is remembered how steadily the
public mind in the North has been educated In
the idea that slavery is au evil and crime;"
how for many years this has been iuculcatsd by
the school books aud the churches; how under
its influence the religious sects Of the country,
once united in their sessions aud synods, have
been divided and led TO look upon each other
as wicked; how the missionary and tract 80.
cieties have been split; how the religious
book concerns have been sundered into
Northern and Southern organizations how
every system Of moral propagandism in
the North has been to a greater or less
degree turned to the same object, and
that at last politica! parties have come to be
ranged on sectional and geographical grounds,
we shall Hnd good reason why the South should
be in earnest in Its present alarm. And when
We reflect still further that this idea Is In dead
~ hostility to, and declares an '.irrepressible
conflict" with, IN institution which Is fundar
mental IN the social Organization Of the South,
which lies at tho root of all values there, which
is the bond of it's vast agricultural production,
upon which rests every other interest, we will
aDd cause for the alarm of the South, and for
its belief that only in q separate and homo
eeneous confederation can II find security for
its vital interests.
Sbortsighted people cay it is only the poli'i-
clans who have produced the trouble that Is
upon us--sel6sh demsgogues who have been
working only for the public spoils, North and
South. But politicians and demagogues are
merely straws borne upon the present current
of popular impulse, reeds that bend
before every breath Of the popular feel
ing Imbued with selfshness, they resist
nothing, they stem no current in the
public mind, they are effects, not causes
They 60 with the prevailing reason or
madness Of the hour and therefore, instead Of
being the real producers of thi, state Of things
of the currents with which they drift or row,
as present interest dictates, they are straws
which indicate the course of the popular tide
reeds which bow in the direction with the pre-
vailipg tempest, which has been produced by
causes far deeper than their temporary and
surface influence reaches.
The rising pressure upon the public interests
is beginning to come home in this city, which
Is the drst to feel, through the widely extended
and ramifed nerves of commerce, to the pur-
suits Of every citizen. In Its effect here we
may see some indication of the erroneous turn
which the public mind Will take If not fore
warned in time. II Ia not difficult to foresee
that the foolish leaders who have fostered the
ideas that are 80 terrible to the South will
endeavor to turn the public ire from them
selves by giving a new phase to the conflict
they are wsging. Already we begin to per-
ceive it. The cry is beginning to be raised
that II is not against the South but against the
negro that their war is being made. We do
not want to injure the South, but we
do not want the negro. He is not our equal,
he Is an injury everywhere; away with him,
and the South will be better Of. This Is what
we begin to hear from half repentant black
republicans on all sides; we see II in the i'm
mense vote against negro suffrage cast In this
State at the recent election, and In the hostile
legislation to free negroes enacted by several
Of the Western States, and we find 1t even in
Mr.. Stewards rhetorical declaration that "if
Europe wants cotton and sugar let II send Its
surplus laborers" into the fever stricken fields
Of the tropics.
Vain sophisuy. Fallacious plesdings Of
shorsighted men, who sill ignore that man
proposes but Heaven disposes. The South has
In ih midst four millions of negroes, who can.
not be got rid Of except BY the silent workings
Of natural causes through long, very long,
series Of years. Heaven has established the
law Of their increase, and man cannot prevail
against H. II ID not alone the fact that the
South has now four millions Of negroes In its
society; within the term Of the present genera
ton Il will have ten millions. The South.
ern people must contemplate, then, with
alarm, the proposition to belt them In with Q
line Of free States, even ~ with wall Of FIRE,
10 prevent their extension. This d equivalent
to devoting existing Southern society to negro
preponderance at an early day-to converting
the now happy Southern States into second
Jamaica, or perhaps worse, . second st.
Domingo. The Northern people consider this
question only In it, abstract sense; II does not
apply practically 70 them, and they do not
follow II out to lite results. To the Southern
people II Is q practical question, that comes
homo TO every mans interest and every mans
hearthssone, and they do follow II out In all Its
practical bearings and through all its ramifca-
iors. Hence the strong feeling Of the South,
and the reaction II Is beginning 10 produce at
the North.
In the terrible state Of agitation that Is before
Ne there are two men who, from their public
positions, can do much to allay the popular
alarm. They possess moral influence which
should be at once welded The people