The National tribune., 1894-05-03
with him after they found they could not

Next, we have the Infamous betrayal
of the country by these men in the
matter of the Northwestern boundary
The whole Nation was aroused on the
subject of extending our Pacific Coast
boundary to the present southern bound
ary of Alaska-54 degrees and 4C
minutes north latitude. The campaign
cry upon which James K. Polk wa:
elected President was "Fifty-four-fortyi
or fight" No one who has studied the
matter doubts that we had the best OF
rights to the entire Pacific Coast as fal
as the then Russian possessions. But the
Southern slave lords foresaw that that
would add to the strength and import
ance of the free section of the country,
and they wickedly betrayed the country
by conceding all that immense strip OF
valuable territory now known as British
Columbia, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan,
Manitoba, ETC., to Great Britain, and
distracted attention from their treason
able perfidy by rushing the country into
the Mexican war.
But in spite of all that they could do,
the free soil of the United States rapidly
increased, and its inhabitants developed
out of all proportion to those in the
Slave States in numbers, wealth, and
industrial activity.
Then came the desperate conspiracy
to destroy the Union and ruin the coun-
try by breaking it up into number of
jarring, discordant little Nations, each
weighed down by enormous military ex-
penses and horde of officials. This is
what the first gun fired at Fort Sumter
meant.
The Wilson Tariff Bill is directly in
accord with the previous history of this
class of men. In every line and every
provision it is animated by the same
spirit. It is exactly what Calhoun,
Yancey, Toombs, ct al, would have at
tempted, were they alive and in Con-
gress to-day. 1t was framed by men
who pride themselves upon being their
successors and exponents of their prin-
ciples. Their animus is bitter hatred of
the rest Of the country and the economic
and Governmental principles by which it
has grown great. The House Bill was
framed by a man who served in the
rebel army, and has never hesitated to
avow his admiration of the principles
which led to the war of the rebellion.
His associates were all men of the same
stamp. In the Senate the bill is in the
hands of a man who was Governor of
Tennessee at the breaking out of the war,
and was one of the most active of the con-
spirators who precipitated that dread
full episode Though his State had pro-
nounced strongly against secession, he
filled it with rebel troops, dragooned the
people into submission, robbed the State
Treasury Of its funds to carry out his
iniquitous schemes and persecuted the
loyal people of East Tennessee with
relentless fury that recalled the religious
prosecutions of past centuries. The
slaughter of the Albigenses and Wald-
enses was not more dreadful than the
bitter persecution made by the myrmi-
doms of Isham G. Harris upon the people
of his State who chose to remain loyal to
the flag of their fathers.
What can be expected from the hands
of such men as these but the bitterest in
juries to the whole country?
They have succeeded far better than
they could have anticipated. The shades
of Calhoun, Yancey, Toombs, and JEFF
Davis must look with smiling approval
upon the destruction wrought by men
nurtured in their principles and claim
ing to follow their footsteps.
One of the leading and best-informed
financiers in New York has made a
careful estimate, in which he says that
the destruction of values in the country
since these men began their work exceeds
the whole cost of the war of the rebellion.
Vastly the greater proportion of this loss
falls upon the country outside of the
South, where most of the wealth of the