Year: 1874

Tits painful fact that the politica
| party which has been dominant in thi.


country ever since the close of tn.


war, has been so blind in the passion


ate persistency of its proscriptive vim.


dietiveness toward the South as to ap.


pear utterly unmindful of the incalcu.


liable injury inflicted upon the bust


ness interests OF the whole country BY


its course. We can easily understand


the selfish motives Of the Radical pol


iticians of the North, in the assiduity


with which, through year after year,


Tor more than nine years now, they


have continued to seek for fuel to keep


alive, and, if possible, to force higher


and wider the fame of sectional dis


cord. But it is not so easy to under


stand how it is that the masses of the


Northern people have been led like


animals without reason directly in op-
position to their own immediate and


most material interests.


The sudden and sweeping destruc-


ton of all the industries of the South,


though not felt in full force by the


North at first, ought to haye been duly


estimated by all rejecting men of bus


lness in that section, in making their
calculations as to the available resour-
ces of trade after the terrible storm of
war that had SO seriously distracted
the commerce of the country in all its
aspects and relations. But it seems
not to have been so. The flush times
of the rebellion among Northern
Spectators of all sorts did not cease
at once with the collapse of the Con-
federaey; the effectsurvived the cause;
the glamour of that golden epoch to
to the money makers deceived the
eyes of the delighted traders who had
grown rich and strong at home while
their foolish fellows we're laying down
their lives on the field of battle. They
knew the war was over they knew the |
tempest had hushed its howlings; but
they were still gathering spoils from
the wrecks on the shore, and they
thought of nothing but the treasures
that had come to them from the sor-
rows of their country. Money was
business was brisk, poor |
men had grownrich; ''the rebellion"
which they so loudly denounced, had |
afforded them an opportunity to accu
mulate fortunes which if left to their
own judgments in ordinary times, they
would never have dreamed of acquir-
ing. They gave little heed to the ang-
uish of the stricken South. They had
become prosperous themselves, and
they had found pleasure in the very
contrast of that section in its flourish
ing condition with this in its desolation.
At last, however, it begins to be seen
by the business men of the North that
in repressing Southern industries
through the unwise policy of the Gov
ernment since the close of the war,
there has been great mistake made,
that the Southern people are not the
only sufferers, that Northern trade in
all its departments is injuriously affect
I'd by it.


Social disorders in the reconstructed
States may answer very well for party
,apital to enable the politicians of the
North to accomplish their own person
II purposes, but they are not profitable
10 the people there. They not only
1bstruct the streams of that tributary
.rade by which Northern markets were
N other days so often and so bounti-
iully filled from the Southern section
IF the Union. but they are destructive
IF the very sources of production in
he South. And we cannot but hope
hat the tixle has come when the great
business interests of the country, gen.
orally, will be allowed no longer to be
mpeded and impaired by the mad pas
'ions of bad politicians who flourish
upon the distresses of the people whose
Welfare they falsely profess to promote.


Whatever may still be the prejudiees
of the thousands of our old enemies
IN the war who would go on in perse-
,ution of our people, the South as a
business ally of the North cannot be
Kept down industrially without grevi-
1us injury to the material interests of
hat great section with which she
would, if she could, re-establish rela-
lions of permanent peace and good
will