AMERICA: THE TURN 01' THE TIDE.
Arrsins in America seem to be assuming a new phase. The tide of events, which hitherto has been all in favour of the slaveholders, seems at last upon the turn. The Southern Confederacy, it is true, has been organized, and now includes six or—including Arkansas, which is certain to join—seven States. Mr. Jefferson Davis has been elected President, and was to be inaugurated on the 18th ultimo ; and Mr. Jeffer- son Davie is an able man. A loan of 14,000,000 dollars has been sanctioned, and will probably be raised, thus filling at once the military chest, necessary to the Southern projects of annexation. The rumours of coercion are dying away, and the Senate has referred a proposal as to the forts to the Committee on Foreign Relations. The mad tariff, also, sug- gested by Mr. Morell, which will almost shut out British commerce, and enable the slaveholders to conciliate all the maritime powers, is also a victory for the South. Day by day, too, the existence of a real statesman, of some one com- manding mind in the Southern Confederacy, becomes more manifest. The leader may be Mr. Jefferson Davis, or some man still unknown, but there is a vigour and coherence in the movements of the South which mobs, however educated, never display. Nevertheless in spite of their new chief and rapid organization, of the adhesion of Texas and Arkansas, of weakness in the Cabinet, and treachery in the civil service, the balance seems slowly turning in favour of the North. In the first place, the men of the North have at last a prospect of a leader. Mr. Buchanan, whether honest or treacherous, is, at all events, a man who sympathizes warmly with the South. The rack of talkers, the Crittendens, Hales, Guthries, and Kellogs, neither are, nor pretend to be, leaders beyond the localities which have forwarded them to Washington. Even Mr. Seward, supposed, before his party had succeeded, to be so able, has apparently broken down. His speeches, at all events, contain no trace of statesmanship, or even of that faculty for devising expedients which is so often accepted in its stead. There is a want of men in the North competent to deal with questions so wide, and the whole strength of the free regions is frittered by the absence of direction. For, be it remembered, we know nothing yet of the opinion of the real American population, of the nineteen millions of freemen with whom all substantial power must ultimately rest. All we know of American opinion usually filters to us through New York, a political cesspool, with the scum always at the top. The yeomanry, who form the mass of voters in the cultivating States, are not ruled or represented by the Herald, and their action, when once fairly aroused, will be decisive of the issue. If Abraham Lincoln possesses the nerve and decision of a leader, he is precisely the man whom this class is likely to obey, and Abraham Lincoln is at last fairly on his road to the White House. The great ques- tion for the Republic, as in Europe for kingdoms, is the capacity of this one man, and as yet the slight evidence we possess is altogether in his favour. What is required is not culture, or intellect, or any of the qualities a competitive examination can elicit, but efficiency, a clear insight Into the difficulty, a decisive plan to secure its remedy. The President elect seems possessed of both. For four months, under present* before which a vain or a feeble man must have yielded a hundred times, he has maintained an unbroken silence—perhaps the best proof possible of a determined will. The resolution announced to make no compromise until the laws had been obeyed, and himself peaceably: installed at Washington, points to the same determination. His speeches en route contain, perhaps, the very smallest amount of matter that will enable a speech to float at all,' but- their drift is still perceptible, and indicates an inflexible resolution to up- hold the laws. The mere assertion that to retake Federal forts is not to invade the South is of itself a sufficient in- dication that Mr. Lincoln is not afraid of consequences, while his dogma that a State is only a district dignified with a big name is fatal to the right of insurrection. If this be really Mr. Lincoln's decision, if he is prepared to uphold the Federal Laws, whatever the result, the North has obtained a policy at last. Any cOmpromise is consistent with that re- solution, and the South is reduced to the alternative of 'com- promise within the constitution, or a call to arms. That Mr. Lincoln would be supported in such a course by the whole weight of the North is, we think, more than probable. There is an unworked mine of power in the American passion for national prestige, and a bold attempt to re-cement the Union might rouse millions who now turn wearily from impracti- cable plans of compromise.
The inauguration of Mr. Lincoln will be a heavy blow to the Southern patriots, and they have sustained already one nearly as severe. Tennessee has deliberately resolved to continue within the Union. In one slave state at least, secession, after being proposed, discussed, and submitted to the people, has been finally rejected. Four more states, Kentucky, Vir- ginia, Maryland., and Delaware, are wavering, and seem in- clined to stand by the North, if the compromise suggested by the Peace Conference should be carried. This com- promise is a sort of political electuary, an amalgam of half a dozen, but its main provisions are sufficiently clear. The States and Territories are divided by a line drawn on the parallel of 360 80' north latitude, north of which slavery is abolished, and south of which it is constitutionally recog- nized. No more territory can be acquired without the con- sent both of North and South, which, of course, will .be granted only when both sections acquire land at the same time. The right of carrying slaves into the free States is conceded to their owners, and the power of imposing special taxes on slaves, or interfering with them in any way, or permitting them or their descendants to become citizens, is formally given up. Each State is to have the right of making laws for the extradition of escaped slaves. It is said that the Eastern States reject this compromise, which the South has already repudiated. But the fact that the Border States will consent to any compromise at all is a new feature in the struggle, and one which excites no little annoyance in the South. Already the Convention at Montgomery has passed a resolution, decreeing that the importation of slaves from States not within the Confederacy shall be prohibited—an enactment aimed directly at States which, while breeding slaves, continue within the Union. The menace may alarm Virginia, but it scarcely affects Kentucky ; and the rescue of this State and Tennessee diminishes seriously the fighting machinery of the South. On the whole, the tide of events so long setting South has at last begun to ebb.
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