Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1861-04-02
Collecting the Re venue.

! 1t appears that Mr. Lincoln's Attorney General.
Bstes has advised his associates in the Cabinet that
| there are insurmountable legal difficulties in the
way of collecting the revenue in the seeded States
He says that the seth section of the laws of 1899 eff
fectnay bars any such forced collection of revenue
as has been talked of, and put forth the platform
Of Republican action in the premises. That law ex
pressly provinces that any trial for breach of the
revenue laws shall take place within the judicial
district where the offence occurs. But as in those
States there neither United States courts judges
nor marshals. there is possibility of enforcing
the laws. The appointing Collector to live on ship
board four miles from the port, besides being re-
diGulous fancy, would. in degree, avoid the diff
culties and disabilities which the law opposes the
forcible collection of the revenue. Thus falls the
boast which has staggered about in the Republi-
can newspapers, and was reiterated by Lincoln in
his Inaugural-that The aooid be collected in
all the States. When we told our Republican cotem-
poraries that such plans were not only impractica>
BILE, but impossible, they sneered and bid US wait
till we have government" We hate to laugh at
man when he is down, but these Republicans have
been so spitefuly and saucy, that we think we are
entitled to indulge just gentle grin at their
peLse.
This less of the revenue the Southern States is
bitter pill for the President He wants the money
badly. We have seen it stated that $4,000 day
taken at New Orleans in duties on foreign goods
to say nothing of the large collected in other
Southern ports. This makes loss of ten or fifteen
millions year, which would be mighty comforting
to-the Administration, if they only had it. But the
prospect is gloomy enough ahead. On the first of
April, our new tariff goes into operation which
VIII not only drive millions of imported goods away
from us into the Southern ports but 1t will inevita>
bly, result in the withdrawal of vast AMOUNTS of
capital from the North, which will become perrna-
nenty located in the Confederate States What will
poor Lincoln do? His election has not only ruined
the government, but it bids fair end in the nan
cial subsection of the North to that very South
which his party so violently hates. The President
is in an awful dilemma. He may well say. in the
language of DR.. Young. in his Last Judgment
(which vsy turn is death I"
1t will not be long, the way things drift
ing before almost every face he meets will cast looks
of reproach at him for the private financial ruin
which will everywhere keep pace with the public
depression. Already is the hand of destruction
weighing heavily on property in this city. Real
estate is tumbling every hour. Last week splen-
did mansion on Fifth Avenue, valued at forty-fve
thousand dollars, brought only tl5enty thousand. An
other on 35th street. which before the election of
Lincoln was valued at forty-fve thousand was sold |
for twenty-one thousand. store on Broade ay, |
the rent of which was last year thirty-ive thous-
and dollars, is offered for fifteen thousand. |
Here is depreciation of fifty per cent in few |
months with prospect of still more rulnous de- |
cline for the future. Manufacturing is rapidly
coming TO dead halt in the North, and capital try
ing to disengage itself from the wreck, is looking
towards the South the field of its future opera
tons. While the North is dishearte1ed, it is
useless to deny that in the South the prospect
brightens every hour. Manufacturing is starting
up with steady and determined vigor which must,
in short time, deprive the North of market for
over SIXTY mil ions year of her wares In the
South, cotton and woollen mills, tan yards. shoe
and all kinds of mechanical induss
try are springing up, to produce there the goods
hey have heretofore bought of us, and the loss of
which market must eventuate in our ruin. Mil
ions of capital in manufacturing here, will SO
south, and the wages of mechanics must come
Town to very nearly the average standard of wages
q the Old World. This is what the Northern me-
,hanics and working men will get for the folly Of
FOting for Lincoln.-Ne,c York Day Book.