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Northwestern Sentiments.
The Alton Telegraph (republican) says of the new republican tariff —
THE MORRIL TARIFF. — With all due deference to the wisdom of our representatives in congress, we must confess ourselves quite dissatisfied with this tariff, look at it from what stand-point we may.
As a measure of protection to the manufacturing interest of the eastern states, it has the fault of building them up at our expense. To be equitable, it should make home manufactures cost us no more than foreign with their transportation added. The west will never submit to a tax in favor of the east. If it can buy and transport goods from Liverpool, or Havre cheaper than it can buy them in Boston, New York, or Pittsburg, it will claim the right of doing so.
As a measure for replenishing our empty treasury, it may succeed, but it will endanger our foreign relations at a critical juncture. The Southern Confederacy, with a tariff fifty per cent lower, will make a strong bid for the sympathies of England and France. The north should be able to appeal to the material interests, as well as the moral sympathies of those nations, at this crisis. Sooner would we submit to direct taxation for the support of the government, than give the south any advantage whatsoever over us in our foreign relations.
This is the true ring of the metal, regardless of old party differences. The north-west is a power in the republic, and, whatever party is in power, the north-west must be felt. It has got to be too big to be bandied back and forth between South Carolina and Massachusetts. We are now in position when we must lead rather than follow. The narrow creeds of sectional privilege must make way for popular right.
"The West will never submit to a tax in favor of the East," beyond a fair distribution of governmental burdens. The Morril tariff, in our opinion, is wrong, unfair, unequal in its operation, and a tax upon the West for the benefit of the East, aside from the present crisis; but in our present condition it is palpable suicide, a stop upon the governmental revenue, and the strongest possible card for the Gulf states secessionists in their efforts to delude the border states into their rebellious schemes. There is no one thing in the present imbroglio more palpable than this: The oligarchs of the Massachusetts and South Carolina "schools" have played their selfish games too strong for north-western stomachs. South Carolina has carried off into secession and anarchy nearly the entire south. Shall Massachusetts do the same bit of humiliation for the great north-west?
It is useless to talk and prate of parties. The strife of sections is now raging. The "nigger" was the ostensible ground of quarrel. He goes to the wall now, and the question now is, as to the privileges and rights of white men. "Is there a north-west?" Grinding taxation for benefit of northern seaboard interests on the one hand, and the rule of secession oligarchy in the south on the other, are the pleasing alternatives presented. Are these the "best of earth?" We think not, and we hope to see a north-western organization, that will crush out this strife of sectional privilege, and, at the same time, contribute to the reconstruction of the Union, as it was. In the strife between north and south, the time has come when both should appreciate the fact that there is a WEST! If they won't know it in the "natural way" let us prepare to make them know it in the way that is beyond misconstruction.