The New York herald., 1865-05-06

In closing up this terrible civil war, the most
sanguinary in the history Of mankind, we
naturaly recur to the causes and the instisa-
tors of this unhappy struggle. We see that the
causes underlying and cropping out on all
sides were slavery and the political agitation
Of the slavery question, North and South; that
The trouble commenced in the convention
which adopted The constitution Of the United
States, and that The trainers of that instrument
for the sake OF the Union, had to transmit that
trouble to their posterity, in being compelled
to enter into compromise on slavery, which
included among other concessions, even the
adoption of the African slave trade for term
of twenty years.
Under this compromise the country pros
percd, passed triumphantly through another
war with England, and had rest from any vio-
lent agitation of slavery for thirty years.
But then the question OF the admission
of Missouri as slave State convulscd
the nation, and threatened very serious
consequences, till Henry Clay Gained tho
troubled waters with the oil of his famous Mis-
souri compromise. But twenty years later the
of Banquo to frighten US at our feast over the
territorial spols conquered from Mexico, when
again new compromise from Henry Clay, in
Guiding the Missouri compact, gave us another
term of peace This adjustment would, per-
haps, have lasted for twenty or thirty years had
not poor Pierce, in 1854. four years after It's
adoption, under the influence OF jeff Davis,
Ill III. :.lo O., hon
democratic leaders, brought about, as a Presi-
Dental party measure, the repeal of the Missouri
compromise. This was the opening Of Pandora's
box; this act, which tore tho democratic party
to pieces, cast it out Of power and rapidly,
under their disunon leaders, hurried the bulk
of the Southern States headlong into the faith
omless abyss Of the rebellion. That Kansas
Nebraska bill lifted the curtain, and the open
ing scenes of the sanguinary drama Of civil
war which has followed were played in Kansas.
In all this business heavy responsibility at-
taches to the democratic party; and it has been
feariully punished for its treachery to itself and
tho country. But behind the old democratic
party, and controlling 1t to its destruction, wo
find The real elements Of this mischief in the
Southern slavery propaganda; just as we find
the elements which destroyed the old whig
p.rty in the Northern radical abolition faction.
Tho whig party courted the Northern aboli-
tionists for their support, and it was destroyed
by Southern reaction; the democratic party
truckled so bascly to the Southern pro-slavery
re-eaters that it was literally torn to pieces by
Northern convulslon. These discrganizing aboli-
tion and proslavery sectional factions were
started into life with the establishment of the
first Northern abolition journals, over thirty
years ago. But what with the tariff, notification,
the national bank, internal improvements, the
financial revulsion .of 1887 and other leading
questions, the power Of the abolitionists as
political faction was not made manifest until
the year 1874, on the Texas question, when, by
strange Inconsistency, fifteen thousand aboli-
ton wings, in voting for Birney, the first regular
abolition Presidential candidate, defeated
Henry Clay and elected Polk. We may now
trace to those fifteen thousand stupid abolition
votes all the troubles that have followed to the
country.
From that day commenced the active demo-
ralizanon of the two great national parties then
in the foreground-the whig party from its Jug
Cling affiliations with the Northern abolitionists
and the democratic party from its servile con-
cessions to the Southern pro-slavery fre-eaters.
Disunion was the political war cry of both
these disturbing factions "No union with
shareholders" shouted the Northern abolition
lists. "Our rights under the constitution, or dis
union," shouted the Southern fire-eaters. Abo-
litionists and re-eaters played into each others
hands. On the one side fugitive slaves, in vio-
la.ion of the constitution and the laws, were
systematically spirited away, and their recovery
resisted in all sorts of petty annoyances; on the
other side abolitionists, by mob law, were sys-
tematically tarred and feathered when caught
south of Mason and Dixon's line, and were not
at all times exempt from lynching by the rOughs
Of the Northern democracy. These acts Of law
lcssness and violence on both sides, by aboli-
tionists and Southern disunionists, in due time
widencd the bitterness Of feeling North and
South into sectional organization of parties,
no slavery and pro-slavery, and we need not
repeat the consequences.
What we want now is final settlement with
slavery question and The negro question. The
war has killed Southern slavery. Let II be
buried and put out Of the wny as soon as posi-
ble It ends the slavery agitation. But there is yet
something left for abolition capital in the negro
agitation. Against this demand that as slavery
is abolished, and that as the African race have
powerfully assisted us in putting down the
rebellion and in saving the life Of the nation,
they should have share in the political right
of the ballot box, what valid objection con be
mades We cannot long resist this demand in
view Of the extinction Of slavery and the SER
vices of the Southern blacks during this war
With every opportunity and in every way
they have been our faithful allies. We
have had two hundred and fly thousand
of them In the service of the army