The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1866-10-13

The war destroyed the only real source
OF conflict between the States of the I'm
ion. The abolition of Slavery made the
United States homogeneous In all its parts.
There ought to be now no such sectional
divisions as North and South, East and
West, to indicate differences of institutions
or of interests. The productions and the
markets Of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylva-
MIA, New Jersey and New York are sub
stantially the same, and in this enumeration
all the Western and Northwestern States
should be comprehended. 1t is impossible
to discover any antagonistic interests any
where. Their wants, their productions,
their commercial connections, their aven-
ues of trade, conspire to force them into
unity. Nor does their peculiar product,
cotton, constitute the Gulf States into an
exception from this common interest. The
single contamination of Slavery, which
threatened our national health and from
which blight and distortion, is removed, and
we ought not to hear anylonger OF the evil
passions which it excited. We confident
ly hope that such will soon be the case
The passions which agitate the people now
are the passions of the recent conflict, and
have their original in the evil which that
conflict has done away with forever The
questions which now SO deeply engage the
public mind are questions of incidental
adjustment resulting from the war, and
when once solved, can no more arise to
trouble us. The civil and political status
of the late slaves, the influence exerted by
them socially and in the Government, have
been disturbed by their emancipation, and
can never be what they have been. What
thew shall be, we are seeking to ascertain.
The wise the patriotic, the good, who franz
ed our Federal Constitution, satisfied them
selves and their countrymen by concession
and compromise on that difficult subject
MANY of them objected that people who
had no voice in the Government should be
felt as power in it, and, although annihll-
ated as citizens, they should, as mere prop
ertv. increase the influence of those hold
ino them in seryitude. This aristocratic
effect of Slavery was conceded, however,
for the sake of harmony, and the political
power of the master was increased by three
ffths of the number of his slaves. This
compromise is of course gone, and the Con-
stitution no longer operating in that re-
spect it is changed and abolished by the
force of circumstances. The original and
very important question again presents IT.
self whether the colored populati on, Who'll
Iv without political rights, shall increase
the political power of the white man in the
State where it resides in proportion to its
entire numbers. Is an aristocratic feature
not originally insisted upon to the full ex-
tent aud only partially granted as COM
promise, to be engrafted upon the Constl-
tuition as an accidental result OF the rebel
lion i? Such is the principal question now
under debate by the people. Congress has
not wantonly or lightly invaded the provl
sions of the Constitution. They have not
proposed to change it except where its
original purpose was defeated and Its pro-
visions were about to be warped to purpos-
es which the trainers of our Government
had refused. 1t is already altered in the
article where Congress has interviewed, and
that Intervention is to exclude a principle
which the Constitution condemned We
see that nothing can be more unjust than
the derisive charge that the Radical party
are "tinkering " with so sacred an instru-
ment. They have touched it only where
its provisions have been disturbed, and to
re-establsh its principles. The slang
about negro suffrage is equally untounded.
The Constitutional amendment does not
name that subject on the contrary, it is
designed to prevent the influence OF the
population. as it is now situated, from In
fluencing the Federal legislation and the
Presidential elections. This is a mere con-
ventional. question, not one of permanent
&c economical interest; it does not involve
the wealth or Improvement or social pro-
gress of any portion of the country, but
mere principle of political justice.-Batt'-
more american.