236
Daily Chicago Times
Dec 10 1860
The impossibility for our people to maintain the government so wisely formed for
us, in a time of profound peace and unexampled prosperity, is an overwhelming
proof that they are incompetent to withstand the seductions of passion and the
allurements of power. It will be a practical proof that it is impossible for us,
under the most favorable circumstances, to be just against our prejudices, and
that we are incompetent to exercise that enlarged forbearance required to govern
vast and diversified interests. Slavery in the present strife has been the
means, and not the end. The underlying power that has moved this commotion has
been a desire to distract and enfeeble the opposition of the weaker section,
that the majority section might the more readily appropriate to itself the
patronage and power of the government.
It is almost impossible to estimate the amount of money realized yearly out of
the South by the North. It, beyond all question, amounts to hundreds of
millions. By the present arrangement, also, we have a tariff that protects our
manufactures from thirty to fifty per cent., and enables us to consume large
quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the
skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect
bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually.