The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-12
EAST, WEST, AND SOUTH.

From the NJ Y. World.
Within the decade which follows the GEN.
sus taken this year, we shall witness political
changes and readjustments greater than have
ever before taken place in this country in
period of peace. The census of 1870 will
of the West, and add something to the politi-
cal weight of the South. In all
matters in which the West and
South agree they will control the Govern
ment; and they are very likely to agree on the
tariff, the currency, and questions of finance;
that is, on the leading subjects of Federal
legislation.
1t may seem odd to expect the South to
gain any advantage by the next census, as its
population has undergone the wasting effects
of war, and has not been recruited by immi-
grafton. But the abolition of slavery has
added a much larger per cent. to its repre-
sentative population than immigration has
added to that of other parts of the country.
In the new apportionment of Representatives
after this census all the people of the
South will be fully counted, instead of all
the white persons and only three-ffths
of the negroes. If there are four mil
lions of Southern negroes, this change in the
mode of counting viii be equivalent to an ad-
dition of 1,600,000 to the population of the
South, which is out of all proportion to the in
crease of any other part of the country by i'm
migration. 1t will more than enable the
South to recover its former relative strength
in Congress. Although slavery WIS abolished
several years ago, the consequent addition to
the Southern representation cannot be made
until after the census. There has been no
past, and there will be no future, census at
tended with such great gains to the South.
Besides this increase in the number of its
Representatives, the South will make rapid
gains in political influence within the first few
years of the opening decade, by full resump-
tion of its former business intercourse and
connections with the North. Before the
war the South was, and very soon it
will again be, one of the most profitable
markets for our merchants and manufac-
turers. Before the war these business rela-
tions with the North were source of great
political strength. At the outbreak of the
war; and during the first year of its con-
tinuance, a large and influential portion of
our Northern business men openly or
secretly sympathized with the South. They
would have been willing to make almost any
concessions for the sake of keeping or re-
covering their Southern trade. About the
I second year of the war the tide turned, and
thenceforward the prevailing tone among the
business men of the North was one of jealous
'loyalty." This was chiefly due to the new
fields of enterprise opened by the war. The
Government had become a better customer
than the South had ever been. To supply its
vast armies with food, clothing, arms, ammu-
milton, tents, wagons, medicines, ETC., taxed
the energy and resources Of the country.
The great profits of army contracts, and the
spirit of speculation which dominated in all
the walks of business, consoled our merchants
and manufacturers for the loss of the valuable
Southern market, and caused a pretty COM
plete transfer of their political sympathies.
This great change will sooa be reversed. The
Government is no longer an extensive pur-
chaser of commodities. With the reyiving
prosperity of the South, its trade viii have
more than its former value, aud our active
business classes will rapidly exchange their
fierce 'loyalty" for tolerant spirit towards
that section.