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.
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