The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-16

Carolina nullifcation, in which Calhoun was
upset by Jackson. The next OS44) was on
the annexation Of Texas, an Issue upon which
Van Buren, was thrown out by the Southern
Oligarohy, aud upon which Clay was defeated
by the abolition balance OF power in New
York, the first decisive movement OF the abo-
lition party; and the second was in 164S,
when van Buren, turned this party to the
defeat of Cass. In the same year, with the
acquisition of California, New Mexico etc.,
from the Mexican war came another sectional
battle on slavery in Congress, resulting (lS5O)
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 ped out, poor
Pierce in the White House, and Douglas in
the Senate, becoming active instruments in
the Senate in this fatal experiment to slavery.
In 1854 the Republican party against this
prOslavery 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 1850 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 lucid interval only
here and there, and enforced, too, by sue
cessive Southern demands, down to the Dred
Scott decision Of 1856, in which, under the
Constitution, it was affirmed a negro had ''no
rights which a white man was bound to re-
spect."
From that revolving decision the whole poll
tical superstructure raised on slavery aud
cotton was soon undermined. Aud 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 slaveholdiDg Southern Confede-
racy, the steam engine and the telegraph have
been a hundred times more powerful in behalf
Of the subordination of the States and the
sovereignty of the United States, not as a
confederacy, but as a compact nation. Lsav-
ing out these modern material forces of steam
and electricity, the plans aud calculations OF
the Southern oligarchy were not extravagant;
but in the face OF these formidable appliances
of the North, the war for Southern Confede-
racy was the height of suicidal insanity.
Here, then, we stand on the firm founda
tien of national sovereignty, established by
our railroads, steamboats,, and telegraphs, and
fixed in the Constitution. After sixty years
struggle the Southern slayeholding oligarchy
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-powerful, consolidating forces of this
day, of which those great men never dreamed,
have fixed their grand idea as the future law
of both hemspheres-the absorption 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, with perfect
safety.