The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1879-11-05
VOLUME XIII

leading New England statesmen many wears
before 1t was whispered in the South
The first threat of secession was made in
| the hrst term OF Washingtons admini,tra-
tion- The New England members in Con
/ gress had brought forward a PROPOSITION for
the assumption by the General Government
/ 81 certain war debts Of the States The
Southern States had largely paid their
debts, while the debts Of the New England
/ states had mostly been bought up at a
/ large discount by SPECTATORS, some Of
/ whom, Northern historian tells Us, were
/ then in Congress. The proposition was re-
! Jected by Southern votes. Great excite
ment followed. New England threatened
/ to secede, and Congress could do no bust
/ ness, but adjourn from day to day, and its
| dissolution was imminent. At this criti-
cal moment Mr.. Jefferson arrived at the
/ Capital from foreign mission. He found
MI Hamilton pacing up and down in front
/ OF his house Tor the mansion) in utter de-
/ spair of the Union. Hamilton explained to
Mr. Jefferson the situation, ard appealed to
him ito save the Union" Jefferson did
save it. How? Not by argument, nor by
denouncing the New England members as
traitors and criminals, but by a trade He
proposed a trade by which the New Eng
land members got their money, and the
| Southern members got the national capital
| located on the Potomac instead of further
| North For two generations afterward the
| favorite method of saving the Union was by
giving the North the money and the South
the hOnors- Under this process the North
has grown so great that she insists upon
having all the money and all the honors
and upon treating the South as criminals
and traitors My friend, did you refer to
this faculty of coming out of all contests to
save the Union with more money in their
pockets when you spoke of "our institutions
and thrift being planted and rooted in the
hard and thorough discipline of New Eng
land?' If So Junius himself never made
harder hit, and you must take rank as one
of the first, if not the very first, of Ameri-
can letter-writers. | congratulate YOU on
your well-won laurels
Again you say: New York has loaned
to the South and lost more money there than
all the other States" How much money
has New York made out of the South
From earliest recollection the Southern
people have been in the habit of sending
nearly all they made to the North and of
buying nearly all they consumed from the
North, and allowing and paying heavy
profits both ways. Will New York agree
TO pool her losses and profits with the
South?
1t is curious fact we'll worth our study
that the South has not made one dollar
either by slavery or slave labor Indeed
the state of the account shows that the
South has lost untold millions both by
slavery and slave labor, while the North
has made and pocketed every dollar of profit
there was in slavery or that was realized on
the products of slave labor!
The North sold the slaves to the South
and then, keeping the price, denounced the
idea of property i'll human beings bar
barous. Because the South defended the
title she bought and paid for in the very
manner which New England had taught
was constitutional, she is denounced as re-
bellious and tratorous
You are a great and successful merchant.
VIII you do me the kindness to cast up the
figures and tell me how many billions of
money New York and Massachusetts and
Pennsylvania have made out of slavery and
the products of slave labor? If you will
work this sum, | think we will all be able
to understand your boast when you say,
New York Is now the financial center of
North America, and will soon be the great
est money power in the whole world" Will
such a great and rich State in whose
prosperity / rejoice, still insist upon treat
ing as rebels and traitors the people who
have done and are still doing so much to
increase her wealth and power? Will a
State who has so much wealth forget her
own State affairs in electing her own State
officers in a mad purpose to keep up a sec
tional fight with the impoverished South ?
Insanity, my friend, insanity the insanity
of hate! May it not prove to be the very
devil of final disunion!
You say | "will not care to deny that
the South is firmly united in a bold and
persistent purpose to control the Federal
Government in the name of the Democratic
party" | do deny it, though the charge is
so absurd that it scarcely merits a denial.
fear a friendly remark l made to you
IL, I'll
chat the North was wise in spending so
much blood and treasure to keep the South
in the Union as | doubted whether the
North could maintain constitutional gov
eminent without the aid of the South, has
unnecessarily alarmed you. The South does
not seek to control either the North or the
Federal Government but the South does
greatly desire to see both the North and the
South restored to the control of the Consti-
tution-the Constitution of Madison, of
Webster and of the Supreme Court. The
South will seek to exercise no power except
that to which she is entitled under the
Constitution, and that power she desires to
exercise solely for the peace and prosperity
of the whole country. Allow me to add
that this bugaboo of Southern domination
is not creditable either to the manhood or
the intelligence of the Republican party.
The South is and must remain the weaker
ism, but every interest in true Constitu-
tional Nationaism. The South can have
strength in the future only in advocating
the soundest of sound principles for the
National prosperity, and in sending her
ablest men to Congress to maintain such
principles. But you say the South votes
solid with the Democratic party. Why
Solely because the Republican party will
not allow any Southern man to support the
DaD,.hlfoap and his self
respect. The whole policy of the RePubll-
can party since the war has been based up
on the assumption that the Southern people
are all criminals and must confess them
selves to be criminals. In your letter
addressing myself you say "You, your
SELF in all your strength, cannot stand for
a moment, or live, with our constituents If
YOU saw the rebellion was a crime"
Speaking for myself, l never did believe
in secession as either a doctrine or a remedy
under the Constitution. But from the be-
ginning much ADLER men than / am have
taught it was both Some of the trainers of
the Constitution so taught. Many of the
ablest men of New England so taught. The
Southern people believed they had right
to secede, and that the peace of the country
and their own safety demanded its exercise.
They did not intend to make war ON the
Government, as Republican demagogues so
flippantly charge.
The attempt by the Republicans to treat
an act which grew out of honest differences
of opinion as q traitorous rebellion against
the Government is as unmanly as it is I'M
truthful But the Republican party not
only insists that the Southern people are all
traitors, but that they shall confess them
selves to be traitors The result is that no
Southern man can affiliate with the Repub-
Iican party without confessing himself
criminal and agreeing to treat all his own
neonIe as criminals. BY such confession he
would show himself unfit to be trusted by
any party. BY this policy of the Republican
party everything decent in the South is
driven into the Democratic party, and then
the Republican party raises the cry for
ASolid North against the Solid South r
1 do not know what else may happen ID