Notwithstanding the repeated denials of some Washington correspondents that the President favors Disunionism, everybody in this city is fully convinced that Mr. Buchanan, if not openly, is secretly with the seceders. If he were opposed to them, he would, in view of their openly expressed hostility to the Union, long ago have issued a Proclamation. Aaron Burr's projects were the same as those of the seceders; both aim at the establishment of an independent Government within the boundaries of the United States, and that is high treason.
The seceders now say that the rebellion will not occur before the next 4th of March. They are afraid that, if they should commence immediately after the election, they will not have States enough; the more so as it is beyond doubt that the border States will go against them. From that time till the inauguration they hope to stir up Southern prejudices against Lincoln to such a pitch as to induce even those States who have voted for Bell to side with them. Mr. Buchanan, who wishes to be Provisional President, will assist them.
Fling out the broad banner! make ready each hand,
For the cry of Disunion
is heard in the land;
Each day may behold the fierce warfare begun,
And
hard may the fight be, ere victory be won.
Then loud let the challenge ring
out to the South!
"Republicans have but one heart and one mouth
For the
freedom we love--for the land we adore!
For the Union and Abraham
Lincoln--hurra!"
What! brothers and countrymen! then will you part?
With a curse on each
lip and revenge in each heart?
What! fly as our English invaders have fled,
From the land where our forefathers conquered and bled?
No! loud let the
shout ring from North and from South,
"We have but one country, one heart
and one mouth,
For the freedom we love--for the land we adore!
For the
Union and Abraham Lincoln--hurra!"
Let enemies thicken, we'll never despair;
Where our candidate is, behold
Victory there!
Disunite, in the ruins of Freedom you lie!
In the Union,
you conquer--without it, you die!
It shall come from the North, it shall
come from the South,
"We have but one country, one heart and one mouth,
For the freedom we love--for the land we adore!
For the Union and
Abraham Lincoln--hurra!"
We find in The New Haven Register the following letter from a gentleman in Alabama to a family friend in New Haven. Its author is a Union-loving, conservative man, though not a member of the Democratic party. Thousands of communications of the same purport are written by people at the South to their friends in the North. We reproduce this Alabama letter, because it is temperately written, and obviously states the facts:
"A---, Ala., Oct. 24, 1860.
"Ten days from this, the people of this country will be called on to decide whether the Government is a failure or not! I now fear, should Lincoln be elected, there will be dissolution of the Government! My mind has undergone a great change since I was in New Haven. South Carolina will secede as certain as Lincoln is elected; and all the cotton States will follow.
"Let there be one drop of Southern blood spilt, and every Southern State will be ready to avenge it. Some months since, I thought there would be no withdrawing of any State until after some overt act of Lincoln and his Administration--but Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Florida, will all withdraw. Our State has passed a resolution, that in the event of a Black Republican being elected, the Governor shall convene the Legislature; and our Governor, and a large number of our representatives elect, are in favor of resistance! Most of the Governors in the cotton States are of the same mind. Now there are many conservative men here, but when the South becomes involved in a difficulty with the General Government, they will not only sympathize but take an active part. Not one in a hundred will take sides with the General Government. I write this as my own opinion, and you can take it for what it is worth. South Carolina is making preparations, by reorganizing her militia, and many have put the "cockade" upon their hats ready to march directly out of the Union. Some at the North may laugh at the idea, but the passions of the people are aroused.
"Why, who compose the Black Republican party, or a large majority? Those who are willing to indorse John Brown as a martyr, and are now taking up subscriptions to build a monument to his fame! Look at the Beechers and Cheevers; look at the higher-law men, and those that curse Washington, Madison, and Jefferson as thieves and robbers, because they were slaveholders. All this inflames the public mind. Then the manufacturing of Brown's pikes, the distributing arsenic in large quantities to the negroes, telling them to poison their masters and take their mistresses for wives--telling them that all this is warranted by the laws of God and the Bible--saying that when the Black Republicans are elected, the negroes are to be freed. The negroes think Lincoln and Hamlin are both negroes! Do you see the drift of all this? Now, how do you expect to keep a people conservative, when all these things are brought to bear upon them? All here know full well that as soon as a dissolution takes place, all kinds of property will decline; but they think that after that is over, it will rally again. For my part, I do not want to see these States separated, but the North is to blame for it all. Had she let the South alone, we would now have been as a band of brothers. I fear the die is cast--take warning!"
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Democratic) Nov. 7
All good citizens should bow to the majestic decision of the people, rendered in accordance with the forms of the Constitution. That decision places the Republican party in possession of the National Government and the State Governments of all the Free States. This power is committed to them temporarily as a trust, for whose faithful administration they will be held to a rigid account. Their rule will endure just so long as the people feel satisfied with it, and no longer. The course of Mr. Lincoln's administration will be a difficult and delicate one, and if he can succeed in so conducting it as not to give just cause of offense to the South, and at the same time fail to alienate the large portion of his present supporters, who are imbued with strong anti-Slavery sentiments, he will accomplish a task more difficult than fell to the lot of any of his predecessors. Then, another source of trouble will be the disposition of the patronage at his command. For every office there will be one hundred "Wide Awake" candidates and ninety-nine of them will be his sworn enemies, once their delectable expectations have been dashed by inevitable disappointment. His every act will be subjected to the keen scrutiny and criticism which never fail to be directed to the party in power. To the exigencies of the future, the opponents of his election now commit him and his administration, and while partisans may desire his discomfiture, the great body of the people will prefer that he should steer clear of fatal mistakes, rather than commit errors which, while they might insure the overthrow of his party, must, at the same time entail disastrous consequences on the country.
The causes of the great popular revolution which has swept the Democracy out to sea, probably never to touch dry land, are clear as noonday. Long possession of power had corrupted the Democracy and caused its machinery to fall into the hands of a class of public stipendiaries who came at last to regard the spoils of Government as their hereditary possession. Fortified with this idea, they considered any outside interference as an impertinence, and instead of demeaning themselves as public servants, amenable to their employers, lorded it after the manner of the inheritors of the sacred prerogative of divine right. Corruption had crept into several branches of the public service, and although the effort made to fasten the responsibility on the President and his Cabinet was an unfair electioneering device, still the existence of wrongs and impurities in public affairs was made patent to all. Then when the party came to arrange its case for presentation to the jury of the country, instead of presenting an aspect of dignity which would commend respect and promise a decent government, they exhibited the wretched spectacle of squabbles for superiority, of section against section, and of a band of men bound to the personal fortunes of an individual in the hope of retrieving their bankrupt fortunes by free access to the public purse. The party was foredoomed. Only one consideration gave it the shadow of a chance, or sufficient prospect of success to inspire those who clung to it to labor for its success, and that was the apprehension of the evil consequences which it was feared would follow the success of the Republicans.
What may be the effect of Mr. Lincoln's election to the Presidency remains to be seen. We do not anticipate anything disastrous to the Union, yet we look for a grand revolution in the internal management of affairs. Mr. Lincoln is a man of mind, worth, and honor; and we mistake his character greatly if he does not inaugurate a new and improved system in the administration of the country. It is plain enough to be seen that the Buchanan Administration has done more harm than any that preceded it. The Pierce dynasty was bad enough in all conscience, but not to be compared with its successor for corrupt misdeeds. We think it may be relied on that Mr. Lincoln will leave the White House with as much popularity as he will enter it in March next. But there is another view to take of this great triumph of right over wrong, and that is with regard to the course the South will pursue, now that a Republican President is elected.
For months past, all sorts of threats have been hurled from the fire-eaters, and nothing less than a complete break-up of the American Confederation would satisfy them if Lincoln were successful. The result is against them, and we presume they will succumb when they see there is nothing else for it. Why they should be embittered against Mr. Lincoln, we cannot understand, for he is certainly the most moderate of men; there is nothing of the fiery zealot about him; nor is he the man to endanger; the stability of the Union by making organic changes such as would unsettle the existing state of things. He has a higher mission than his opponents appear to assign him; and it is quite likely that they will discover their mistake ere long. Mr. Lincoln is President, and we venture to say there will be no dissolution of the American Union.
Judge Richard H. Field of Culpeper, Va., is the eldest Superior Judge in the State, having been appointed to his present place under the old system, more than 33 years ago, and he has held the office from that to the present time. At the first election of Judges by the people, in 1852, he was elected without opposition. In May last, at the second Judicial election, he was continued without opposition for another term of eight years. A few days since the Judge felt called upon to rebuke, through the medium of The Culpeper Observer, the current threats of secession in the event of Lincoln's success, for which he was of course duly assailed by The Richmond Enquirer. In response, we find the following card in The Richmond Dispatch. Whether this filial, dignified, and patriotic protest shall excite the fighting propensities of O. Jennings W. & Co. time will determine:
A CARD.--The readers of The Richmond Enquirer probably observed, in its issue of Thursday last, an article headed "Judge R. H. Field of Culpeper." While the character of my father is too well established among those who know him to be affected by such an article, respect for public sentiment requires it to be noticed. Having read in The Enquirer an editorial advocating resistance and disunion upon the premature and injudicious, Judge Field wished to counteract, as far as in his power, the influence of opinions leading to this result, and was thus induced to write his letter to The Observer. The letter sustained the policy of abiding the election of Mr. Lincoln only "so long as he supports the Constitution of the United States and executes in good faith the laws of the Union." Whatever may have been the form and tone of the letter, the purpose was an honest one, and one which better men than the pensioned editor of The Richmond Enquirer will approve and indorse. It is by no means a contemptible party who are in favor of secession only when our rights have in reality been assailed, and who are opposed to permitting the too hasty action of heated partisans and the hellish plottings of unprincipled men to precipitate the Southern States into Disunion, with its attendant destruction of life and property--with every horror of servile and civil war. The charge that, in writing his letter, Judge Field was actuated by desire of more elevated position under the Lincoln Administration is a falsehood as slanderous as untrue. Were Judge Field a young man, just entering with the ambition and energy of early manhood the theater of public life, the charge might be plausible; against a man who has almost reached the allotted age of three score years and ten, it is more absurd than unjust. W.G. FIELD. Culpeper C. H., Nov. 3, 1860
Abraham Lincoln has been designated for next President of this Republic by the popular vote of nearly every Free State, and the ruling politicians of the Slave States are not pleased with the selection. We can fancy their feelings, as we felt much the same when they put a most undesired President upon us four years ago. Moreover, we can and do in good faith advise them to do as we did--Bear it with fortitude, and hope to do better next time. There are other courses that may seem more inviting at first, but this will prove altogether safest and wisest in the end.
But Southern politicians are not so used to adversity as we have been, and they do not at first take it kindly. Everybody among them is expected to tear and rave over this Free Soil triumph, under the suspicion of being marked and denounced as an Abolitionist. Of course, the howl throughout the Cotton States is very general--partly in earnest, and partly not. And the lifelong Disunionists of South Carolina, and two or three sympathizing sister States, seize upon the excitement as a godsend, by whose aid they hope forthwith to achieve their darling end.
Now we believe and maintain that the Union is to be preserved only so long as it is beneficial to all parties concerned. We fully comprehend that Secession is an extreme, an ultimate resort--not a Constitutional but a Revolutionary remedy; but we insist that this Union shall not be held together by force whenever it shall have ceased to cohere by the mutual attraction of its parts; and whenever the Slave States, or the Cotton States only, shall unitedly, coolly say to the rest, "We want to get out of the Union," we shall urge that their request be acceded to.
But one thing we must firmly and always insist on--that there shall be no bribing, no coaxing, no wheedling those to stay in the Union who want to get out. Every step in this direction tends to confirm the Slave States in their mistaken notion that the Union is more advantageous to us than to them--that it is a contrivance to pamper and enrich the North at the cost of the South. And this is today the chief source of National peril. It is because the Southern people have been persistently ruined by disunion--that our people live by their sufferance and thrive on their bounty--that we are eternally threatened with Secession. Let it be fully and fairly understood that the benefits of the Union are mutual--that we don't want the South to remain in the Union out of charity to us--and this eternal menace of Nullification and Secession will be hushed forever.
Note: This is an excerpt from a longer article.
UNION MEN, BE ON YOUR GUARD!--There are those all over the country who talk long and loud about the horrors of Lincoln's election, and taking advantage of the events which themselves and associates; have hastened, call upon us all to unite--to let "bygones be bygones"-- and all act together as a united South. The object of these men is to get as many Union men to commit themselves to the cause of Secession as they can. Let them know, wherever they meet you, that, as law-abiding citizens, loyal to our blood-bought government, you will never consent to see our soil ravaged by the terrible strife which would result from Secession, and on the very threshold proclaim your determination to oppose all the mad schemes of Disunion and to stand by this Union of States! Tell these secret emissaries and street talkers that you admit the value of cotton as an article of commerce, but remind them in the next breath that Kentucky and Missouri hemp, as a necklace for traitors, is an article of still greater value for home consumption.
To prevent anybody abroad from being deceived, we will state what everybody hereabouts already knows, that there is little or no excitement in this section of the State, growing out of the result of the recent election. It is true that there are several worthy citizens in favor of immediate resistance, but they are in a woeful minority--there is not enough of them for seed. The "Minute Men's" organization was a fizzle--the sympathy of the few respected citizens to whom we have referred only saving it from utter insignificance. Its numbers are barely the minimum of an ordinary volunteer company.
It may be safely set down that Louisiana will not secede, even if any foolish attempt is made to test the question. The Douglas and Bell vote united beats Breckinridge out of sight, and a large number of those who supported Major Breckinridge are as strong Union men now as they were during the canvass, when they all professed to be Union men. No matter what other States may do, the Mississippi Valley will stand by the Union as our fathers gave it to us. Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana will not secede! Mark that.
From the turn matters are now taking in various Southern States, it is evident to our mind that South Carolina is to find no effective support outside of her own limits, for her scheme of preventing a general consultation of all the Slaveholding States upon their duty to themselves under the General Government in the hands of the Republican party. Thus, it grows more questionable hourly, whether Georgia and Alabama will act with her without calling for an entire Southern States' Convention. Virginia is already demanding such a Convention, as well as North Carolina and Maryland; and Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi seem to evince no disposition to act in the emergency in concert with South Carolina alone; urging, as they do, a compliance with the wishes of the States of the Northern slaveholding tier, which, as all comprehend, are far more immediately and vitally interested in whatever may be the result of the present state of things.
We have at last reached that point in our history when it is necessary for the South to withdraw from the Union. This has not been of our seeking. Fanaticism has driven us to this point, and we are bound to accept it for self-preservation. The blood of this deed mush rest upon other shoulders. We have always contended for a Union upon the principles of the Constitution. Constitutions are formed for the protection of minorities; the right to revolutionize--the right of self-defense--is derived from heaven, and is above constitutional principles. She never asked other than a full benefit of those guarantees; nor does she now.
But while this is true, a powerful sectional majority are now about to seize upon the Government with the avowed object of so administering it as to destroy the institution of Slavery existing in fifteen of the States. We cannot stand still and quietly see the Government pass into the hands of such an infamous crew.
South Carolina has already unfurled her flag of defiance, and the flashes of the glittering sword of the Palmetto State have already sent an electric thrill through the veins of all her Southern brethren. Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, will soon be united as brothers to defend each other from the inroads of the fanatics of the North.
So soon as this Confederacy is formed, we will throw open our ports to the ships and commerce of the world, cut loose from Yankee manufactories, erect factories of our own, and develop the rich resources now slumbering dormant in our states.
Note: This is an excerpt from a longer article.
SIR: Will you permit me to state three reasons which convince me that it is the duty of every businessman, interested in the peace and prosperity of the North, to stand firm in this political juncture:
I. Because, if we yield to the threats of the Slave Power today, we shall be driven into a long series of such concessions as the only condition upon which the South will remain in the Union. The Slave Power, having once frightened us into compliance, will hold the threat of disunion as an ever-ready whip for Northern shoulders, to compel us into submission. The result will be ever-recurring conflict, panics, contentions. Congress will continue to be the scene of sectional struggle. The evils of our present panic will become chronic. In the end, we shall be driven into revolution, or become the subservient subjects of a slave-driving oligarchy.
II. Because the scene of intestine struggle will thus be transferred from the South to the North. The South demands more stringent laws for the taking and rendition of fugitive slaves. But Congress may pass law after law, yet the men of the North cannot be made slave-catchers, and no legislation can eradicate the innate love of freedom and fair play bred into the Northern bone. To attempt, therefore, to execute more stringent Fugitive Slave laws will necessarily result in riot and commotion. Are we ready to entail this constant danger of intestine struggle upon our children?
III. Because any compromise now made will be made only to be broken. I need only refer to the breach of the Missouri Compromise, as a historic proof of the proposition. And that the South will, in case of a compromise, soon get the power to break it, is but too evident. For the retreat of our leaders as a single inch breaks up the Republican party. Let it not be forgotten that a large proportion of our Republicans have been educated by the Kansas tyrannies and the whole course of recent events up to a conscientious conviction that to aid or abet the extension of Slavery is wrong. These men mean to stand firmly by this principle, cutting loose from any party that deserts it. Thus the path of the South to her former domination over the ruins of a demoralized and shattered Republican party will be made smooth and easy. We shall then find too late, how little binding are such compromises upon a rampant and tyrannical Slave Power.
SIR: 1. Do you or do you not hold to the theory that peaceable secession of one or more of the States is utterly beyond the power of our Government to admit?
2. If such power does not exist with the General Government, does it exist with the People?
3. If with the People, how, practically, can they so decree?
Answer.--Secession from the Union is by no means provided for or contemplated in the Constitution, and yet that instrument opens a door by which States may legally, and in an orderly manner, withdraw from the Confederacy. That door is opened in the provision for the amendment of the Constitution; and, until that means of redress has been tried, and has failed, no State, whatever its grievances, can be justified in the eyes of humanity or of history in resorting to the violent, anarchical, and dangerous remedy of revolution.
But whenever it becomes indispensable, revolution is indisputably the right of all men. This cannot be better expressed than in the language of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, where "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights..."
That may be very old-fashioned doctrine, but we actually believe in it. And we cannot help seeing that, if it justified the Colonies in revolting from Great Britain, it equally justifies a fourth of the Union in cutting loose from the rest, for reasons which to them shall seem sufficient.
So much for the abstract right to secede. The right is plainly a fundamental and extra-constitutional one, and the manner of its exercise is to be governed by circumstances. But should seven or eight States leave the Union, it would be very hard for the Federal Government not to perceive the fact and to act upon it.
We have thus answered our correspondent's queries all together. Admit a right to exist, and you cannot well deny that there must be a proper time for and manner of exercising it.
We warn the people of the Free States, that a cockatrice's egg is being hatched at Washington, in the form of a proposition to amend the Constitution by tracing the line of 36-30 across the continent, and dooming to eternal Slavery all the territory we now possess or may hereafter acquire south of that parallel. We are aware that this "measure of peace," which, during the fifteen months that would expire ere it could be acted upon by the State Legislatures, would fill every corner of the land with unprecedented agitation, can never be incorporated into the Constitution. We know that, excepting in and immediately around the great commercial centers, every member of Congress from the North who, by giving his vote for such a measure in this crisis, betrays the cause of Free Labor and Free Government, will be buried under an avalanche of popular reprobation, and will know no resurrection. Therefore we have no fears of the ultimate fate of this proposed recreancy to Truth, Justice, and the permanent peace of the country. But, we appeal to the Republicans in Congress, and ask, "Why encourage treason in the South and cowardice in the North by inspiring hopes which you know can never be realized?" If they are deaf to reason, then we turn to those great constituencies which have just deposited in the ballot boxes nearly two millions of Republican votes, and ask them if they are willing to allow their representatives to even seem to throw away of their dearly won victory; to break down the Administration of Lincoln ere he attains power; to prove themselves to have been hypocrites while out of place, and cravens, who are ready to surrender their principles the moment they are able to abandon them to their enemies? Or, if we are too confident of the final result, and there really be danger of such an amendment being incorporated into the Constitution, if presented to Congress, then we ask Republicans if there is any exertion which they will not put forth to prevent the initial step in this downward road--any effort they will not put forth to hold our country back from entering upon piratical and buccaneering schemes for reopening the slave trade and extending Slavery over the Southern half of the Continent, precipitating us into wars with foreign nations, and provoking the indignation of Christendom?
We warn our readers that this so called "Compromise" may be sprung upon Congress immediately after the holidays, if not previously broken up by the outspoken condemnation of the people. Let Republican constituencies take prompt measures, through the mails, the public press, and personal appeals, to bring proper influences to bear upon their Senators and Representatives at Washington, ere it be too late. Let them crush this offspring of Southern treason and Northern doughfaceism in its incipiency. There is not a moment to be lost!