Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-10-19

liar IDEAS were just Of that kind
which, under tho garb Of a great prin'
ciple, would best subserye the party
interests of those who had long and
yainly striven for place aud power
These men looked with holy horror on
customs and practices which the Chris
tan fathers of the republic had never
been ashamed Of, and to which the pures'
men in all ages had conformed. They
saw in the servitude of the negro crime
and fancied they perceived through the
matted wool and thick skull OF the
African slave a superior intellect, whose
brightness, if permitted,to shine, would
impart new glories to the nation ana
perfect the grand temple of republican
liberty. They saw, too, perhaps, the
material ruin they were about to bring
mon that race, but that was, perhaps,
overlooked or disregarded, in the fact
that the elective franchise TO the negro
would build up the power of the crafty
philanthropist. tt-
For this notion they overthrow the in
stitution of slavery, turned thousands OF
lovely homes into desert places, de-
stroyed million of noble men, made the
whole region on which the national
wealth depended an almost uncultivated
wilderness, changed peace and plenty
with white and blacks to strife and star
walton = ruined prosperity at home,
ruined commerce, ruined the national
name-degraded their own race by lev
cling it with the negro-enslaved the
former and gave the latter power, the
right use of which he never had nor ever
can have the capacity to understand;
violated the constitution of their country,
and brought the very name of Republi-
canism into scorn and contempt
These main blows, meant for a por'
ton of the States, are bringing all to
common ruin. Not content with de-
priving the cotton growing region OF la
boring material, they have gone on in
system of policy which can have no
other intent than to ruin and utterly de-
stroy that interest. They have imposed
tax on the production of cotton 50
high as to actually amount to a pro-
hibition.
If these rulers had deliberately de.
vised a plan to destroy their own and
build up foreign powers, they could nst
have succeeded better. England looks
on with derision, but with pleasure; she
still cloves the treason though she dis
pises the traitors" that enable her to
have the cotton culture Of the world to
herself; that viii enable her to build up
an imprium an emperiO in her East In-
dia and South Sea possessions. Now at
last she sees her cherished idea Of sup
plying the demand of her own fac
tories from her own provincial soil re-
allied; not 80 much by her own
effort or at her own cost as by the
folly and corruption of American states-
men (2) in throwing away the power they |
might have forever maintained She
sees the time not far off when she will
not 20 to other than British colonies for
the material that clothes the world, and
when her ships will carry from her own
ports to the American States all the cot
ton fabrics used by the millions who
inhabit them. She behods from her
lofty point Of vision the tide of popnla-
ton turning back from America to India,
to live under more benign laws, more
truly free institutions than those Of the
nominal Republic, but real Despotism,
Of the United States.
We might follow out the sequel Of this
oily to all its effects upon individual
aud national wealth and happiness,
upon New England in particular, whose
people may yet sit among her delapi-
dated factories as mournfully as Marius
On the ruins of Carthage; but unlike
him in this, that the ruin he beheld was
inflicted by his own country upon
foreign rival, and was only mournful as
t reminded him of Rome's departed
ylories These men will see miseries they
themselves have brought upon their own
race and nation. They will sit not
among the ruins of Carthage, but Of
Rome ITSELF
sSs- 1t hardly requires the astutely