The Sinking cause of Jeff. Davis and his Southern Confederacy.
[From the New York Herald, Jan. 1.]
The independent Cotton Confederacy of
Jeff. Davis has seen its best days.
Under the increasing pressure of our fleets and armies, it is reduced to the condition of a city invested by an overwhelming force and cut off from its supplies.
Growing up, as in a single night, into a luxuriant development, like Jonah's gourd, it is willing as rapidly away.
From every quarter of the
South, in every variety of manifestation, the facts and the evidence are daily accumulating upon our hands that nothing but the intervention of
England or
France can prevent this overstrained and exhausted rebellion from collapsing within
Mr. Seward's limitation of ninety days, like the
Great South Sea Bubble or any other audacious but shallow imposture.
In the interesting statements which we published yesterday from two Union refugees who had run the gauntlet of the
Davis despotism from
Texas to
Indiana, there are some very suggestive disclosures.
Thus it appears our ‘"blockade is depriving the people of the revolted States of many of the necessaries of life;"’ that ‘"their currency is in the most wretched condition, and is daily growing worse, while the sugar and cotton planters have already mortgaged their plantations in order to raise means of subsistence for their families and slaves, "’ that ‘"
gold and
silver down the
Mississippi have almost entirely disappeared, the former being at 35 per cent. premium and the latter not to be had at any price;"’ that ‘"many of the most intelligent and influential of the sugar and cotton planters frankly acknowledge that their ruin is sealed unless the blockade is raised; and of that they are beginning to lose all hope;"’ and that ‘"already in the city of
New Orleans a large and formidable organization of Union men exists, which is ripe for insurrection when they are satisfied that a Federal army is in a position to sustain them. "’
We are entirely satisfied of the truth of all these statements, and are as well convinced that they afford but a faint conception of the wretchedness, destitution, confusion, and desperation which prevail throughout all the States groaning under the iron heel of this rebellion.
We give to-day some confirmatory extracts from the editorial columns of a stray copy of the New Orleans
True Delta which has fallen into our possession.
The first of these extracts is from a long article of that paper on the late message of
Jeff. Davis to his Confederate Congress at
Richmond.
The editor does not believe that the peculiar logic of
Davis will convince
England or
France of the inefficiency of the
Federal blockade, or bring either of those Powers to his assistance, but argues that
European nations are not to be gained to the rebel cause by merely refusing them any cotton except through Confederate ports.
In the next article of the New Orleans philosopher on ‘"The Prospect"’ he thinks that praying and fasting are not equal to the duty of coping with Enfield guns and rifled cannon for that
Providence always takes the side of the heaviest artillery; that our ‘"formidable fleets"’ have created a terrible panic throughout the
South; that
Fernandina,
Brunswick,
Savannah, and other places on the
Southern seacoast, are in great danger of sharing the fate of
Cape Hatteras,
Port Royal and
Ship Island; and that, in short, ‘"the prospect"’ of an independent Southern Utopia within any reasonable period of time is exceedingly gloomy.
But the third article, that on ‘"Government Speculation,"’ from our doleful New Orleans contemporary, we are gratified to say, reveals the fact that all the swindling jobs of government officials, contractors, bucksters, sharpers, and rogues are not confined to the public service of the
United States.
Judah P. Benjamin, the head of the rebel Department of Justice at
Richmond, has at least one subordinate who deals out ‘"justice"’ by first extorting silver from the people, and then selling it at fourteen per cent. premium; and this, we are told, is in perfect keeping with the extraordinary conduct still pursued by the Post-Office Department." ‘"Indeed,"’ says our indignant New Orleans editor, still harping on the
Richmond rebel junta, ‘"it is no exaggeration to say that Buchananism is in full and magnificent development, the machinery to conduct it is perfect, a complete espionage over the telegraph, the exercise of unregulated and unrestrained power over the export trade of the country, the unlimited and arbitrary control of legal machinery, by which the property of one citizen is illegally and despotically taken from him without adequate compensation, while that of another is paid for at enormous prices, and the most profligate abuse of authority generally in every department is the rule."’
This testimony is from a New Orleans editor, and we take it directly from his own columns.
There can be no doubt that he is telling the truth; and, though we are sure that he does not tell the whole truth, he tells enough to show that
Jeff. Davis, with his Southern Confederate despotism, is fast becoming a public nuisance in the estimation of his victims.
But, it may be asked, if there is such an intolerable despotism existing in the revolted States, how is it that this New Orleans editor is permitted to speak so freely?
The answer is given in our preceding information that there is a large and formidable Union league existing in New Orleans ‘"ripe for insurrection,"’ and that it is only awaiting the appearance of a Federal invading force to break out into open revolt.
Our New Orleans editor has the league at his back, and
Davis and his tools are aware of it.
New Orleans, it will also be borne in mind, is the financial centre and commercial metropolis of our rebellious
Confederate States; so that with its restoration to the
Union, through the assistance of its ‘"formidable Union organization,"’ we may expect a grand succession of such escapades, from New Orleans around to
Richmond, and thence through the interior to
Nashville, utterly breaking up the
Davis despotism, root and branch.
Let
England and
France exercise their patience and philosophy a month longer, and two things will be made manifest to them--first, that the
Southern cotton nationality of
Davis and his confederates is an exploded bubble; second, that the
Government of the
United States is a fixed and enduring reality among the great Powers of the earth.
