New England Trading with South Carolina
The New York Post, noticing the late departure of the steamer South Carolina from Boston for South Carolina, says that while she lay at her wharf she displayed the American flag in the main rigging, and the Palmetto ensign at the fore. The Massachusetts, the other steamer of the line, sails under the State flag of Massachusetts. The especial wants of the seceders, says the Post, as indicated by the freight list of the South Carolina, are shoes, rum and pianos. The rum was branded with a Palmetto tree on the heads of the barrels, and is supposed to be equal to the Armstrong gun in the length of the reach at which it is warranted to kill. A single individual--one of the steamer owners — shipped fifteen hundred cases of boots and shoes by this vessel, and the fortifications of South Carolina will be increased by the addition of a considerable number of piano-fortes.The Post and other papers of its kidney have been threatening the South with starvation if it should separate from the North. It has been swearing that they would not sell us anything to eat or to wear, if we set up shop for ourselves. Lord bless you, if we could only believe that you would not, sure enough, we would secede on that very account. If we are in a wretched plight of weakness and dependence, it is just because you will sell us things, and we are fools enough to buy them. Nothing, nothing under Heaven do we make ourselves, from the slop bucket to the piano, from the shoes that are soled with brown paper, to the rum that poisons body and soul. Even if war should come, it would be all the same; you would sell, and, what we needed we would buy, whether it be bread or gunpowder. We know your devotion to the American Eagle, but between the American Eagle on a Flag and the American Eagle on a Gold Dollar, what true son of the Pilgrims was ever known to hesitate? If ever the patriotism of Yankee Doodle rises to a pitch of frenzy, it is when he sees this warlike bird of his country spreading himself upon a field of gold.
In the war of the American Revolution, the honest yeomanry of New England supplied the British armies regularly with all the provisions they required. It was in vain that Washington endeavored to break up the treasonable practice. The author of that admirable work, "The Lost Principle," says that as fast as Washington distressed the enemy by day, the trafficking provincial recruited them at night. "Every Corporal's tent," he says, "was a perfect bazaar." The militia men themselves sold provisions constantly to the British, and afterwards drew pensions, from the United States for their services. It was this, more than any other cause, that prolonged the war of the Revolution to seven years. We have, therefore, no concern about procuring supplies; our concern is just the other way. If the South, after she has put her own government fairly under way, continues to buy of the North a single article which she can produce or manufacture herself, she will deserve to be a province to the end of time.
