New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-11-20
Disunion-HEow 10 be Averted.


Dismniola-HEow 10 be Averted.
The Nashville Convention has not quite
effected the dissolution of the Union, but it
has achieved something quite as much to
the purpose, by dissolving itself. 1t has
gone of with very tame explosion, and
we presume its ghost will no longer disqui-
ct the slumbers of the most nervous old la
dies. The whole movement was farce,
and very clumsy one. The office-seek-
ers of South Carolina are thoroughly dis
loyal to the Union, and have infected their
brethren of Mississippi with their views
There are few of the same sort in Georgia
and Alabama, Beside South Carolina and
possibly Mississippi, there is not State in
the South that would secede from the
Union if freely permitted to do so. Ken
lucky, Tennessee and Louisiana would vote
five to one against such proposition. Vir-
qinia and North Carolina nearly the same.
If the door of the Union were held wide
open for their egress, South Carolina might
coax Mississippi to step out with her. but
never another State-and there would be a
desperate and doubtful struggle in Missis-
sippi. There would scarcely be an organ
lied attempt to secede in any States but
these and Georgia.
And now that the Nashville Convention
has thus flashed, we desire to give, once
for all, om own notions of the course to be
taken by the Free States in order to pre-
serve the Union perpetual.
And first, the Union cannot be preserved
by parleying with treason and shivering at
the phantom of secession. 1t will never
be preserved by unworthy concessions to
slavery Our thoughts are frce-our con-
victions are ntrammeed-and so they
must remain. If the South dislikes any of
our institutions or ways, let her say so
frankly; if she should ever see fit to send
missionaries here to convert US to her way
of thinking, we will treat them with cour-
tesy and hear them with interest. On the
other hand, she may hear us or not, butwe
will not be muzzled-will not deny our
selves the privilege of speaking. No Union
is possible on any basis of Gag-Law; but
there must be perfect freedom of utter
ance on both sides.
Next, there must be an end of conces-
sons extorted by a minority by threats of
violence and rebellion. That Texas Boun-
dairy bill, under the circumstances attend
ing its passage, was perfect magazine of
treason. To give State Ten Millions
from apprehension that she will raise q re-
bellion if not paciied, is to offer premium
for notification and civil war. Let there
be no more of this.
Legislative questions must be submitted
in good faith to Congress, Judicial Ques-
tons to the Supreme Court, and the deci-
sion legally rendered must be acquiesced
in. All talk of forcible resistance should
be treated with cool contempt, All the
Fictitious Importance given to the Dis
unionists, whether by Political or Com
mercial panic-makers, is just so much
added to their consequence and their pow
er. There would never have been half so
many Quattlebum overhowings in South
Carolina but for the notice they attracted,
the comment they provoked, in the press of
other States.
Finally, we of the Free States must in
sist that the General Government shall be
administered in the spirit of its declared OBJ
jects-to extend the blessings not of Slave
ny but of Liberty. The South did not feel
aggrieved when Slavery was expressly ox-
Guided by law from all the Territory North
West of the Ohio. Had the South then
believed Slavery good to be difused it
would have insisted on a stipulation in the
Constitution formed about the time the Or
dinance of 1887 was passed by the last
Continental Congress) that new Slave
States should be entitled to admission as
we'll ms Free. md TINT half tbn TERRITORY