Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1865-06-02
THE RESULTS OF THE WAR-OuR LOSSES ARD
OUR GAINS-THE NEW LIFE TO THE NATION.

| THE RESULTS OF THE WAR-OuR LOSSES ARD
OUR 6AINS-THE NEW LIFE TO THE NATION.
The war is ended, the rebellion is SUI
| jugated, and peace is at hand, under the
/ victorious ensign of the Union. From its
awful baptism of blood and fire the nation
has entered upon a new.life---a new career
! OF unity, prosperity and power Through
four years of the most formidable and fe-
roclous rebellion in the history of any
! civilized people we have made manifest to
| the world the tremendous vitality and
strength of our national government and
popular institutions; and the great Ameri-
can republic stands this day the arbiter of
| the American continent.
Our losses in this gigantic struggle
would have swamped any other country
excepting, perhaps, Russia and yet not
only in the material elements of war, but
In population and in wealth, the United
States are immensely stronger than at the
beginning of this contest. For fouryears,
North and South included, we have had
a million of able-bOdied men withdrawn
from our producers, and supported at the
public expense, while devoted to the work
of destruction of human life and proper
ty. Within these four years we have lost
as much as two cotton crops, each Of four
millions of bales, at least two full crops
of Louisiana sugar, and the Southern
staples Of rice and tobacco have been pro-
pOrtlonately diminished. We have lost on
both sides, from battle, disease and from
sutferings incident to the war, including
dead and disabled, not less, perhaps, than
half million of able-bodied men. By
the ravages of the war in the Southern
States thousands of millions of property
have been destroyed, thousands of once
wealthy families have been reduced to
poverty, and tens of thousands of widows
and orphans have been brought to the
trials of starvation. The shareholders of
the South have been despoiled of four
million of slaves, valued in time of peace
at two thousand millions of dollars The
rebelious States have squandered three
thousand millions in carrying on the war,
and the loyal States, in addition to their
taxes and lavish free contributions to the
national cause, have piled up a national
debt of twenty-five hundred millions, and
yet the Union Is stronger IN wealth and
population to-day than it was at the first
bombardment of Fort Sumter
If our losses from the war have been
enormous beyond precedent, our gains are
without a parallel In history. We have
gained the abolition of African slavery
the removal of that fruitful source of sec
tiOnal agitation and discord-and we thus
reclaim the rebellious States on the homo
geneous platform of universal liberty
The one great internal source of dissen-
ton and danger to the Union, and the
great incubus to the settlement and de-
velopment of the fertile Southern States,
is gone. Ten years of free labor will
show how insignificant have been the pro-
ducts of those States compared with their
capacities. Old Virginia, for instance,
though shorn of the rich and extensive
farming, lumber, coal, iron and oil regions
of West Virginia, is still, in commercial
facilities, productive soil, fine climate,
manufacturing and mineral resources and
means, infinitly richer than the Empire
of slavery these vast resources will rapid
ly be developed. So, too, it will be with
Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, North
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and all the
other Southern States. The heavy cur
rents of emigration, which for fifty years
have been flowing westward, and building
great cities and populous States in their
progress, viii now be largely diverted
southwark, and the results will amaze the
world.
Under these new and powerful impulses
of free labor and emigration we venture
to predict that the cotton crop of the
South, for example, two years hence, will
be six millions of bales. AT the same
time, from our disbanded armies, the set
tlementand development of our inexhausti-
BILE gold and silver regions of the Far
West will be more rapid and extensive
than ever heretofore. A Pacific railroad
will soon bring them in quick rapport
with New Y ork and all the East so that
South and West there will be such temp
tations to enterprising and industrious
men as will bring us settlers from Europe
by millions for the thousands that have
been coming during the war. Such is the
magnificent prospect which is open before
us from the suppression of the rebel
lion, the triumph-the regeneration Of
the Union, and the return Of peace on the
basis of universal liberty. We be-
come compact and homogeneous people,
with the removal of the cause of our sec
tional agitations. Old things are doneaway
with old parties, principles, platforms,
leaders and followers, and all things have
become new. Four years of this most de-
structive war have, indeed, done for US
the work of a hundred years of plodding
peace and from the fire and the smoke Of
the mighty conflict the great republic
which is to lead the world to freedom
rises like the phoenix from its ashes, and
will fulfil its grand and glorious mission,
-Nelo York Herald.