Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-02-12

The primary operations OF OecesSlon w
not seem to have been beneficial to our
neighbouriDg State of Kentucky. Business is
reported as generally prostrated; prices of
her staple commodities depressed she has
had to resort TO a stay law; and we hear of
an adjournment of Court at Louisville to
some future period, to prevent judgments
being taken on collections. These signs in
dicate a great damage to the prosperity Of
that State by Secession. None Of the North
ern States have resorted to such measures,
nor has there been any demand for them
from the people although in the South they
are accustomed to talk as if they supported
the North. 1t may safely be said that but for
the Secession of the South from the payment
of its debts to the North, there would have
been no mere than the average number of
failures among the business men of the
North. As it is they have been few.
Kentucky is a severe sufferer from Seces-
sion, while she has no real cause involved in
it. = She felt no evils in the Union that would
have induced her to start Secession move
ment. Yet she was subject to all the evils
that are alleged. She is suffering the losses
of Secession while she had no complaint in
the Union, and expects nothing but evil
from a dissolution.
Certainly Secession can not be so valuable
to the interestsof Kentucky that she should
desire to establish it as one of our institu-
tions, SO that in all time to come any turbu-
isnt insignificant member of the Union may
have power to collapse her prosperity, as
Secession has done now. Yet what else can
result from her attitude2 Secession wan
tonly and csuselsssly destroyed her prosper
ity; but she took ii to her bosom and de-
clared that it should be protected against
the Government, and allowed to dictate new
terms to the Union.
This is her attitude now, and she calls it
in favor of the Union. Such settlement
will establish the right of Secession in the
Constitution. 1t will concede to any State
the right to say when the Constitution has
ceased to answer its purpose, and ia therefore
void; and il win give to pauper State like
Texas, which owes its existence to the Gov
eminent bounty and protection, the power,
by the action of a few drunken politicians
like Wigfall, at any time to inflict loss on
Kentucky interests to q greater amount
than the whole State of Texas, land and peo-
pie, is worth.
Certainly Kentucky does not wish to es-
tsblish in every Insignificant State now or
hereafter to be in this Union, the power 10
destroy it; nor TO place all her greatproperty
interests in the power of every Insignificant
State which has little to lose, for a nero po-
litieal abstraction in which she has no real
interest. Yet it is difficult to see how her
attitude, which protects Secession by the
promise of all her power, and makes her sup
port of the Union conditional on concessions
TO Secession, can result in any thing else
provided her position is carried into effect.
We suppose that there is no State in the
Union that has suffered so much from Sc
cession as Kentucky, and none that can 50
lily affoId to have Secession established as a
remedy for fsncied or real complaints, by
concessions to it yet she acts as if Secession
was her interest and entitled to her pro-
lection, and as if the wish to put it down
was purely Northern interest, and must be
met by her az an enemy.
There is some psllistion for the Secession
motive in the Gulf States-however dis
graceful the mode has been-bssotted as they
are with visions Of King Cotton, and the
slave-trade, and Of foreign commerce; but
Kentucky has none Of these hopes. Itwould
be hard TO find anywhere a case where q
State was 80 utterly regardless Of its own In
tsrest, and so blindly attached to a move
nent which has wantonly damaged her pros
perityi and whose success would be her grea
sacrifice.