The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-12-07
From yours increasingly,
JOHN BROWN, Ferryman
From the Columbus (Ga.) Times

THE WAsHNroN UNIoN-The Editor of the
Union" charges the Times" with "displaying
a yaclation in its views which we Chez did not
expect from its energetic editor" No one but
Mr. Richie himself has made this discovery.
Ever since the adoption by Congress OF the III
famous measure of the so called Compromise,
which Mr.. Ritchie contributed so largely to enact,
we have steadily held that the South could es-
cape from wrong and disgrace by only one way
Succession. We wrote to our immediate re-
preventative. Judge Wellborn0 two months be-
fore these bills passed, that we should consider
their passage as such clear evidence of the fixed
purpose of the North to destroy and degrade the
South, that if they became laws, we should be
obliged openly to advocate secession in our COL
umns. So soon rs they became laws, we kept
our word, and immediately wrote an article, en-
titled The Georgia Conventon-Secesslon the
Remedy" We have since seen cause to
change, or even to modify our opinion of the
neces sty of this remedy. We can see no hope
elsewhere The wrongs of the past, are as re-
NEEDLESS as they are objectionable. The whole
sale territorial robbery is consumated and cannot
be undone. The Texas bribe is offered and ae-
cepted-the usurpation of the power Of Con-
Dress to "liberafe and free a slave is complete,
and even a repeal of the law does not repeal the
precedent Northern anti-slavery sentiment Is
deep-seated and irradicable-in short, the Union
copartnership is a failure, its articles OF agree
ment violated, its benefits monopollzed by ma
joriy Of the partners and its burthens and trials
borne by a minority of them. OF what use is
such Union to the South ! How can 1t con-
tinue and end but in the final enslayement of the
South, by Northern masters!
The Washington Union has the audacity to
maintain. the practcability of enforcing the Fugl
tive BILL at the North. He says it is the fuAA
of Southern claimants and their agents when it
fails lie has brass enough to cite the Boston
case and imputes indecision and cowardice to
Hughes and Knight as the causes of their failure
to reclaim Crafts and his wife. He had not
seen Hughes statement We call on him to
publish it, that his readers may see how COM
pletely this veteran Virgiuirn has turned his
back on the South and how infatuated he is in
his submissonism, when he ventures in the lace
Of the history of the Fugitive bill, to tell his
Southern readers that it is an efficient and ope
rative measure for their relief against the perfdy
and injustice of the North. While Mr.. Richie
is catechising us, pray, will he answer us one
question! 1t is this Whence does he derive
the material of which he composes his clustering
threats against the North, of what the South
,c;H do, in case the healing Compromise is vio-
lated Certainly, he does not expect the North
to fall into a nervous fit Of apprehension that he
pise the ypporiugs of Virginia submissonst
to the vikings Of the past, and laugh to scorn
his menaces of tre-eatiug in the future. Whence,
then, does he draw the artillery of the vengeance,
and dsunion, which he is daily letting of at the
North! Why, from the resistance party at the
South-frnm the "Columbns TIN 81" from us.
the "lunatic editor" the "hot-hended Georgian
and those true hearted Southrons, who have
stood by us in the midst Of the storm of North
ern injustice and the detection of the Ritchies
and others, who ought to have been the deten-
ders of the South Mr.. Richie rdicules and
villifes the Southern PATRIOTS and then steals
their bolts to hurl in defiance at the North. But
for them, how silly, how vapid and contemplate
would be the solemn warnings which he pours
forth with such vehement garrulity! Where
would he be, and what would he be, and where
would the South be, if all the South were sub
missionists like the Virginia q editor Of the
Washington Union!