The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1861-04-12

we have become byword and laughing
stock, and a cloud Of shame encompasses
our fair fame. Great Britain affects to pa
tronize and pity us; the Emperor OF the
French mourns over our lost unity; and
the statesmen who lead the cabinets of Europe,
behold, with amazement the hideous national
suicide we are perpetrating. Unless Congress
interposes, nothing can prevent the entire de-
struction of our national prosperity, by the
steady roll forward Of the Juggernaat car of in
| ternecine strife, which has been so ruthlessly
| set in motion.
! Civil war once commenced in nalions has
seldom ceased, until it has brought forth ter
rible fruits of calamity and bIoodshed. Slowly
| grew the one dark spot of trouble in the Ro-
man republic, until il ended in just such storms
| as we are menaced WITH by more rapid adj
vances. in America. Its palmy days. subse-
| quent to the establishment of equality, by the
Licinian rogations, had lasted three times the
length OF ours, before those divisions arose
which ended in military despotism. Never
did the sun of Roman freedom shine so brightly;
never was its rule so firmly established, as
| when the rivalry between Octavus and Grac-
| chus-the respective heads of the forensic mob
and the senatorial nobility, the sectional par
ties Of that day-began. Then came the armed
hostility OF Scipio and Crassus; later the more
extended conflicts Of Marius and sylla; with
the latter, such catering to popular passions as
prepared the way for Pompey and Caesar; and,
finally. the triumvirate of Lepidus, Antony, and
Augustus, which ended in the imperial auto
cracy that preceded the fall of Rome 1t will
require but few months for the United States
to sink into depths lower than were reached by
Rome, in years. If Congress does not
| intervene; if the good sense, wisdom, civil
ilization and humanity of the age, find
no representation in that body; if counsels
| of peace do not prevail; ard the most
| fearful of all horrors-a war between brother
! and brother-is to be stereotyped upon the
country, the end we are fast approaching will
be bitter indeed. Far better that the Union
should perish forever, than that a result so hui
initiating and disastrous should be expe-
rienced
The Developments Of each hour, are looked
forward to with dread. AT any moment the
news may arrive that blood has been shed, and
that the harb0r Of Charleston has been the
scene of carnage. The prospect is dark and
menaciDg; but sad as the state of affairs is, it
will become worse, unless there is prompt
and speedy remedy. The representatives Of
the people in Congress. are the only power Ca
pable of applying it, and it is the duty of the
President Of the United States, to convene them,
without delay. Otherwise, oceans of blood,
and millions Of treasure, will be wasted, with
no other Imaginable end than to leave the
country exhausted, impoverished and wretched,
and, worse than all, despoiled of the freedom
purchased at such cost by our forefathers.
Our lmpen ending civil Wharf.-The Dangers
and the Duty of New York CITY.
Civil war is upon us. Our federal admins
traton, approving the counsels Of our warlikc
cotemporaries-th Tribune, Cogrisr and En-
qa,irer, Times and other republican journals
has resolved that the Union is worth the ex-
pertinent of civil war. We are expecting
every moment the news from Charleston that
civil war, upon paltry party abstraction or
two, has been inaugurated. Once begun,
where is it to end? In the restoration of the
Union? That idea is preposterous. In mill
tary despotism? Yes, after the resources of the
belligerents are exhausted. and the people
of the North aud South-prostrated financially,
commercially, and in all their Industrial pur-
suits--are prepared to submit to the rule Of q
military dictator, as relief from the terrors of
anarchy.
Meantime we are lorcwarncd. from the teach
irgs of history, that when nation is visited
by wasting civil war, its great CONNER
cial cities feel first and most heavily its OPP
pressiye burthens. The city Of New York,
therefore, if this country is to suffer the calam-
ties Of a wasting civil war, will suffer in pro.
portion to its wealth its poverty, and its de-
pendence upon state Of peace Under cover
of law and popular elections, 10 people of any
other city in Christendom have suffered so much
as the taxpaying people of this metropolis have
suffered and are suffering from the rule
of ruilians and robbers. What, then, will be
our portion with the excitements, confusion
disorder and lawlessness incident to civil war
raging in our midst! Neither life nor property
will be secure; "for where the carcass is there
viii the yultures be gathered together"
The city of New York owes lis prosperity,
population. wealth, commercial and political
power, to the Union; but its very existence de-
ponds upon peace, law and order. The disrup-
ton OF the Union has suddenly arrested our
progress, and has brought this great commune
ty to lively appreciation of the value Of our
late relations Of union and brotherhood with
the people of the South. The Union is broken,
and civil war is resorted to by our federal
government to restore it, Believing that this
desperate remedy will be utterly ruinous to
all our hopes aud prospects as civilized peo-
pie, and particularly destructive Of the mate
rial interests of this great city, what is the first
duty of its peopleY Our first duty is to meet