Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1850-02-02

sibites, and provoked the same excitement, witt
hardly any thing to discriminate between the cir
cuinstances of that period and those of the presen
day. There is not, therefore, that we know of
any nsw ground of alarm for the South. Things ii
that respect stand now on precisely the same foot
ing as when the helm of Government passed
from the hands of President Polk into those
Of President TAYLOR During the Administration
of the former we heard not whisper about "a
dissolution of the Union" If there was such a
whisper, it was in the midnight consultations at the
Capitol, and in so low tone as never to have
reached our ears. What, then, has come over the
South What, especially, has come over the State
of Georgia, the State of North Carolina the State
of Virginia, and the State of Maryland? What is
the secret of all This note of preparation, Of all this
solemnity, and all this mystery!
Was this country, in all the extent of its latitude
and longitude, prosperous, tranquil in all
its borders, or so entirely in amity with all the
foreign world, as it now is
Is it this very prosperity-the absence Of pres
sure either from within or without, the need of ex-
element, the lassitude which follows the terminal
ton Of sanguinary though successful warts it
this, or all these, that has brought about state of
disaffection, which Heaven forbid that we should
speak or think lightly of-for we know it to be of
too serious character to be sported Without
which we are not the less incapable of compre-
bending Or is it to be accounted for upon the
principle, which some writers maintain to be law
Of nature, that certain degree Of turbulence and
restlessness is inseparable from the existence of
Liberty in any People!
!" There must" says Montesquieu, for example,
"of necessity have been factions in Rome for
how was il possible that those who abroad sub
dued all, by their undaunted bravery and by the
terror of their arms, should live in peace and
moderation at home I! To look for People in a
free State who are intrepid in war, and, at the
same time, timid in peace, is to look for an i'm
possibility; and we may hold it as general rule
\ that in State which possesses Republican
y form of Government, if the people are quiet and
peaceable, there is no real liberty" Were this the
rule by which the present unusual state OF dis
quiet in this Republic is to be Interpreted it would
be- at least far as it points ou cause for 1t, con-
solng, but far otherwise when it equally proves
that the disquiet is to have end or if ever end
ing, is to be ever again beginning But the trainers
of the Constitution, who were among the wisest of
men in that wisdom which experience can alone
teach, trusted that they had guarded against the tu
multuous character of the ancient Republics by the
establishment of frequent elections, in which the
most obscure Of the people has an equal voice with
the most potential the most eminent individual of
the community. 1t remains to be seen, in the issue
Of the pending question, whether the trainers of the
Constitution, in this calculation, relied too much
upon the virtue and constancy Of the people.
1t is enough, however, for the present pur-
pose, that the excitement exists, and to an ex-
tent, if it lead to no conclusion, to produce
embarrassment in the Legislative action Of the Gen.
eral Government, as well as Of several Of the State
Governments.
Desiring it to be distinctly understood that the
Editors of this paper are now, as they ever have
been, ready to uphold all the constitutional rights
OF the South-that, in their opinion, those rights
have been invaded in every instance of legislation,
by whatever State Government, which interposes
third clause of the second section of Art. Nv. of
the Constitution Of the United States-the Editors
do not doubt that the States whose rights have
been Invaded have right to complain of those acts
as aggressions, not upon the States in which they
reside, but upon their individual rights; and that
they are further aggrieved when taunts and insult
and denial of justice returned to those COM
plants, in the form Of Legislative Resolutions ofhe
States which have thus impeded their Constitu-
tional rights. They believe, in word, that the
several States have no more right to pass laws to
prevent or obstruct the recovery of fugitives from
States in which, according to the fundamental law
Of those States, they are held to service or labor,
than they have to enter into foreign alliances or
treaties, to engage in war, to grant titles of no
blity, or to exercise any other power expressly
denied to them by the Constitution. But the Edi-.
tors believe, also, that much Of the annoyance
which the People of the Southern States suffer, as
well by the Legislative action of the States as by
the interference of individuals with the slave popu-
lation, is owing to the passion and vehemence
with which they have assailed, without discrimi-
nation, the whole Northern population for offences
which are those Of individuals merely, and for
which, in general, that population is not at all
chargeabe or responsible. And they believe, finally,
that, for the punishment Of all offences against their
rights or peace and tranquility within their limits,
the States Of the South competent now they
can become by any process Of revolutionary or
nature, and that for all offences
within other States against their constitutional rights,
the Courts of the United States afford them the same