The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-06-01

''Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed
in thy name!' From the first French Reign
of Terror, iu the voice of the amable, accom-
| plished and unfortunate Madame Roland, as
they bear her to the guillotine, comes this
warning exclamation. How forcibly it will
apply to the terrors Of the late Paris Commune
| and what miserable mountebank, with his
pratings Of ''liberty, it makes of jeff Davis
What mockery il makes of the diabolical afro
| cities of French socialistic democracy, and of
the excuses of our Southern State sovereignty
democracy committed in the name of Liberty
The Paris Commune and the ''lost cause of
our late Southern rebellion, to some extent may
both be traced to the teachings and the disci-
pies of Voltaire; yet the contrast between
them is as marked as the difference between
the temperature of the North Pole and that of
the Equator.
Under the blessings of natural liberty, as
defined by the Paris Commune, property is
robbery, religion is an imposture and marriage
is a device of superstition and despotsm. Un-
der the blessings of constitutional liberty, as
defined in our late Southern confederacy, the
negro is property, or an outcast by Divine ap-
pointment, and this property it is the para
mount duty of government and society to pro-
tect; and while religion is held sacred
| on the platform of negro slavery, mar
| rage is regarded as o mockery only
among the unfortunates of the servile race. In
brief, while the natural liberty of Cluseret and
| n,
universal license and anarchy, the constitu-
! tional liberty Of jeff Davis means q rigid
| despotism on the corner stone of African
slavery and domineering aristocracy founded
| upon caste. This is the sslost cause" of JEFF
Davis-the ''lost cause which he is now advo-
eating from place to place in our Southern
States as the cause of liberty and constitu-
tional rights and which be proclaims will ult-
mately, in the political field be crowned with
complete success-with success, through the
action of the Southern States, as a political
balance of power in our national elections.
This, then, is the entertainment to which
the Northern democracy are invited by the
Southern chief and champion of the ''lost
cause" Defeated in the national elections of
1860 on the question of the extension of
negro slavery, he and his Southern rebel con-
federates appeal to ''the arbitrament of the
sword; they are completely defeated and
subjugated after four years of terrible war
they then surrender, their State governments
are reconstructed by Congress on the princi-
pies settled by the war; yet this man Davis,
the head and front of this gigantic rebellion,
after escaping the penalties of his treason, and
SIX years after the collapse Of his Southern
confederacy, comes forth among the Southern
people as the great apostle and prophet of
Southern rights and State sovereignty faunt-
ing his defiance in the face of the government
and fatty telling it that he does not accept the
situation-that he accepts nothing, that the
war has settled nothing, that the conflict is
transferred from the field of war to the field of
politics, and that his cause of State sovereignty
in this field will surely in the end prevail.
This fallacy Of State sovereignty, in the
very teeth of the constitution, emanated from
Thomas Jefferson and was first proclaimed in
the so-caled Virginia resolutions Of '3S, and
next in the Kentucky resolutions of '99.
The sympathies Of Jefferson and his followers
were with the French republic Of that day,
while Washington and his party held the
atrocities of that republic in undisguised de-
testation. But France had been our ally, and
England had been our oppressor; and so, from
his popular French sympathies, Jefferson, IN
1901, advanced his party to the possession of
the government. But State sovereignty as an
idea did no mischief under Jefferson, and
none to speak of during that whole period
in which our intercommunications from State
to State were over difficult roads by horse
power or coastwise by sailing vessels. To
these conditions, in new country, strong
State governments and loose sort of general
administration were well adapted, notwith-
standing the warnings of State sovereignty
furnished in the revolt of the ten tribes of
Israel, in the incessant quarrels and wars of the
petty sovereign States of ancient Greece, and
in the wars of the petty sovereignties of Italy,
and Germany, and France, Spain, Great Bri-
tain and Ireland with each other.
But our Southern rebellion on this Jeffer-
sonan fallacy of State sovereignty, in being
delayed until after the general introduction of
railways and telegraphs all over the country,
came too late. All the pre-existing condi-
tons Of intercourse between the States, and
from the central government with the States,
had been changed. The railway and the tsle-
graph, with their centralzing forces, had sim
ply made with us a confederation of State
sovereignties or two confederacies an impossi-
bility. The Mississippi river is powerful
bond Of union; but the bonds of the
railway and the telegraph are stronger than
the Mississippi. These potential forces of
union and Capitalization swamped the Southern
confederacy, and yet the antediluvian fire.
eater, Davis, is out again preaching State
sovereignty. The Italians dream of five hun