The New York herald., 1870-01-26
The New Southern Balance Of Power and
the Noxf Presldouoy.


ginia determined the final conditions to Missis-
sippi and Texas, the two remaining outside
States. Within . few weeks, on the same
terms, we expect they will be reinstated in
| Congress and restored to the control Of their
local affairs, when the transition epoch of Con-
gressional edicts and Southern military district
commanders will be ended, and the new
Union, under the thirteenth, fourteenth and
| fifteenth amendments Of the national constit,l-
ton will be in full operation.
| We have in these amendments . greater
revolution in the structure of tho government
than that which transferred the American
people from the crown Of England to their own
institutions under the original constitution Of
the United States. The trainers of that con-
shtution founded 1t upon the sovereignty OF
the people; but in its details the government
was shaped upon the English model. The sys-
tenn Of African slavery planted by England,
and even the African slave trade, were
engrafted upon our original constitution and
protected in various special provisions, while
the shame involved in these concessions was
confessed in the careful exclusion OF
all such words as slave, slavery or
stakeholder from the instrument. Its trainers,
however, while driven to these shame
| full concessions for the sake Of union, con-
soled themselves with the hope that negro
slavery would, sooner or later, die out; and
that the constitution, therefore, might so be
shaped. meantime, as to disguise its recogni-
L a. In
| But the Yankee invention of the cotton gin,
with the wonderful development which it gave
to the cotton culture, soon made negro slavery
an invaluable Southern gold mine and the
league of cotton planters the balance of power
in the government. The political power Of
| this Southern oligarchy was first made mani
fest on slavery in the Missouri Compromise of
1920, and next in the annexation of Texas as
a concession to slavery; next in the Fugitive
| Slave law, as sop to Cerberus, in the
| compromise measures of 1850 next in the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise Q854)
whereby Kansas and Nebraska, as Territories,
were opened to slavery, and lastly in the Dred
Scott decision from the Supreme Court of the
United States Qs56), declaring that under our
constitution negro bad ''no rights which a
white man was bound to respect"
These suicidal pro-slavery DEGREES Of 1854
and 1856, in a general and deeply
set Northern political reaction, finished
the Southern slaveholding olgarchy
for in 1860 Lincoln was elected Presi-
dent on the decisive platform of ''no further
extensions of slavery" For sixty years this
Southern oligarchy, with remarkable skill,
boldness and tenacity, had, more or less, die
tated the course Of every department OF the
government and every administration. So
imperious and exscting, too, had these South
ern believers in King Cotton and slavery
plunged headlong into an armed rebellion for
| an independent confederacy upon the corner
stone Of negro slavery.
Hence the tremendous revolution which has
followed revolution which has made the
constitution of the United States of 1870 as
widely different from that Of 1860 as that one
differed from the colonial system of England.
Negro slavery, which was the ruling element,
is extinct, and all its appendages, including the
slaveholding oligarchy, State sovereignty and
the legally degraded caste Of color, are swept
| away. BY the thirteenth amendment of the
constitution slavery is abolished and inter-
dcted; by the fourteenth equal civil rights
to all colors are established; and by the
fifteenth, neither the United States nor any
State can abridge the right Of suffrage on
account of race, color or previous condition Of
servitude. To make sure these provisions
| Congress is invested with the power to enforce
| them.
| Such is the condition of things under which
all parties will have to fight the Presidential
battle of 1872. But the issues Of the battle
will be new issues growing out OF the money
question in all its branches, and out Of our
foreign relations and our foreign policy.
General Grant will doubtless be the
republican candidate, and upon the old issues
of 1868 and 1864 he would probably walk
over the course. But they are settled, and
he will have to stand upon the measures Of his
administration. So far he has not exhibited
that decision of character and tenacity of pur-
pose in the Cabinet which he displayed 80
effectively in the field. He appears, indeed,
singularly changed to the policy of taking
things quietly, trusting to luck and risking
nothing. The chances are that this ''easy-go-
happy" policy will result in such fusion Of
dissatisfied popular elements in 1872 as will
need only popular Union candidate to turn
the tide Of victory.
| Here we anticipate new Southern balance
of power. How it is to take shape we have
seen in the new departure of the old line
democrats and ex-rebels of Virginia. They
| accept the new order Of things, they fraternize
with and cultivate the negro vote; and the
same policy generally adopted by the Southern
planters and landowners will give them, as
opponents of the dominant party, the balance