Daily Richmond times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1849-1850, 1850-05-25
From the Charlottesville Republican.
LETTER OF B. J. BARBOUR, ESQ.
BARBoURsvlLLE, Nav 18th. 1870

BARBoURsvlLLE, May 18th, 1850
James Alexander, Esq:
SIR Il have the honor to acknowledge the re-
ceipt of your letter of the 8th instant, enclosing
the certificate of my appointment as delegate to
Nashville, by the District Convention which met
at Charlottesville on the 18th.
Grateful as am for the unmerited honor con-
terred upon me- am compelled by many consi-
derations to decline it, An engagement which
have made for the 18th of June, would of itself
| prevent my acceptance of the position assigned
me, but there are other reasons which, with your
permission, will proceed to state as briefly as
possible.
Allow me, however, in advance to say, that !
have seen nothing to shake my conviction of the
necessity for Convention of the whole Southern
people. | concurred fully and entirely in the
views of the Mississippi State Convention as pre-
sented in their resolutions 1t seemed to me that
a point had been reached in our national existence.
where manly spirit proper regard for constitu-
uonal equality, nay, even the dictates of self-pre-
servaton demanded from us a stern resistance to
the Entertainments of the North. With deep af-
lection for the Union saw the rights of my own
particular section menaced, and | could not hest
tate for moment in deciding where my allegiance
belonged. If in the madness of fanacism a line
was to be drawn, would cling to that smaller cir
Gle which contains all that is nearest and dearest
ted and energetic action when | saw ''Northern
tanaticism, and Northern cupdity coming hand in
hand to the plumber and desolaon of the SOUTH
Our property had been taken--the planest provi-
slons OF the constitution had been violated bv
Northern citizens and Northern legislatures, and
trembled for the safety of the Union when saw
lust OF power taking the garb of humanity. and
philanthropy, and medltating fresh insult and in
Jury, In the exclusion of every Southern man from
the territories belonging to the whole Union, and
In which every State has an undivided interest
Nor could resist the conviction that the exclusion
OF slavery from the territories was only prelude
| to an attack upon the institution in the States
From the results of emancipation in Hayti ia
| maica, and British Guiana, had learned to doubt
| how far freedom was blessing to the negro, and
| especially was | convinced that it would be mad
ness to attempt it here. believe that the North,
giving it credit even for full sincerity was follow
| ing the phantom ola false and futile philanthropy
That if successful here, they would only liberate
four or five millions in the United States to give
| fresh impulse to the slave trade of Cuba and Bra
zil-and to rivet the chains upon tens of millions
in Africa, and hundreds of millions in India The
leading powers OF Europe, but more especially
England and France Jealous of the power welded
by our Southern States in the production of cotton
and the revenue which tobacco brings to Virgin
ia and the slaveholding States of the West are
striving by every means to draw from their own
dependencies adequate supplies of these great
| staples, which with few other productions of the
tropics, or of adjacent belts of the temperate zone,
constitute the basis of commerce. | need not
speak of the efforts of England in India, where
in spite of Curran's magnificent flight we see that
liberty is not exactly Commensurate with, and
inseparabc from British soil" The Sikh finds
that the spirit of the British Constitution" does
notresore the liberties ''cloven down in disastrous
battle"--the Genius of universal Emancipation