THE DIS-UNITED STATES

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 360, 5 April 1861, Page 3

THE DIS-UNITED STATES

We now learn how the news of the declaration of war against South Carolina by President Buchanan has been received at Charleston; and generally throughout the South. There are no signs of submission, and all the action of the rebellious Convention indicates defiance and daring resistance. It is intended to blockade Fort Sumter, and afterwards attack it on rafts; to sink therevenue cutter Harriet Lane, should she attempt to enter the harbour; and a law had passed the Legislature declaring that " levying war on South Carolina" was "punishable with death": —a mere threat, as it would indicate the impossible atrocity of shooting or hanging United States officers made prisoners, but significant as a sign of the excitement caused by the new action of the Federal Executive. It is reported that the channels.leading to Fort Sumter have been choked up to some extent by sunken vessels, and it is intended to remove the buoys, to make the approach of ships still more difficult. " A thousand negroes are at work constructing fortifications along the coast." As South Carolina is by land surrounded only by Slave States, little is feared from that direction, though the roads, as we learn, ara patrolled by volunteer cavalry. The sea approaches to Charleston Harbour may be divided into four channels —the first running along and skirting Governor's and Bull's Islands; 'the second, the ship channel along the southern coast; and a fourth a small one mainly used by fishermen. Only one of these channels can be used by large ships, aud if partially choked up and the buoys removed, an effective entrance to the harbour may be difficult. The main question is, however, how far will the other Slave States join South Carolina in her resistance. We have a report that the State fortresses and arsenals in Georgia have been seized ancl occupied by State troops; and it is stated that the Governor of North Carolina has sent troops to seize Fort Macon, at Beaufort, the fort at •■Wilmington, and the United States arsenal at Fayetteville. Those who anticipated that coercion of the South would unite in resistance all the Slave States—the most moderate as well as the most extreme-—find in this fact; if the report be quite authentic, a full confirmation of their views. North Carolina has never been violent in its proslavery views; and it has rather resented the supposed claim of its namesake to lead the South. We have also by this mail news significant of the increase of the disunion, sentiments in Virginia and Maryland, the two States bordering on the metropolitan district. General Scott has ordered up from Fort Leaven worth, in Kansas—-three hundred miles at least—troops -to garrison Fort M'Henry, in Maryland, a measure evidently arranged to secure the safety of Washington. The telegram also reports the "indignation" at the North as on the increase.

While rioting this later news fronv the States, we must, in the interest of truth, correct some errors of fact and errors of inference in a well-intended article in the Times of yesterday. It is stated that the House of Representatives had "voted by a large majority that the employment of force to coerce the seceding States is impracticable." It would practically end the question of cival war'had such a vote been made, for the House is much more opposed to the South than the Senate; and if it had opposed coercion, it might have been predicted to a certainty that the Senate would still more oppose it. As the,consent of the Senate is necessary for all use of the army against a State—indeed, for such minor action of the Executive, as the appointment of a new Collector at Charleston—it will be seen that if public opinion compelled such

a vote by the Representatives, the idea of crushing treason by force should be set aside. The facts are, however, the other way. Mr: Pryor, of Virginia—a Southernlights man of some notoriety—proposed & i63olution that any attempt to use force would be "impracticable r and destruciive to Republican liberty." The resolution was " tabled "by a vote of 98 to 55. The use of this word "tabled" has misled the writer in the Times. It simply indicates that the consideration of the motion is adjourned—laid on the table, to allow other business to be discussed. It is equivalent to our " passing to the order of the day," and the result shows that the Representatives were not ready to condemn the use of force. But the inferences of the Times as to the result of the possible separation of the Slave States from the Free are, we think, as erroneous as this mistake in a matter of fact. "It would, 5' says the writer, ." make the Southern Federation the real United States as far as territory, present and prospective, is concerned, and reduce the North to what our ancestors would have called a 'Rump." The future of the Southern States is also painted in glowing colors, while the Northern States are pitied for the narrowness of their " straggling territory/ In possible acquisition of future territory, the South muy certainly have the advantage; extent of un- : occupied territoryVhowever, must not cou nt much on either side, although the wide^ untilled, and arable lands of Illinois,* Minnesota, Dacotah, and 0 egon offer an outlet for superabundant population more immediately valuable than the immense p)ains;of Mexico, overrun by a hybrid, population' of. Mexicans and half-caste Indians. It must also be borne in mind that if] the South may acquire more land, the. peculiar needs of her staple make; it necessary; the hew lands used for the growth; of cotton are not so much additions to the old plantations as substitutes for whole districts of country used up under-cotton— that most exhaustive crop. At the North, the staple products, as in our own couutry, are cultivable, with judicious rotation and manure, again and again on the same land.

At present the area of the Free States is 634,000,000 acres to the 540,000,000 acres of the Slave States, and the estimated population last year was, in the Free States 21,000,000 of free men to a total'population in the Slave States of 9,ooo,ooo—including nearly .4.000,000 slaves. But a better test than measurement of lands or counting population are the statistics of the productive power of each section.

The South produces cotton to about the extent of 100,000,000 dollars a year, tobacco about 20,000,000 dollars' worth, sugar to the. extent of about 16,000,000 dollars, hay worth about 13,000,000 dollars; adding miscellaneous agricultural productions, we have about 160,000,000 dollars worth of agricultural products at the South' The hay crop alone of the Free States far exceeds this amount; in 1850 it was worth more than 142^00,000 dollars, and it has since increased about 25 per cent. The number of acres cultivated in the Slave States, in 1860 was 66,000,000; in iho Free States, 92,000,000. In 1858 the Free States bought 249,000,000 dollars' worth of foreign goods, the Slave States 33,000, 000 dollars' worth. The mahufactutes of the State of Massachusetts alone exceed in value the entire of the manufactures of the South; the tonnage entering the ports of Massachusetts alone exceeds that of all the Slave States put together. Last year Maine alone built more shipping than the whole of the Slave States. The imports and exports of New York exceed those of the whole South. The railways and canals of the Free States are three times those constructed in the Slave States; in support of churches, missionaries, literature, education, the North surpasses the South in about the proportion of ten to one; and the whole wealth of the North is about treble that of the South. It may be said that this condition of the South is not to-be "thrown in its teeth," and it may. be supposed that the North had some special advantage from the first. The contrary is the case. In the natural advantage, of having a climate that neither forbids industry nor river traffic in winter, the South had the advantage,, besides having fifty navigable rivers and many excellent harbours. The territory of each section at the first formation of the Union was nearly equal, and the exports of the South for the first twenty years kept pace "with those of the North; indeed, from 1795 to 1816, the South took the lead in commerce by about one million.annually. The progress respectively of Virginia and the State of New Ybik—-one the leading Slave State, the other the principal Free State—indicates the effects of- the rival "institution?, 1* slavery and freedom, on< material prosper it}'. In 1790 New York contained 340,120 'in,, habitants, and Virginia 748,308. Sixty years-afteri :in -1850, New York had a population of 3,i097|394, while Virginia had only 1,42-1 ;66i. being lessthan half that of New York. In 1791 the exports of New York amounted to two and a-half million dollars, and those of Virginia to over three million . dollars. Now New York exports 87,000,000 dollars, and Virginia not three millions —an actual falling off in face of the tremendous increase of her rival. We heed not continue the comparison; it would hold good in everything.that goes to make the mental, ;moral, or material wealth of nations. The Free States to-morrow, separated from the South, would continue to outrun them in every path of peaceful prosperity; while the stalwart arms of the artizans, " railsplitters," and agricultural laborers of the North would, in actual fight, make quiet woik of the "mean whites," the only part of the five million free inhabitants of the Slave States, available as soldiers,; and whose physical powers have degenerated in presence of the public opinion of the Sduih —inevitable where a despised iacedo most of the hard woi k—that mere manual labor is degrading,— Morning Chronicle.