Mssrs. Editors -- Will you allow a plain citizen to say a word or two, politically, just at this time? If you will, I have mainly to say that I feel a disgust for the sentiments of some of my neighbors on the questions of the day, that I cannot keep to myself, altogether. -- Good, plain sense seems to be mightily lacking with many; and people are getting to be strangely hypocritical, considering the interest involved. Fear -- a shaking, cowardly fear -- has so far possessed some that they are patriotically drawing on the livery of the Black Republicans, and crying Union! Union! to avoid a manly responsibility. Some, it is true, are sharply suspected of fondling with the white niggers, in hopes of getting a place at their feast; which only shows, to follow money and office, some will leave virtue behind. All around we hear a senseless manifestation of love of the Union, and a world of blood and thunder is huddled together in the single word "dissolution." They love not Virginia, (God bless her;) oh, no! And, with an air of self-righteousness, they deal with the character of the purest men living, and call them disunionists.
A great effort is being made to cause the question of resistance or submission to unconstitutional law and a threatened invasion of our social system, to turn on that of union or disunion. But let us hold them to the truth. -- We are for the Union, too. But it must be that which our fathers gave us unchanged -- not foul and loathsome after a dissection by Abe Lincoln & Co. We shall stand by the old Union, and shame all cowards who falter in the cause. To such as call us disunionists we will say, we are Virginians, and not till Virginia is for disunion will we be for disunion; but when her mind is made up we will go with her, unless indeed we see she is wrong, then we must leave for other lands, but never to fight against her. The question, then, is not Union or Disunion, but a common resistance to a common foe. When we must try that question of Disunion or not Disunion, (if the day shall come, as come it may,) we will try it as Virginians only, and, as Virginia freemen have a right to try it under the laws of our sovereign state.
Virginia Jeffersonian States Rights principles have ever been respected throughout the Union, because the Virginia Democracy have ever shown an unwavering devotion to them; but if we falter now, and Virginia is surrendered to Massachusetts Freesoilism, even if the Union survives, what will become of the States Rights doctrines which thus far have preserved the great chart of our liberties and the civil and religious rights of every citizen under the Constitution?
Every voter in this good old mother of States and of statesmen, who desires to preserve the Union, should remember, that a vote for Stephen A. Douglas is a vote for Bell, the Know-Nothing candidate, that if John Bell should be elected, Know-Nothingism will rule the United States, and Roman Catholics and foreign-born citizens will either be beaten and murdered, as in 1856, or else deprived of the right of voting and holding office; and thus be reduced to the level of the degraded negro! -- But if John C. Breckinridge is elected, both Know-Nothingism and Black Republicanism will be overthrown, Democracy will be triumphant, the Union will be preserved, and the rights of all free white men, in life, liberty and property, will be secured!
Before another issue of the Richmond "Enquirer" can reach any of our readers, the most important and exciting election in which American citizens have ever participated will have taken place. Never were our principles more imperilled than in the present warfare waged upon our constitutional rights by Black Republican enemies, headed by their standard-bearer, Abe Lincoln. Nothing can defeat the aggressors but a concentration of the entire Southern vote on those well-tried and faithful patriots -- BRECKINRIDGE and LANE. The destiny of this great American Union is now in the hands of the people. The importance of the contest now upon us cannot be over estimated. It involves all that patriots and friends of the Union hold dear, and upon the result hangs the hopes of the nation for all time to come.
The time for argument and discussion has passed. It only remains now for us, friends of the Constitution and the Union, to act -- to act as freemen worthy of the noble heritage of liberty -- to act as it becomes men to act who properly estimate the glorious privileges they enjoy, and who wish to transmit them to a free and happy posterity!
Democrats of Virginia! friends of Breckinridge and Lane! at this time shall there be any recreancy in our ranks? Will not every man who desires the success of our gallant candidates, who desires the defeat of Lincoln and Hamilin, be at his post? Will there be one found to desert his colors in this trying emergency? Rather, let there be a grand rally of all our forces, let each man battle with might and main for the truth and right!
To work, then, friends of our glorious cause! To work with all your power, with your whole soul, and mind, and strength for liberty, and honor, and peace, and safety! We appeal to you to stand by your flag, by your candidates, by your principles, by your country, to devote THE WHOLE OF THIS DAY to the great cause you have espoused to give your undivided, unselfish devotion to the Constitution, the Union, and the Equality of States!
Messrs Editors: The aspect of our political affairs is so threatening that most thinking men seriously apprehend that a crisis is near at hand. Alabama has taken an incipient and threatening, though conditional, step toward secession from the Union -- South Carolina is fully prepared to do the same but impatiently delays her action in the hope that Virginia will take the lead -- while Virginia waits for "more overt acts."
Under these interesting circumstances, will you allow an avowed Secessionist to set forth a few views touching this subject, on which he thinks the minds of the people of Virginia have been very much misled. I take this step after waiting impatiently, for a long time, in the hope that abler men would undertake it.
It appears that an honest conviction that our present Federal Government is a failure, and does not answer the purposes for which it was organized, is considereda manifestation of a want of patriotism, and even treasonable. Such a charge cannot be sustained, except on the ground that a State has no right to secede. This question I do not mean to argue now, for I do not believe that one thinking man in ten sincerely entertains such a doctrine. The truth is, that "RIGHT" is confounded with "EXPEDIENCY" -- as you, no doubt, have observed -- by those who argue sincerely against the "right of secession." A simple presentation of the subject is sufficient to show the absurdity of such a doctrine.
Thirteen different colonies of Great Britain unite in the effort to throw off the British yoke and enter into a Confederacy for mutual aid. After a seven years' war with the mother country, they succeed in establishing their independence. The separate and independent sovereignty of each State is mutually acknowlwedged by all the States. That Sovereignty is acknowledged by the mother country and the principal States of Europe. They each exercised that Sovereignty for about twelve years. They then modify the Confederacy, under a Constitution, giving certain specified additional powers to the Federal Government, thus established -- without one word as to how long they mean to entrust that Federal Government is invested with extraordinary powers in control of the subject of making amendments to the Constitution; but no power is given to dissolve the Government, or to prevent its dissolution.
In whom, therefore, is invested the power to dissolve it? Why, clearly, in each of the Sovereign States who CREATED it -- for, by the Constitution, they expressly reserve every power not granted to the Federal Government.
Virginia, therefore, as one of those Sovereign States, has a perfect right to dissolve her connection with the Federal Government.
But designing politicians resort to the mean device of working upon the fears of our people by suggesting such bug-bears as "civil war" -- negro insurrection in co-operation with Northern invasion, &c, &c. -- even down to the absurd idea that Southern States COULD be reduced to submission by a Northern army.
This is too wide a field to be discussed in a single article for a public print. But permit me to present the different points one at at time.
Where is the occasion or probability of "civil war" as a consequence of secession? We see, in the papers, accounts of numerous and large meetings of the Northern people, in which, under the influence of inflammatory speeches, they express their horror of slavery and their determination that it shall not be extended beyond its present limits. And to this they add some fierce threats as to what they will do if we take active steps toward resisting their aggressions. But does not every intelligent man know that all this feeling is excited and guided by demagogues, for political purposes?
How, otherwise, could th epeople of the free States be induced to crowd the halls of Congress with such a rabble as now represents them? Look at the number of members of Congress from the free States, who have been expelled from that body for th ecrime of accepting bribes -- for actually selling their votes for money.
Is it possible that such men are the deliberate choice of the people?
But, it may be thought, that the same fanatical feeling would induce the people of the free States to take up arms for the purpose of reducing us to submission, if the Southern States dared to secede.
This, Messrs. Editors, is an act in th edrama never even contemplated by the Northern people, for the simple reason that they know well that it would not "bring down the audience," in other words, "it would not pay."
Our self-approbation highly relishes the bold expression of virtuous indignation at the sins of others, so long as it is attended with no unpleasant consequences to ourselves. The fanaticism of the Puritans of New England was freely exercised against the Quakers and Baptists -- even to the extent of putting them to death. But that was done with safe impunity.
There were then many Puritans, but few Baptists and Quakers; and successful resistance against such persecution was not apprehended.
It is a very pleasant recreation for the shoemakers of Lynn, in Massachusetts, after a profitable day's work, to spend the evening in hearing inflammatory speeches, and venting his excited feelings, by voting resolutions expressing his righteous indignation at the cruel treatment of slaves by their Southern masters. And the interest of the scene is greatly heightened by the exhibition of large prints, representing an overseer with a cow-hide in one hand, and a chain in the other, attached to the neck of a kneeling negro, who, with uplifted eyes and supplicating looks, ejaculates: "Have mercy! am I not thy brother!" All this is very grateful to the excited sympathies of the indignant shoemaker; and he returns home with a feeling of self-satisfaction -- a feeling of superior sanctity -- with the prayer of the Pharisee in his heart, if not on his lips, "God, I think thee, that I am not as other men are." -- that I am not like these wicked slaveholders.
Thus he spends the day in a labor of profit, and the night is a labor of love -- alternating the making of shoes for the vile slaveholder by day, with the making of abusive resolutions against the slaevholder by night; and exchanging his shoes for money, wrung out of the sweat and labor of the very objects of his commiseration.
This is a picture of the state of fanatical excitement among the people of the free States, and upon it our Southern "Union" men build up the bug-bear of a Northern army volunteering to reduce seceding Southern States to submission. But ask that sympathizing shoe-maker to shoulder his musket, to leave off that profitable traffic with the slaveholder, to leave his wife and children, to leave his comfortable home, to march five hundred miles, to endure the hardships of a camp, to hear the sharp crack of a Virginia or Kentucky rifle behind every tree, to meet in deadly conflict men who are fighting for their firesides, their homes, their wives and children, to meet men in the death-grapple, who come fresh from the scene of their burning houses, and the mangled and half burnt corpses of their wives and children and burning with intense indignation at the "deep damnation of their taking off." As him, I say -- ask that self-satisfied maker of shoes and resolutions, if his is ready to face such an array of pleasant consequences. He will tell you that he would sooner encounter an army of tigers.
And what is the powerful motive which is to impel this great Northern army in a crusade against the South?
Why, according to the views of the "Union" men, it is a fanatical zeal for "Liberty" -- not their own liberty -- not the liberty of their children, nor even of their neighbors -- but the liberation of some millions of slaves, 500 miles off, the consummation of which would effectually dry up the great source of their own wealth and prosperity.
But what are they to do with the slaves after they have liberated them?
Will they carry them home to Yankee land and provide for them, or teach them habits of thrift and industry? Or will they turn them loose here to fight their way in the unequal contest with white men? Or will they send them back to Africa to return to their original barbarism and heathenism, and raise children for the slave market?
In either case, what becomes of the cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice, &c. which now yield the millions out of which that great imaginary army of Yankee crusaders grow rich, by a thousand devices.
Do the "Union" men think that the Yankees are fools?
The hard-fought battles of '76, around Boston and Lexington, Saratoga and Long Island, show that the Yankees are no cowards; but when they fight it must be to some purpose. They then fought for their firesides and their rights, but will they leave those dear relations and all the comforts of life, to go abroad on such an argument?
After the Southern men, by thousands, had poured out their blood freely, under the guidance of Washington in defending Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey from British invasion, bleeding at every pore, not only from the weapons of the enemy, but from the frosts and snows of that harsh climate -- how was all their patient, enduring, generous heroism recompensed? Did the Yankees return their kindly feeling? When the seat of war was transferred to Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, did they meet the call of Washington, and march to the rescue call of Washington, and march to the rescue?
No -- utterly disregarding even the earnest appeals of the noble-hearted "Green" (their own great and good general) they meanly staid at home, and left their generous Southern brethern to shift for themselves. Yes -- and throughout the whole seven years' struggle, thousands of them were actively and profitably engaged in supplying the common enemy with provisions at high prices.
Will the descendants of such men leave all that they hold dear at home and deliberately thrust their heads into trouble in the prosecution of such a profitless and absurd undertaking!
Butanother motive is suggested by the "Union" men, as likely to induce an invasion of the South, viz: a thirst for plunder.
Messrs. Editors, one of the very many signal advantages of our peculiar system of labor is that half of our wealth consists in a kind of property (slaves which, whilst it is very valuable to us, would be utterly valueless to our invaders. Nay, worse -- it would be to them an intolerable burden -- a curse far more disastrous than the Asiatic cholera, the plague, famine, or civil war.
The whole plunder of the other half of our wealth, would not pay a tithe of the expenses of the single item of restraining four millions of negroes within the bounds of order for a single year.
Though our Southern Confederacy would be the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth, yet, such is the peculiar character of its wealth that an invasion would not "pay for the candle."
This subject, however, calls for a separate article.
There are many other subjects of apprehension which trouble the minds of our people in the contemplation of the act of secession, beside the one which I have so imperfectly considered -- such as the escape of negroes and border war in consequence -- this revival of the foreign slave trade and the consequent great fall in the price of negroes -- squabbling between the Northern and Southern Confederacies about the division of public property and Territory, and especially, about the use of the Mississippi, &c., some of which will result in blessings, instead of curses, to the Southern Confederacy; and others are purely imaginary. Some of them are very important to the interests of Southern men, and their consideration would be very interesting. But each would require a separate article condensed into a readable compass -- and having so signally failed, in this instance, to reduce the expression of my views into the limits of that desirable condensation, I have little hope that even this communication will endure the ordeal of the "Enquirer's" crowded table -- but fear that its fate will be, "weighed in the balance and found" too heavy.
The question, "What will Virginia do?" in the event of a secession of Southern States, is now asked by thousands in both sections of th ecountry. The longer this question remains unanswered by the people of Virginia, the greater is the danger that besets the Union. -- Virginia's silence misleads both sections, and tends to encourage the North in the belief that she will remain an idle spectator Lincoln may undertake against seceding States. This silence is not understood at the South. Virginia's position and influences, the weight attached to her opinion, demand something at this time from her, which shall authoritatively define her position and duly advise all sections what they may expect from her.
We have already advised the assembling of a State Convention at an early day. Such action becomes more and more necessary with every step taken by our sister States of the South. Every day men of all parties in Virginia are becoming convinced of the imperative necessity of a State Convention. Such a body, composed of the ablest and best men of Virginia, without regard to party politics, would exert an influence over both sectiosn most beneficial to the country at this time. Without such a Convention the State is in danger at any moment of being involved in civil war. There are thousands of persons in Virginia who will sustain and support any seceding State, and there are perhaps equally as mahy who will rally to the standard of the Federal Government should it undertake to coerce such a State. The sovereign voice of Virginia, let it be as it may, will be respected by all her citizens, and her mandates will be obeyed, however much they may conflict with individual wishes and opinions.
The action of a State Convention in Virginia may do much good towards settling peaceably this much vexed and dangerous question, while continued silence will permit the State to be involved in the conflicts of civil war. It was with the view of concentrating public opinion upon a State Convention, as well as to prepare our people for any unforeseen emergency that Gov. Wise inaugurated "The Minute Men" organization. He contemplated no private raid upon the Federal Government, and now that the canvass is past, political animosities are sudsiding, and cooler reason is doing justice to the patriotism of men of all parties.
We hope to see the late canvas, with all its animosities, forgotten, and men of all parties as Virginians, manfully striving for the honor of the State and the preservation of the Federal Union. We yield to no man in devotion to a Constitutional Union, but we compete with no man in attachment to an empty Union, deprived of its constitutional guarantees and stripped of the equality of the States.
In the discussions of the late canvas, erroneous impressions were made upon the Northern mind, that division and discord in Virginia would ultimately culminate in conflicts between her citizens when the questin of Union or Disunion was presented to her people. We do not believe that any portion of the people of Virginia will opppose the voice of the State as pronounced by a Convention and ratified by her people. Desiring a Convention to decide this question, we shall not undertake to determine "what Virginia will do." That is a question for the people of the State; as for ourselves, and speaking for very many others who agree with us, we are for a united South -- in the Union if possible, which we much prefer -- but if that be denied us, then we are for a united South as the only means of preserving Southern rights and Southern institutions. We do not for one moment question the motives of any who may disagree with us.
We select this morning from the wisdom of Edmund Burke, the "sentiments becoming the crisis" and the philosophy of resistance that should govern the action of the approaching session of the General Assembly and commend it to the consideration of all the members.
The rejection of a Southern Conference was a "little measure," a very "great error," and brought "no small ruin." The "mark we aim at" is the safety and honor of our State and section; and though they may "demand the certain sacrifice of thousands," better make the sacrifice than entail upon our posterity the brand of inferiors in a government designed for equals. A false humanity that lowers the standard of Southern rights, and is satisfied with the poor boon of apprehended fugitive slaves -- which abandons the other and more important issues of the slavery question, should not influence the Legislature in this severest trial of our people. Our rights secured, or equality acknowledged by law, and our property protected in the common territories will preserve the Union. But nothing short of all these can re-unite the States of this Confederacy. Virginia must embrace the whole question in any effort she may contemplate proposing for mediation. She must not expect the Southern States to become satisfied with the repeal of Northern laws nullifying the fugitive slave law. The escape of slaves is a grievance peculiar to the border States -- the denial of our rights in the Territories is an insult and wrong common to all the States of the South, and must be embraced by Virginia in every effort at conciliation. The repeal of the nullifying laws would be indeed an encouraging sign, from which the beginning of the end might be discerned. But it is neither all, nor yet the greater part of Southern grievances.
War is indeed a dreadful alternative; but dishonorable inferiority is the worst evil that can befall a people. An insult submitted to invites repetition, and when inflicted with impunity upon a whole people encourages arrogant domination, subversive of just government.
It was more England's insulting claim to govern the colonies than acts of oppression that caused our forefathers to resort to war.
Every brave people are more tenacious of honor than of pecuniary gain, the claim of a right to tax, rather than teh amount of th eimpost, produced the revolution. Shall the descendents of such abstractionists surrender a right which carries with it the brand of inferiority, and the stamp of disgrace.
The denial of the right of the Southern States to perfect equality in the territories, the District of Columbia and everywhere else common to the government, is of itself just cause for withdrawing our consent from a government which has been prostituted from its original spirit, even though the forms of the Constitution have been observed.
"When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute depotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." "We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by their legislatures to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over" our property." They have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity," and constitutional obligation. Are we not justified in withdrawing our consent from a Government thus marked by every act that may define tyranny?
Our forefathers taught us that the "consent of the governed" was necessary to constitute the "just powers" of government; they taught us to withdraw that consent from any government, to alter or abolish any system which denied us safety and happiness. We care not whether it be constitutional secession or organized revolution which our forefathers left with the States; it is "the power to snap and tie of confederation as a nation might break a treaty and to repel coercion of a nation might repel invasion."
The hope of compromise and concession must be abandoned, the full acknowledgement of all our rights must be the ? of our demand -- the limit of our satisfaction. Unless this be granted, indignation will succeed the terror that now pervades our country, and "the revival of high sentiment, spurning away the delusions of a safety purchased at the expense of honor, will yet drive us to that generous despair, which has often subdued distempers in the State, for which no remedy could be found in the wisest councile."
The all-absorbing question throughout the country seems to be, "What is to be done?" Black Republicanism has ripened and brought forth its legitimate fruit, in the election of a sectional representative man of its own -- the veritable author of the "irrepressible conflict" doctrine -- to the Presidency -- not of the Union, because there is in fact now no Union, nor will there ever again exist a union of the States.
The Northern portion of what was once a proud and prosperous confederacy of sovereign States, has gone on violating one provision after another of the solemn compacts on which the Union was founded -- against the solemn appeals and earnest remonstrances of the other portion, which has yielded every question of expediency; and, in fact, compromised for a time minor questions of principles for the sake of peace in the Union, till at length, presuming the South could not be forced to resistance, and, if she could, feeling that its numerical strength was sufficient to coerce her into submission, has at length put off all restraint and boldly proclaimed the irrepressible conflict and its determination to crush out every vestige of slavery and inaugurate the doctrine of the equality of the races, both in theory and in practice. To carry out their avowed purpose, they have combined their section and elected Abraham Lincoln, and defiantly say to the South, "do your utmost, your doom is sealed," and if you attempt resistance, the halter will be your fate!
In view, then, of these facts, I might ask, what Southern man could ask teh question, "What is to be done?" And yet we find men, even in the South, not only asking the question, but actually proposing schemes of reconciliation, but actually proposing schemes of reconciliation and counseling delay in order to see if the North will not consent to some further guarantee of the rights of the South; as if there could be any dependence placed in any guarantee to which the North might consent! What greater or more binding guarantee could be proposed than the written Constitution which our honored fathers made, and which time, and the circumstances under which it was made, might to render hallowed and sacred? Yet the North does not regard its sacred obligations; and to jsutify their wanton violation of its provisions, appeal to a "higher law" than written constitutions -- that same "higher law" that has been appealed in every period of the world's history to justify the most horrid outrages upon individual as well as national rights. What extort a guarantee from a people who trample on all law and violate with impunity the sacred provisions of a written constitution? Folly - worse than folly - it is imbecility and cowardice, to want or even to ask for guarantees from such a people! All that could be done (and more than ever ought to have been done) has been done and conceded by the South to appease this angry, exorbitant, fanatical spirit of the North, and a nothing is now left for us but quiet, peaceable secession, if we can -- violent and forcible secession, if we must.
There may, and no doubt will be, some inconveniences attending the separation at the outset, but what of that? We find ourselves in a partnership with a selfish, unscrupulous set of partners, and we must expect to lose something in extricating ourselves from their grasp. Did our fathers stop to count the cost when the question of honor or dishonor was presented to them in the issues of the Revolutionary war with Old England? They did not, nor should we in the struggle for our honor and rights with New England. What if they should in view of the imminent danger to their commerce and manufacturing interests, ? their Legislatures to repeal all their laws codifying the Fugitive Slave Law of Congress? What would that amount to in the way of securing our rights in the Territories, or rendering our property more safe from their thieving commissaries when they have taught their people in the school room and from the pulpit that it is no crime to steal our slaves, but a burning shame and damning sin to suffer us to reclaim them? They might to-morrow repeal all their laws against the rendition of fugitive slaves, and yet, udner the teachings of their clergy adn politicians, not a slave less would be stolen from the South, nor a fugitive more be recovered by his master. Talk of honor or safety in such a Union! The idea is absurd. I hope those gallant States which have taken the initiative will not cease nor stop short of a total and final separation, leaving the laggard States of the South to choose between political degradation and dishonorable submission to Northern despotism, or a bold, manly alliance with the gallant chivalrous South -- where the rights of all will be respected, and a common interest and common destiny will mark their progress through all coming time.
Nov. 18, 1860 North-West
Having noticed in your paper a letter to the Charleston "Courier," from the daughters of Carolina, we hope you will insert the enclosed lines, expressing the sentiments of one, we believe of many, of the women of Virginia. We fully agree with our South Carolina sisters, and if any of the luke-warm sons of the "Old Dominion," find themselves wanting in the courage or resolution necessary to defend her rights, they may learn both from her daughters.
Messrs. Editors: -- I have a proposition to make to the women of Virginia, through your columns; it is that until these political difficulties are settled, until the North acknowledges and submits to our rights, we shall not buy one shred, ribbon or string of Northern manufacture or importation.
You know the pulse passing through the pocket, is the one that goes straightest to the Yankee heart. Let us withhold every drop of Southern treasure from this vein until their hearts cease to throb with impudence and insult. I do not propose to throw aside the purchases already made for teh exclusive use of home manufacture, there would be no wisdom in that; but with what we have, and by the aid of home manufacture; we make no new purchases until these troubles are over. She is no true woman who cannot make old things look almost as good as new. If the siege lasts five, ten, fifteen or twenty years, let us be faithful, and she who, holding to this resolution, looks neatest shall deserve as much praise and envy as was won by the Fat Man of Londonderry in 1689. By that time Virginia will perhaps have decided upon some course of action, or, what is more probable, others will have decided for her. What means this lethargy in the once prominent Old Dominion? Surely "there must be something rotten in Denmark."
Has Virginia, the mother of great men, no son to take the lead in this conflict? For those behind seem to cdry "forward," while those before cry "back." How long has South Carolina surpassed us in looking through the millstone? Can she see coming disasters one whole year before us? Twelve months ago she proposed the Conference which Virginia, then hooted, but will probably agree to the Conference which Virginia, then hooted, but will probably agree to next January. The brave little State now refuses to go into conference with us. Heretofore I have been proud to say, "I am from Virginia," hereaftter, I fear I must hang my head in shame when the question of my nativity is asked. I have one other proposition to make, if we do submit to Black Republican rule, when Mr. Lincoln comes around to collect his "black mail," if, in the hurry and confusion of business, one diminutive Cuffy should be overlooked, I propose that a committee of six, composed of the principle submissionists, shall take him into custody and never draw rein until Lincoln is overtaken and Cuffy safely delivered. Thus, like the Revolutionary mother, who sent the solitary drake flying after the red coats, I would see that the rogues make a clean sweep.
Note: From the Lynchburg Republican
There are some politicians in Virginia whom South Carolina could not satisfy let her course be what it may. Last winter, when she sought conference, consultation and co-operation with Virginia to act in concert with the Southern States, these men denounced South Carolina with unmeasured bitterness for seeking consultation and conference. And now when that State has acted for herself alone, not risking again the insult of rejected counsels, these same men denounce the State for not consulting Virginia.
We predicted last winter that the rejection of the Conference would entail unnumbered woes upon the South and the Union, that when Black Republicanism had triumphed, South Carolina would not again ask conference, and that when the opponents of Mr. Memminger's mission called for a Southern Convention South Carolina would not respond. All these things have come to pass. Most respectable opponents of the Southern conference last winter are the advocates of a Southern Convention now. Had they acted wisely then, the Union would now be in the enjoyment of peace and quiet. But they thought proper to spurn South Carolina in the hope of building up a Union party at the North, and when that has signally failed, these same men denounce South Carolina for not consulting them the second time.
We refer to this rejection of the conference last winter, not for the purpose of animadversion, but as warning to all parties, that errors of the past may be, as far as possible, redeemed in the future. The experience of the past may do much good, if wisely regarded by the approaching session of the Legislature. The continued abuse of South Carolina does no good to the cause of the Union in Virginia. -- On the contrary, it is calculated to arouse sympathy adn feeling for her cause, and impels the people to use every exertion to place Virginia by her side. Men may regret her position, (we do not) and yet abstain from useless vituperation. Black Republicans at the North are at present fully engaged in this matter, and it would be well for newspapers at the South to leave to them a monopoly of all such abuse.
It is not difficult to deal seriously with the flimsy pretext of those who presume to denounce, as if ex cathedra the course of South Carolina.
That the State has chosen to act promptly and effectually for herself, and without consultation or conference with other States, is easily explained, and instead of vitaperative censure, is entitled to the highest eulogy and warmest gratitude from every true patriot. First, South Carolina did not twelve months since, request an inter-State conference and received, even at the hands of the Legislature of Virginia, the mortifying repulse of a refusal, which, hoever courteously worded, could be interpreted into nothing less than an assurance that even in the midst of common suffering and common danger, the authorities of Virginia deemed even friendly conference with South Carolina, a thing to be not only avoided, but summarily rejected. In a word, South Carolina, tendering an act of close alliance and generous sympathy, was repelled with an unmistakable expression of distrust. We say it in no ? spirit, but in the humility of sincere thankfulness, we rejoice that no blame for this error can be laid at our door. We can sincerely add, that we believe the step was taken in contravention of the popular will of Virginia.
There is yet another and still weightier reason for South Carolina's omission to consult and confer with other Southern State, before taking the final step of effectual resistance. It is, that the time for consultation and deliberation has passed, and the time for action has arrived. We have not time to secure co-operation in counsel and in action among fifteen States, before proceeding to effective measures of resistance. Every month's delay weakens us, by the continued prostration of commerce and industry. And an attempt to secure beforehand the combined action of the South, would only result in placing the true men of the South at the mercy of all the obstacles, obstructions, impediments, delays adn disadvantages, which a host of triflers and trimmers, and an additional multitude of timid or treacherous "deliberatives" would be only too sure to throw in the way.
The time for effectual action has arrived; and at the right time, South Carolina has promptly volunteered to lead in action. It is an act of which every one of her sons may well be proud. Her whole history shows no brighter or more glorious page. Indeed, it is questionable whether the history of the world can produce another such example, of the whole people of a Sovereign State springing so promptly and unanimously to the vindication of her insulted dignity.
At one bound, this gallant little State has reached a position preeminent to that of all her sister States. It is a proud position, and heavy with the responsibility of her own destiny and that of the whole confederacy. May the God of truth and patriotic duty strengthen her to sustain the burden she has assumed. -- A faltering or a backward step on the part of South Carolina, at this time, would work terrible evils to the South and to the Union.
As to her form of action -- any man of common sense and ordinary powers of observation could have divined at once, that when South Carolina should attempt ultimate resistance to Northern aggression, she would resort to an act of secession. It is the mode of resistance to which her people have been educated to look for many years. And still the most deferential action which she could have adopted towards her sister States of the South. Any other mode of active or efficient resistance, on her part, would at once have involved every Southern State in immediate revolution. As it is, she has left them as free as she could leave them to "deliberate," and finally to take sides with her, or against her, or to stand neutral, if they should choose.
The paltry pretence that her mode of ation has been dictated by a cowardly desire to avoid the dangers of armed collision, to which other Southern States may be exposed in the vindication of their rights of the Union, is too flimsy to merit serious consideration. The very men who dare to insinuate such a charge against the brave people of a sovereign State, must know that whenever Virginia shall cross swords with a Northern enemy in defence of her rights in the Union, or out of the Union, the blood and treasure of South Carolina will be as freely offered for our assistance, as though we had never repelled her overtures, or slighted her example.
To the Editors of the Enquirer:
Louisa, Dec. 13
Gentlemen: -- Allow an humble individual to suggest a plan for quieting the fearful political sectional strife now pervading the United States. Let the Missouri Compromise line be established to the Pacific, as the division forever between the free States and the slave States, by an amendment to the Constitution, and no free State ever to be formed South of that line without the consent of all the slave States, and no slave State North of that line without the consent of all the free States. That would be a compromise -- a fair and equitable one -- which would end the strife of all Wilmot Provisos and Emigrant Aid Societies. The original Missouri Compromise has been the fruitful source of all the agitation of the slavery question. It never was a compromise, but a swindle -- the North taking all our rights North of the line, and yielding none of theirs South of it. The people of the Northern States have no more interest in slavery in the South than they have in Siberia. Slaves are property by the Constitution, and existed as such before the Constitution. The people of a Territory, or even of a State, have no more right, without the unanimous consent of the owners, to abolish property in slaves, than they have to abolish the right to hold lands, horses, cattle, and every other kind of property.
The organization of Abolition societies in one State to operate on the institutions of another is clearly treasonable, and the raid of John Brown and his confederates has proved it, and ought to subject all his accomplices, siders and abettors to the same punishment he received. The Northern States ought, by an amendment to the Constitution, to be required to suppress the anti-slavery agitation by penal laws, and if they fail or refuse to do it, to be subject to excommunication, or expulsion from the Union by the other States. If this plan were carried out there would be no secession, and the Union would be peace and prosperity to all sections forever.
For thirty years we have been talking and hearing about effective resistance to Northern aggression. Public meetings, Congressional speeches, legislative-last-extremity resolutions have succeeded each other, time and again, to be smothered in compromises and shifts, and, in all cases hitherto, to actual concessions sufficiently important to invite further aggression. This sort of thing has finally involved, not only imminent danger, but actual and serious outrage; and, finally, worst of all, contempt -- Northern contempt for Southern threats and Southern courage.
At any time, and ACT of resistance would have sufficed to check and regel the tide of injury and opprobrium. We have waited long for it -- it has been sorely needed; it has come at last. Yesterday, at one o'clock, P.M., the sovereign State of South Carolina finally resolved to sever all connection with a confederacy which has failed to secure her sovereign dignity and equality. Three times three for the FIRST ACT of State resistance to degrading oppression!
At present nothing ssems more probable than that actual conflict will precede that negotiation between the States, which alone, sooner or later, must settle their relations, whether the final issue shall eventuate in the preservation, the permanent dismemberment, or the final reconstruction of the Union.
There is something at fault here. Why are not the States in a position to undertake promptly that "last effort for the peaceable maintenance of the Union," about which Southern submissionists so constantly prate, and which their vis inertia obstruction is so eminently calculated to prevent? There seems to be, throughout the entire North, and among a large number of citizens of the border States of the South, a timorous unwillingness to bring State sovereignties face to face in the work of negotiation.
In the South, the reason is briefly explicable. The obstructionists of the South are simply submissionists--so eager and watchful, too, in their desire for submission, most frequently tinctured more or less with a silent sympathy for the anti-slavery cause--that they not only fear to risk a conference with Southern States, some of which they openly profess to distrust; but they are even afraid to trust the evident disposition of their own people. Fearful that the majority of the people in Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky will, if permitted to speak at all, speak out boldly against the submissionist policy, they are busily employing all their efforts to prevent any and all forms for the organized expression of the sovereign will.
Should a Northern State, indeed, organize a Convention and demand an inter-State Conference, these Southern submissionists would feel [illegible]. [illegible] the Northern States have it really in their power at any moment to silence the opposition now urged by our submissionists, and thus to secure a prompt and almost unanimous popular demand for State Conventions in our border States.
But the impediments in the way of sovereign State action, are much more complex and more serious at the North than at the South. First, the call of a State Convention in any Northern State would involve a partial confession of error on the part of some portion of the Black Republican majority. Again, the Black Republican leaders have very serious reason to fear that such a movement might give the ascendency to conservative sentiment and lead to a final adjustment on the basis of an entire adherence to the reasonable demands of the South concerning the execution of the fugitive slave law, the repeal of anti-slavery enactments for the District of Columbia, the protction of Southern citizens travelling and sojourning at the North accompanied by their slaves, and the full and equal protection of slave property in all the Territories of the Union. In which event, they have the entire certainty before them, of the annihilation of the Republican party.
But this is not all. The mass of the Northern people, of all parties, may be said to have no definite conception whatever of the doctrine of State sovereignty. They are accustomed to regard their State governments as merely provincial establishments, and altogether subsidiary to the Federal Government. With a very few honorable exceptions, even the strongest heads and most honest thinkers among their political leaders, frequently commit blunders which would shame a college boy in Virginia, when they attempt to treat abstractly on the subject of inter-State relations. The idea of a State Convention assembled to consider federal affairs, (thanks to the manifold blunders of Kent, Story, & Co., and their influence on the hundreds who have studied their teachings, and the tens of thousands who have not,) is one which our Northern brethern have not yet learned to comprehend. Indeed, both to teachers and taught, and untaught, such a thought smacks of nothing less than treason.
It is, we fear, a gordian knot--very difficult to untie; but, if not soon untied, it must be cut.
The want of co-operation between the border and cotton States arises chiefly from the belief of the former that they are in the minority and would be out-voted by the latter, and bound to any policy adopted by them. So far from this being the case, the border slave States are largely in the majority, and in the event of uniting with the cotton States, would have the power to control Southern action.
According to the figures of the New York "Herald," the total vote in the South at the recent Presidential election was 1,284,224, of which the border States of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri cast 717,448; and the cotton States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas cast 566,776; thus, showing over 150,000 majority in the border States a preponderance amply sufficient to prevent the re-opening of the slave trade, or any measure unfavorable to our interests. Such being the case, every motive of policy as well as patriotism should prompt us to unite with our brethern farther South before it is too late. We have the same interests and our Union would give a strength and power to Southern demands that the North, if possessed of any conservatism or fraternal feeling, could not resist.
Our readers will see from the telegraphic dispatches of yesterday and of this morning's "Enquirer," that the hope of settlement and adjustment has been abandoned in Washington. The madness that rules in the mind of Black Republicanism will never permit peace to be restored, and the Union to be preserved; bent on Southern subjugation, no compromise that would protect Southern rights and Southern honor will be permitted by Mr. Lincoln and his party. We are offered the alternative of submission or subjugation, and the organs of Black Republicanism evince a criminal indifference to the decision at which the South may arrive.
How long will Maryland and Virginia delay, before taking steps to protect their people and institutions from the people and institutions from the powers of th eFederal Government, prostituted to a reckless fanaticism? If the Governor of Maryland, influenced by timidity or actuated by treachery, shall longer delay to permit the people of that State to protect themselves, can there not be found men bold and brave enough to unite with Virginians in seizing the capitol at Washington and the Federal defences within the two States?
Why wait? Why delay? What hope can any reasonable man entertain of peace from Mr. Lincoln? has not organ after organ, from the Journal of Springfield to the Tribune at New York, emphatically announced his purpose? Has not friend after friend been authorized by Lincoln to foreshadow his policy, and have they not discharged their trust with singular fidelity? Has not the platform of principles which denies every Southern right, and dishonors every Southern State, been distinctly re affirmed since the elections by the friends and confidants of Mr. Lincoln and the organs of the party as the certain and inevitable policy of the next administration? Have we not been unmistakeably informed that the South must submit to that policy as far as the power to enforce it exists with the Republicans? Can the Southern States pretend ignorance as to the purpose of coercion if they do not submit? To us it seems the part of wisdom to promptly decide whether Virginia will submit or resist. Perhaps peace may be purchased at the sacrifice of honor by submission! We know many submissionists will ask "What is honor?" They hold with Falstaff that "discretion is the better part of valor."
If the people of Virginia will be content with the peace of Black Republicanism, let it be quickly announced; perhaps it may restore trade, and relieve, in part, the financial depression that now prostrates the energy of the country. If submission has not been determined upon, resistance should be quickly began. If Virginia does not intend to submit, it is worse than folly, it is wickedness to permit the means, implements and powers of aggression to pass into the hands of those publicly pledged, and who have blatantly announced their purpose to turn against the State all the energies of power deposited by Virginia with the Federal Government: Virginia is told, if she behaves herself, Mr. Lincoln will not hurt her, but she is also told how she must behave, and if she does not behave as she is ordered, then Mr. Lincoln's friends and organs publicly announce that he will turn against the State the powers she intrusted to the Federal Government for her "defence," her "tranquility," and her "welfare." Since the speech of Mr. Wade, of Ohio, and the pronunciamento of the Springfield "Journal," if Virginia and Maryland do not adopt measures to prevent Mr. Lincoln's inauguration at Washington, their discretion will be as much a subject of ridicule as their submission will be of contempt.