Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/355

 354 Southern Historical Society Papers.

experiment is not quite a century old, and, with the exception of one sad mistake, which had nearly wrecked us, we might command the attention and admiration of the world. As it is, the English trade is already, even now, pointing the starving laborer to the American shores for relief. English statesmen and statisticians are looking here for those who, at no remote time, are to lead the fleets and hosts of commerce. Here are the hidden and the open stores of coal that are to rekindle the fires of commerce in the old world, when they shall wax faint and thin from too much use and exhaus- tion. Here, too, are the secret gnomes, the hidden genii, guarding their treasures of precious metal, in their watery depths, from whose grasp nothing but American energy shall be strong enough to bear them away in sufficient quantities to steady and guide the ever-ex- panding bulk of the credit of the world. Shall we turn back and quit because we have met with some mishaps ? It is true, and great enough they were, but not great enough to justify us in relinquish- ing the mighty American idea of progress and in giving up the grandest of human ambitions. Give us the States rights principle, which is the grand check upon sectional ambition and cruelty, and we will take up our united way. Strong in the protection of justice and equality, we will meet the difficulties of every question, as one by one they come up to be settled. Even now there is one problem which involves high questions of human happiness. There is one even now craving settlement under the highest penalties for mis- take to the cause of human happiness and civilization. We mean that, as to the necessity of investing the comparatively few owners of the specie of the word with the supreme control of most of the currencies of civilization. When we remember that this means the money power of the world, and all that it involves, we see the na- ture of the controversy and the bitterness in which it will be con- tested by the parties concerned. The nations and the sections heretofore invested with this power will not give it up without a bitter contest. Indeed, will anything short of the prospect of a social revolution force them to yield ? And yet, may not things go that length if some accommodation is not made?

When the young American hereafter shall read the history of his country and come to the account of the late civil war, he will trace the narrative of the frauds and forgeries, of the deceit and false- hoods, by which the stronger section sought to establish and main- tain its pretended title to rule the weaker section through the machinery of government, and leaving the story of the gallant