Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-01-08

est tnat IL WOul0 De most foolish 10 have an Y
scruples about entertaining It, whether, ifthe
political union of free and slaveholding com
munities necessarily exposes the people to tbe
recurrence Of financial crises like the pres
ebt, IL is desirable that il should continue.
The exciting cause of the extreme distress
and prostration that is felt in ali parts Of tho
country, and the want and physical suffer-
ing that are everywhere seen, is in political
| agitation, based upon some real or supposed
conflict of interest between two different
forms of society. Whether there is any
actual war interests between the North and
the Southis not now the question; the ex-
istence of such a war having been SO long adj
mitted as a fact upon both sides, that the
denial of a thing thought to be so obvious
would meet with little indulgence in any
suarter.
Out of whatever state Of things, necessary
or unnecessary it may grow, the fact Is un-
deniable, that Southern politicians-nay
the politicians of a small number of not
veyy.populous Southern States, can, appar-
emily, whenever it suits their convenience,
throw the economical system of the country
of the entire Union-into convulsions,
thereby prostrating trade, suspending pro-
duction, drying up sources Of revenue,
creating innumerable bankruptcies, and,
even, in q year of unusual fruitfulness,
bringing upon large bodies of the people the
distresses incident to year of famine. If
fbar- do - l. Ia A.,-..
and, as things are now situated the industry
and prosperity of the North is apparently
at their mercy. They can do more ma
tional bankruptcy ever follows hard upon
commercial revulsion; and if they can at will
create the latter, the ability of the Federal
Government to carry on its own operations
is subject to their dictation.
The power of Southern politicians to pro-
duce these periods Of general prostration is
the offspring of the political union. This
Union gives us common Judiciary, the
effect of which has been to build up a sys-
tenn of mercantile credit that takes no cogni-
zance Of State lines, and involves the whole
in common fate. Agitation in one part is
felt in all the others; and there has but to
be, in some quarter, a chronic tendency to
agitate, to keep the whole in constant state
of disturbance. Against this there is no
constitutional guaranty. There may not be
an annual repetition of that under which
the Countryside South as well as the North
lis now suffering in which case it is not
unreasonable to begin TO inquire: OF what
value is the Union? Do we realize from it
benefits sufficient TO compensate for these
apparent, and it would seem inevitable, dam
gers and disadvantages? Would it not be
better for both sides to agree to an amicable
severance rather than continue together
with the elements of an eternal dispute at
work ,fready at any moment 10 give birth
to whole family of social and economical
strifes and misfortunes
There should be no irrational clinging to
the present or to any other given political
condition merely for the sake Of glory or
vanity. If our "sacred Union" and all that
sort Of thing, does not minister to the COM
mon prosperity and happiness, the best thing
that can be done with it is to abolish it. If
our political condition is such that our
economical welfare can be at any time
jeopardied by local party agitations, our
political condition needs emendation, at
least. If there are new guarantees needed
any where, it is here; and as the South has,
so far, been the party to agitate the guaran-
ties should come from that side of the
Ohio.
The Union is an economical as we'll as a
political fact. The object of the Constitution
was not merely to beget Congress, provide
and pay President and keep machine
composed of law and officers in motion; it
had higher end in contempIation-to aid
the people to become and remain prosperous
and comfortable. When it ceases to do this;
when il comes to be dominated over by theo-
ries that annihilate its ability to do so, or
renders that ability subject to contingencies,
its power for good has departed, and there is
no reason for its continuance.