The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-01-15

caSn article. The annual supply OF American
cotton to the English mills rapidly increased.
The demand increased with the supply. Negro
slaves rose in price and continued to rise as
the Southern cotton planters were enriched
The shareholders of the Northern border slave
States found the raising Of slaves for the
Southern market the most profitable staple
from their wornout tobacco lands, until the
slave trade with the cotton States from Rich
mond alone footed up twenty millions of dollars
year.
What next? The Southern slaveholding
cotton oligarchy rising to the control OF the
government and firmly holding 1t for many
years. Next we see this powerful oligarchy
undertaking to cut loose from the Union by
force Of arms and to set up an independent
oonfederacy on the basis of African slavery
and cotton. In Jefferson's time the coming
wealth and power Of this oligarchy were not
distinctly foreseen. His ideas and dogmas of
popular rights and State sovereignty were sub
stantially those of the infidel philosophers of
the first French revolution. The Jeffersonian
republican party was founded upon those ideas,
in which sympathy for republican France
against the British monarchy had q powerful
influence over the American people, still full
of their War of Independence. Thus, under
Jefferson, the constitution as it was under
Washington was greatly changed. The checks
and balances were diverted from the centre to
the extremities. This was the beginning of
that Southern State sovereignty construction of
the constitution which, under the democratic
party, served the purposes of the cotton oil
garchy down to 1860.
The first direct conflict of the North with
the South on slavery was that Of 1920, re-
sulting in the Missouri compromise. The
next (1S32-33) was on the side issue of South
Carolina notification, in which Calhoun was
upset by Jackson. The next QS44) was on
the annexation of Texas, an issue upon which
Van Buren, was thrown out by the Southern
oligarchY, and upon which Clay was defeated
by the abolition balance Of power in New
York, the first decisive movement Of the aboli-
ton party; and the second was in 1S4S, when
Van Buren, turned this party to the defeat of
Cass. In the same year, with the acquisition
of California, New Mexico, &C., from the
Mexican war, came another sectional battle on
slavery in Congress, resulting QS50) in the
second great compromise adjustment Of Henry
Clay. But in 1854 the Missouri line retained
in this adjustment under the demand of the
Southern oligarchy was wiped out, poor Pierce
in the White House and Douglas in the Senate
becoming active instruments in this fatal ex-
pertinent to slavery.
In 1854 the republican party against this
pro-slavery aggression took the field on the
bold ultimatum of ''no further extension of
slavery" In 1856 it would have carried the
Presidency but for the third party Northern
diversion made by Fillmore. In 1860 Lincoln
was elected on this ultimatum Of arresting the
march of slavery. Through all this long
period of sixty years the constitution, as in
terpreted by jefferson and his satellites, was
practically enforced, with a lucid interval only
here and there, and enforced, too, by sue
cessive Southern demands, down to the bred
Scott decision Of 1856, in which, under the
constitution, 1t was affirmed negro had mo
rights which white man was bound to re-
spect'
From that revolving decision the whole poll
teal superstructure raised On slavery and
cotton was soon undermined. And yet but
for the new material forces introduced in the
world after jefferson his fundamental idea of
State sovereignty against central national
sovereignty would have prevailed. Powerful
as was whitney's cotton gin in giving new
life to slavery, which threatened at last an
Independent slaveholding Southern confed-
eracy, the steam engine and the telegraph
have been hundred times more powerful in
behalf of the subordination Of the States
and the sovereignty Of the United States, not
nation. Leaving out these modern material
forces Of steam and electricity, the plans and
calculations of the Southern oligarchy were
not extravagant but in the face of these for
midable appliances Of the North the war for a
Southern confederacy was the height Of
suicidal insanity.
Here, then, we stand on the firm founda-
ton Of national sovereignty, established by
our railroads, steamboats, and telegraphs, and
fixed in the constitution. After sixty years
struggle the Southern slaveholding olgarchy
and the theories of Jefferson have gone down
together, and the wisdom Of Washington and
| Hamilton is fully confirmed with the triumph
Of their grand idea Of national sovereignty.
The all-powerfnl, consolidating forces Of this
day, Of which those great men never
dreamed, have fixed their grand idea as the
future law Of both hemispheres-the absorb
ton of quasi State sovereignties and petty
States under great and expanding national
governments. Upon this firm foundation
we can stand, and SO under President Grant
the Union may be extended to the North Pole
on the one hand, and to Panama, on the other