Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1895-10-16
turning to Kentucky, had Industrious

from our own government, through
all parts of their progress. 1t was re-
ported of them that they had villified
our own government for its incompe
tency to procure for the people those
advantages which were essential to
their existence; that at the same time
they advised the rejection of the pro
posed constitution for the government
of the United States, the object oi
which was, to establish more eff.
cient government, and to give to IL an
arm strong enough for the protection
of all its parts, that they had treated
with derision, the fallacy and futility
of transmontane promises, and re-
ferred to the long expenience which the
western people had of them. These
who reasoned upon these conjectures
were fearful, lest in some parts of the
western country, there might have
been imbibed portion of the insidious
opinion that there was more congeni-
ality between their circumstances and
Spanish connections, than between
them and the Frustrated energies of
the Atlantic Confederacy. These
speculations narrowed up the imagi-
nation till it had rendered the danger
of separation extreme and imminent;
they called to mind that the proposal
to give up the navigation Of the Mis-.
sissippi for twenty five years, was made
about the time when certain political
characters in Kentucky were accused
of intriguing with the Spanish agent ts
to detacr the western country from the
union, and to render 1t q province or
dependency of the Spanish govern
ment. These accusations 1t was said,
were urged with vehemence, referring
to divers parts of the conductof the
accused. as evidences in support of the
charge, and that they supplied at least,
pleusible testimony towards substanti-
ating the fact. 1t was undenis BILE,
they said, that some of the accused
had visited the Governor of Orleans,
Don Stephen Nero, and negotiated, as
rumor proclaimed, for the transporta.
ton and sale of Kentucky tobacco in
the Spanish market; and that this was
only part of more extended plan,
which was not submitted to public in
spection. Commercial indulgencies
coming from the spontaneous permits.
sion of the Spanish government, when
they could not be procured by the in.
huence of the union, were suspected to
be the artful substratuIn of an ipvinci-
BILE gumentfor separation, To these
it was believed, were added the sur
prising apathy with which Congress
received the proposal for the relinquish.
ment Of the navigation of the Missis.
sippi for twenty five years, whilst the
situation of the Spanish possessions in
the neighborhood of ours, the means
they had or depreciating the value of
our resources by commercial restric-
tions, and the friendly disposition they
manifested towards US, could all be
mustered in aid of the scheme for be.
coming part of their connections or
subjects. These visionaries believed
that such apprehensions were not the
airy fabrics of dream, but that Nero
had far more studiously shaped his
conduct to pleasel and to seduce the
western people, wavering between the
love of country and of freedom on the
one hand, and the actual deprivation
OF all commerce on the other, than
become friendly neighbor, disinter-
ested politician, or man Of pndis-
guised candor. His benevolenoe IL
was limited must be of the most un.
common species, if he voluntarily took
upon himself all these pains, for the
relief of people whom he had not
known, but as people oppressed by
the jealousy of his sovereign, and
every day tomahawked by his Indian
allies, who In one moment could be
hushed into silence by his word; for a
people too, who could not be supposed
to be greatly actuated by affection
towards himself, except as they could
be induced to believe, that their own
prosperity was promoted, or Was in
tended TO be promoted, by the means
which he had at command. These
theorists, like the people of Athens,
and the strangers who were there,
spent their time in nothing else, but
either to tell or to hear something new.
And they continued to exhibit their
vast political attachments upon this
inexhaustible subject, till by the adpp-
tion of the federal constitution, the
event foreseen by the politicians of
Cumberland, it became manifest to the
whole world, that the strong and com.
pact government established by that
instrument, forever banished that idea
that the free navigation of the Missis.
sippi would be abandoned. 1t was
preceived, and by Spain
that there was now too
much power concentrated in the hands
of the union, to be long Withheld from
the dominion of the Mississippi, and |
of all the countries adjacent to it. At
the applauding thunder in the political |
atmosphere, which ushered into being |
this grand crisis, the croakers dived |