The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-07-24
WASHINGTON CITY.
WEDNESDAY. JULY "a. 1850.

~ MR. .hHETTS speech, as revised by himself,
will be found in another column We deem it
but an act of simple justice to this gentleman,
so fiercely assaulted where he had no opportu-
nifty of being heard in vindication, to give his
own views in his own language. We are yet
to learn that the free and open expression of in
dividual opinion all questions Of public poll
cy is to be denied to any citizen of this Repub-
lic--or that gag is to be forced into the mouths
of freemen. A renewal Of the old Alien and
Sedition Laws, SO Justly odious at an early
period of our National existence, would be the
only effectual mode of enforcing such a slavish
creed The cry of treason" or the appellation
of 'traitor," can have no power to check the ut
terance of opinions honestly entertained par
ticularly when there prevails so wide difference
as to the persons and the policy to which they
most properly apply.
Treasonimplies treachery-a betrayal Of trust,
an abandonment of allegiance. Does the term
apply more properly to those over-zealous for
the maintenance of their Constitutional rights,
or to those who would compromise or surrender
them!
IS The argument of epithet, the appeal to pop
ular prejudices, may be cheap substitutes for
reason and argument-but they are no tests of
truth, and when unfounded recoil on the heads
of those who resort to them.
AS free citizen of free Republic, Mr.. Rhett
has the undoubted right Of giving utterance to
his honest convictions. If these convictions be
erroneous, argument, not abuse, is the test to
apply to them--if they be not entirely unjusti-
fable, then the attempt to stihe them by vitupcr-
alton will be utterly idle and impotent-comc
from what quarter it may.
They are not always the most unselfsh pa
triots who pay lip service to the Institutions
and to the system which their own acts aid in
undermining are not the truest friends to
the people who blink the truth, and raise an out
cry at every effort made to withdraw the veil
that conceals the real features of crisis.
Whether Mr.. Rhett is over jealous or not
whether he exaggerates the evils and dangers
besetting the Southern States, and mistakes the
remedy, one thing at least is certain, he does not
fail in his allegiance, where allegiance should be
paramount he is true to his State, to his section
to the common Constitution of our common
country, and only counsels disunion because
he believes return to the principles on which
that Union was founded impossible
Those who seek to stifle discussion or dictate
the bondsman's key of whispered humbleness
to Southern men, mistake or have forgotten the
spirit that has been transmitted through line of
revolutionary ancestors, whose loyalty was ever
to the substance Of freedom not its forms, who
loved Gas their sons still do) the government
under which they lived, but priced justice and
equality more highly still.
Whether Mr.. Rhett fully represents the SEN
timent of the people of South Carolina, neither
we nor any one else have had any satisfactory
mode of knowing-and though it has become
common thing to denounce the people of that
gallant State as being disloyal to the Union.
their history proves, that from the Revolution to
the present day, no national quarrel has arisen
in which she has not furnished her full quota
(ay and more,) and the bones of her sons vet
bleaching on the battle fields of Mexico should
shield her from this libel on the living and the
dead.
r