The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1861-01-23

lions According to the recent census. 1t an
pears that the States and Territories, in 1859
contained thirty one millions of inhabitants
Our national wealth, at the time of the declara
ton of the independence from Great Britain OF
the thirteen colonies, was small The Gag OF
the country is now carried into every part OF
the world our means Of interstate commun.
cation have been created at an expense Of
thousands Of millions of dollars; the agricultu
raj, manufacturing, commercial and financial
prosperity Of the repablic, are the wonder and
admiration of every quarter Of the globe. The
energy enterprise, skill and industry OF our
citizens, both North and South, have made Us
the equals in power of Great Britain and France;
and, did we but remain true to ourselves, we
should continue to be invinciblc against at
tack, and selfsuficient for all purposes of in
ternal and external progress and aggrandize-
ment. Yet canker has slowly and surely
spread within the last few years, threatening
to devour the confederation politically, and to
destroy it by the most rapid decay known in
the history OF nations. To whom has our unex-
| ampled growth as a people been owing, and
who are they whose intrigues and ambition are
undermining ii: Are the hands that built our
political edifice with so much wisdom and sa-
gacity, now turned to rend it to pieces, or is
the suicidal crisis which convulses it, and
which is hurrying it to ruin, attributable to a
different class of society,"
A careful analysis of the State Of the Union
must convince every candid mind, that five
sixths of those within its limits, who are en-
titled to the right of suffrage, are in favor OF
its preservation. Out of the forty-cight hun
dred thousand voters in the country probably
not over quarter of a million are engaged in
the pernicous work of mischief which threatens
us with civil war, bloodshed and the corollary
horrors which sectional strife may engender
The vast majority of our citizens are law abid
ing and peace loving They view with dismay
the approaches Of political hurricane which,
if permitted to rage, must shake the fabric of
the liberties which their forefathers purchased
at such cost, to its very foundations. They
consist of the moneyed, hard working elements,
that constitute the worth, intelligence, integrity
and patriotism Of both the slaveholding and
the non-slayeholding States. The planters of
the South, including those in cotton growing
districts most interested in fostering African
slavery; the manufacturers, merchants, fnan-
ciers, farmers, mechanics and honest laborers
Of the North, are as classes, alive to the perils
which surround them, and prepared to use
every endeavor to avert them. They are, and
ever have been, the bees in the national hive
Those who are occupied in the reasonable
work of overturning it, and wasting the fruits
of the toilsome labor of nearly century, are
drones, who have preyed upon 1t from the be-
ginning, but have never contributed any share
to the general good.
The Astors, the Taylors, the Laws, the Van
derbilts, the Perits, the Stewards, are always
conservative in their sentiments. Sometimes,
they may seek for an undue monopoly Of
power, and resort to means of acquiring wealth
which trespass upon the rights Of others around
them: but to them. and the industrial masses,
higher and lower in the scale of society, is the
has become. Mercantile railroad, steamboat,
manufacturing, mechanical, agricultural enter
prise have laid the corner stone that upholds the
thirty-three Corinthian pillars of the republic.
| They are the mighty heart from which ebbs and
| flows the life blood of the nation. If they were
as strong and united politically, as they are in
mutual commercial trust, the bonds that unite
the States together could never be sundered,
and the Union would be imperishable. Unfor-
tunately, their eyes have been too much turned
| downwards, and neither upwards nor around
| them, within the last thirty years. They have
adopted as an axiom, that the prosperity which
| is, must ever be, and have forgotten the sacred
duties which, as citizens they above all others
are called upon to perform. Ncglccting to
vote; abstaining from the continual, critical
study Of passing events which was esteemed q
religious obligation by the Hancocks, Adamses
and Quincys of the time Of the Revolu-
ticn, they have fallen into deadly apathy,
and alieDated the influence they legitimately
possess. The consequence Of their neglect was
not at once apparent The social system felt
no pain and the encroachments of the deadly
disease under which it was laboring remained
UNDECIDED. The time Of anguish and trouble
has, however, come at last, and 1t is the ques.
ton Of the hour whether 1t is too late to apply
a remedy.
1t is only necessary TO look towards Wash
ington, to understand into what miserable, ire
| sponsible hands, the rule Of the country has
now fallen. A desolate blank il beheld there
Of every noble impulse from which sound and
healthy legislation should proceed. The repre-
sentatives Of the Southern States, are many Of
them the creatures Of truculcnt mob, the
inrerous, domineering, insolent, shallow pated
demagogues, whom the surface scum Of society
in the slaveholding States would fifty choose to
hector, bully and buster for them in behalf Of
disunion- They are not the statesmen of the
communities from which they come; neither do
the planters and cultivators of the soil who
own the negroes of the South, bestow upon
them their confidence Emry in pocket brain
and characters with everything to gain and
/ nothing to lose by disorder. they aRitate ner.