The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1861-10-23

pers had been what they now are, how
absurd would have been the position
of some Paris Times or Amsterdam Her.
aid, whose editors, in looking for "the
unhappy civil convulslons now devastat-
ing friendly country" had resolutely
ignored the existence of the great King
maker-had sedulously attributed those
convulsions to the expectation of corn,
then first permitted; to national debt,
then first contracted or to any and ev-
cry cause. provided only by so doing the
existence and influence of the great Earl
could, with an eye to various tender
points at homo, be ever ignored Yet to-
day, four centuries later, that is what the
English press is persistently doing while
America is battling with her great King
maker. They will attribute the strug-
gle to "tariffs and commercial jealousies," !"
"to longings for independence" "to mu.
tual jealousies," and to thousand other
absurdities, but the real cause touches
them too closely, and that they will not
see. On the contrary, with them it is
"capable of demonstration" that the real
cause has nothing to do with the result.
In truth, America is but living over
again the old history of England. We
to- day have our great barons, as they once
had before. Ours, however, are inter-
ests of trade, while theirs were but
men. We have our King maker; but
ours is not one man, but millions made
one by monopoly. One overgrown inter-
est, grown insolent by prosperity and too
powerful for the Government, is seeking
to overthrow it, and to install new gov
ernments to suit itself. Hume says that
O,000 persons daily lived at the board"
of the English King-maker, but ours sup
ports some 100000 at home and as ma
ny abroad The death of Warwick end
ed the wars of the Roses in England, and
perhaps we might now learn a useful les-
son from the musty pages of English his
tory
There are certain questions which are
heard every day. Why, people ask, have
sentiments on slavery changed so within
century?-why did Jefferson preach
one doctrine and why does Jefferson Da-
Wis preach another ?-how is it that while
Washington was an emancipatIonist,
Wise is not why was slavery dying
out sixty years ago, if it was to be the
most powerful interest on the continent
to-day? The single significant word cot
ton is an answer to all such questions
Sixty years ago emancipation was econo-
my now slavery is profit On the books
of the South slavery has been transferred
from the debit to the credit side of the
account. Cotton has proceeded step by
step in its career, like a mighty power
At first, in its day of small things, mere.
ly profitable, it slowly built up for itself
social system-it then created a doc
trine of morals, ethics, and economy
adapted solely to that system-it then
had its colleges, its preachers, and its
statesmen 1T then finally, grasped at
the Government, and, driven from that.
our King maker, like its great English
prototype, tried to overturn the Govern
ment, and to establish a new one better
adapted to its tastes. So stands the
question now. Our Warwick is in arms
against the Government. How can he
efectually be dealt with The old War
wick was slain, but you cannot put to
physical death d commercial interest. If
discussion would have destroyed it, it
would have fallen long ago; but on dis
cussion it grew fat. Wars and battles,
though necessary as means, are anti
quated and vulgar remedies, and force
rarely strikes at the root of an evil. Yet
the real remedy is evident, if people would
but see its attainable, it people would
but strive for it. To bring slavery and
the country back to where they were six
ty years ago, slavery must be made no
more profitable than it then was. To de-
stroy its power, so that it will not again
and again rise to haunt US, we must de-
stroy its cohesive force the bond of
union among slave-owners That bond
of union is not property IN mans not