Liberty advocate. [volume] (Liberty, Miss.) 1835-1866, 1837-12-26

Vaults and gripping their resources. The
Result was distress every where, panic,
and the suspension of specie payments
These certainly were not all the causes of
our present embarrassment; bat, we're it
not for the Legislative usurpations OF Con-
grs IS, do not believe the catastrophe UNI
der which we suffer would have been pro-
duced. And what, sir, would have been
the situation Of this country if South Car
Dina had not nullifed your tariff laws,
and the compromise bill had not passed?
Instead Of thirty-oight millions, there
would have been upwards of one hundred
millions Of surplus revenue in the banks,
under the control Of the usurping and cor
.Tupt Executive the gentleman has so
strongly denounced. Could the liberties
of the country have survived such a state
of things! Could the deposite banks ever
have repaid the money?-and if they
could, after it had formed the basis of an
immense issue of paper, who will measure
The ruin the sudden abstraction OF such a
capital from the banks would have pro-
duced, in combination with the other
causes which have Frustrated the country.
But the gentleman from kentucky over
looks these immense benefits resulting
from the compromise bill; and can only
see in this measure, the design ito arrest
treason, and save the genius and chlvalry
ofthe South from an ignominlous gallows,"
Sir, to know whether the gallows would
have been gnominious in such a cause, it
is necessary to understand it, What was
il?
For ten years, from 1922, when William
Lowndes, filling the very representation
now occupy, declared upon this floor that
the South was more heavily taxed than any
people upon earth,) in person, or through
our representatives, we demonstrated a.
gainst your unjust and unconstitutional OPP
preston. Instead Of relaxing, We saw
your policy grow stronger by time; and,
brlbed by its operation, those who were
once with us in denouncing it, made com
mon cause with our old opponents in the
effort to riyetitupon US forever. At length,
all confidence in your justice slowly, reluc-
family departed; and the melancholy and
stern conviction was forced upon us that
we must right urselves--aIone must right
ourselves. South Carolina met the emer-
gency in which you placed her as it be-
came her. She nuliied your tariff laws.
And did you then enforce them? No! and
why? Sir, | will tell you: you dared not.
Il is one thing to sit here upoa well stuffed
hair-seated chairs, and legisate the pro-
perty of the South into the pockets of more
favored sections; and ii is another to collect
your black mail by the sword And did
we commit treason by this act? The gen
tleman from KENTUCKY says so, and that
The compromise bill was intended 10 arrest
ii. Sir, if it was treason, it was treason
hatched in kentucky, that gentlcman's
native State, and practiced by Virginia
when she nullified the sedtion law: AMI
Thomas Jefferson, Madison, Rowan, Nicho-
las, and Macon, were some Of the arch
traitors who taught or committed it.
Mr.. Chairman, will vindicate the
fathers from the asperSiol Of their sons.
These men were not traitors. They were
those VINO, in 1901, in the language of Mr..
Jefferson, "saved the constitution in its last
gasp" from the strangling hands of con-
soIldationists. They were not traitors.
but wise and intrepid statesmen-the great
fathers Of the republican party, by whose
sagaclty and energy this Union now ex-
lists. We're it not for the principles Of
this party, and the watchfulness and OBJ
position of the South, this constitution
would long since have been frittered away
by constructions, and this government, be-
coming one vast consolidated despotism,
would have left no alternative to the free
but to dissolve it. We but carried out
conscientiously carried out-the great
principles Of the republican party; and
when you thought fit, by your comprom-
Use bill, to give way before our armed re-
sistance, the gentleman from Kentucky
says that it was ito save the genius and
chivalry of the South from an ignominious
gallows." Sir, we certainly should be
vastly grateful for the tragic benevolence
OF these disinterested phiIanthropists, who
manifested on this occasion so noble dis
regard for their own safety and such ten
der consideration for ours. Whilst pas
slye, ''tho genius and chivalry Of the
South appealed in vain to their sensbil-
tiles; but no sooner was it aroused by their
selfish expressions, than all their melting
sympathies ovcrfowed for its salvation.
Sir, the gentleman has done gross injus-
tice to himself in utterng such sentiments.
they are only worthy the bigot or the
slave; Of mind which can tolerate no
difference Of opinion, or which succumbs
TO any. The gentleman should have van
pushed before he vaunted, and possessed
himselfof the mantle Of success, to cover
over the hideous lneaments Of cowardice
and oppression which marked his cause.