Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-12-12
BANKRupTcY COMING.


gress win pass general bankrupt Law
before its term expires. 1t will assem-
BILE with great pomp, run a career o
madness, and finally come to clos'
amid wreck and ruin in the commercial
world. The reports we hear from thu
great cities Of the North represent ,
downward tendency in all branches o
trade. Goods are tumbling, living il
tumbling, most of things are tumbling
We see a movement on foot to tumble
rents, not only here, but everywhere
They must come down with everything
else, and landlords must expect to pla
card many door, TO let And why
The answer is to be found in the pros
trate condition, present and prospective
Oft South. Labor has been destroyed
labor, the bulwark of nations and the
first necessity of human nature. Fanat-
icism has done it all An idea, hopping
about in the Yankee brain like
a grain of popcorn in hot skillet, has
wrought the ruin 1t was easy, with i'm.
mense armies and all the appliances Of
war, to make desolation Of the great
producing South by destroying its labor
system, burning its machinery and rob
bling its people. 1t was easy to reduce
the production of the. Southern cotton
weld from four million to one million
bales. 1t is not so easy to bring the
yield up again. 1t is an impossibility,
under the mad rule of the Jacobin party.
This deficiency is felt in every fibre OF
commerce not only because it now
exists, but in great part because COM
merce, with true prophetic eye, recog'
nizes it as one of the facts of the future.
The great North, whose wealth sprang
mainly from Southern cotton, is begin
ming to shrink and shudder, for with her
political policy cotton can make no CON-
promise. 1t is King, Emperor, Sultan,
Car, or what you will. 1t is omnipo'
tent, and viii SO remain as long as men
and women wear clothes
The free-labor system cannot grow
cotton. 1t has failed. AS a general
thing, planters will not produce enough
to repay the cost of production. The
freedman is a humbug. He will not la
Dor. The natural Incidence Of his nature
when left to tie suggestions Of volition,
is unproductive. The planter has tried
him under circu instances quite likely to
develop any latent energy he might pos
sess. Utterly blind to his own interest
and wholly deaf to the voice of expert
ence, he has Numbered through a cotton
season and come out more a slave
than ever-a slave to want, to nakedness
and to destiny that viii extinguish his
race on this continent A dead fail
ure is your freedman. A dead failure
is your Jacobin negrophilistic millen-
mum. But the ruin of the South is no
failure. 1t was only too successful
Mark how feebly the pulse of commerce
beats. Place your finger upon it. 1t is
small and corded, and indicates a fatal
irritation of the heart What do those
shrewd men, the merchants Of New Or
leans, say of the aspect of affairs in the
South? They are not likely 10 be mis-.
taken. They reason in a straight line
from cause to effect They advise the
cotton planters to make no preparations
for another crop. Whyg Because the
policy of Congress indicates that
some great calamity is impending
over the South, and any money in
vested in planting may be thrown away
Nobody can tell what is to happen. Dark,
dismal uncertainty fingers over every.
thing. The very farm upon which the
planter has expended thousands in prep
aration for a crop, may be seized, sold,
and delivered to another before the cot.
ton blossoms in June. He himself may
be in dungeon awaiting trial for ;rea
son. The freedmen may be put in pos
session of all he possesses There are
chained thuDderbolts at Washington, aud
no man can tellin what hour they will be
launched. A general bankrupt law is
likely to crown the termination of the
next four years. r.