The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1861-11-30
The Penalty of Treason.

No one can look at the condition of
the Cotton States without seeing that
the simple and natural current of events
has been and is netting out to treason
the punishment that. is its due. The
whole South is at this moment in state
of suffering unparalleled in the country's
history, and every passing mouth adds
to it. With tremendous taxes to pay
and no money to pay them with, and no
possibility of obtaining money for any
thing the people have to sell, there is
nothing i'll their present, nothing in
their future, but ruin and desolation.
Sickened by the dark prospect on either
hand, they can only look forward to Il
darker prospect Oh either hand, they
can only look forward to darker pros
pect before them.
- There needs" as a contemporary
says, " no gibbet for the leaders, none
of the realities of battle, to teach the
masses of the Cotton States the folly of
the hcll-begotten treason in which they
have been involved" Tacy are occu-
pants OF Il vast prlson-housc. They are
surrounded Oh all sides by brlstIng guns
and glltterng bayonets. They arc shut
up by sea and land from all the rest of
mankind. Their commerce has collapsed.
The cotton which they SO tondly aud
toolishly thought would make them mas
tiers o. the world is useless to thcm.-
They can neither sell it, manufacture it.,
nor cat it. They are in want not ouly
of the customary luxuries, but even of
the common neces>arleS Of life !; but,
goaded by mad passion, dashed to fury by
he foul Misrepresentation and adrolt
appeals OF corrupt and reckless adyen-
turers, they still persist in rushing upon
he fate their own crime invukcs.
The great hope, the chief trust, of the
Cotton States in this rebellion has all
along been, that the European Powers,
lmpeiIed by the necessity of obtaining
cotton, would unhcsi;alinsly break the
blockade along the whole Southern coast
aud oren the ports to the world. Except
for this hope and trust, the rebellion
could not have been maintained till this
''h'N - 10 '''hitCo anu CiuhIHlollS.-
But bitter, bitter, very bitter has been
the disappointment of the rebel mind.-
The leaders there have been finding for
some time, and we presume have at last
found, that. there is not the slightest
prospect of any Interference with the
blockade or with the relations between
the United States and the Confederate
States on the part of the European
nations. The South is left to hew out
its own destiny through the dcsolatc aud
tlinty rock, and it is already fain,ing and
sinking at its hopeless task. None OF
its expectations have been realized, not
one. A Il of its calculations and predc-
tons have been falsltied, whilst all the
gloomy anticipations of patriots in regard
to its fate have been more than realized.
If peace were now made and the Union
restored, the condition of the South
would be vastly alIeviated, but even a
restored Union could hardly restore the
South to her old prosperity. Tint, we
fear, is sacrificed forever. No future
events, whether of peace or war, are
likely ever to render the cotton of our
Southern States as important or half as
important as it has been in the world $
commerce. If Southern cotton has been
king, its throne has crumbled, and lis
crown turned to ashes upon it's withered
brow.-LouiS UWe Jouraat.