The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-07-15
THE SOUTHERN PRESS.
CITY OF WASHINGTON.
Political Morality.


article refers to the recent invasion of Cuba un.
der Gen. LorEz, and the manifestations of favor
towards him in the South:
| 1--we To add that most of the political dem
oralization known in the United States is found
in the South, We should perhaps say no more than
Is strictly true Ii is in the South alone that men
talk OF disunion, and make a common prattle of
things of treason, rebellion, and civil war. Ii is
| in the South that no one is amazed 10 hear gov
| eTnor OF Texas talk Of arming troops 10 seize
New Mexico out of the hands of the United
States; and in the Southland IN the national cap
ilal, because II happens 10 be in the South-that
party organ like the Washington Union, fattened
upon public jobs and hungering for more, is not
deemed very much out Of order for daily threaten
| ing one-half the people of the country with the
armed assault OF the other half because its editor
happens Ia be Southern man. In truth, politl-
cal decentralization has proceeded TO such length
ia this part OF the country that men have ceased
TO san and rave IN common wayi and piquancy
is sought in the greatest excess aud absurdity Of
wrong. Here men have formed for themselves
new faith, worshipping slavery a god; and this
has become superstition stronger than sense,
which 1t has banished, and religion, which it
overrides and renders subordinate. Liberty, re-
pubicanism, the common feeling and universal
opinion of the world, are as nothing, if in conflict
with the new divinity, with the notions of its
| worshippers; who eyince in this matter, phrenzy
| of utraism, enthusiasm of wickedness, like
] nothing else that has been known in the world
since the days Of the ancient Assassins, to whom
murder was religious rite, and bloodshed de-
i light and merit.
| We thank God that, whatever be our other
faults, there is no such political decentralization as
| this known north OF Mason's d Dickens line.
| We do not see foreign brgands and law-breakers
| in the free States We do not talk disunion,
mediate resistance TO the general government,
buil IN mn psfy nd AN liar In no
holiness OF bondage. The people of the North are
neither false to their country nor TO common sense
The question with them is whether this demorali-
zation ofthe South is to be yielded to- Whether
it should be allowed TO triumph Whether the re-
public with all the powers and interests of state
ought to be surrendered into its hands' We may
well question the wisdom, in any particular or for
any purpose, of compromising away single IN
teres of the country, single principle of freedom,
to the men who worship the new god--who pro-
pose to aid Texas in conquering New Mexico
from the United States--or who are SO anxious to
honor Gen. Lopez and sustain him against the
laws and government Of the American people.
Now the North Americans the leading Wing
paper of Pennsylvania-one of the most mode
rate and conservative of the Northern States
The North American affects to repudiate North
ern fanaticism, as well as to cant about South
ern ultraism. 1t deprecates Sectonalsm; and
breaches Nationalism. Yet it makes this attack
on the South wantonly, bitterly and groundless-
ly. Now, if any Southern paper had committed
such an assault on the North, the Northern press
would have denounced it rs sectional, ms agrees
sive, as factious, an incendiary attempt to
weaken the bonds of the Union, and excite the
passions of one portion of the country against
the other.
Although articles of this complexion are daily
appearing in the Northern papers, we, who are
accused of design to provoke sectional animos-
ity, have never said any thing comparable in bit
terness to this. 1t would be morally impossible
for us to utter any thing so untounded and cal
luminous.
The present government of Cuba is n despot-
ism, and it is therefore probable that the re-
ports which have reached this country as to the
discomfort of the people are true. Hence it is
natural that they should have the sympathy of a
| free people like ours; and their aid in any at
| tempt to overthrow that despotism. We our
selves have never advised nor encouraged the
employment of force for this purpose by any of
our people. We look upon it as one of the
tollies and curses of the day, that n DISPOSE
ton exists to interfere with the institutions of
foreign States, or of our own States. 1t is the
the times that any people can be made free by
external sympathy and Intervention. If peo-
pie lack the courage, capacity and virtue to free
themselves-they are not fit to be free and can
not be free, by any change Of government what
ever.
But there is, and was sympathy for Cuba,
and this would naturally be felt by the South
from proximity of position and of institutions.
Yet notwithstanding this, the first expedition for
Cuban invasion was fitted out at the North-in
New York-and was more numerous and for
midable than the little affair of six hundred men
that sailed from New Orleans under General
Lopez. 1t merely happened that the New York
was discovered by our Government
and suppressed in time-that of New Orleans
was not.
We had also few years ago Canadian re-
from the North, and to such an alarming extent,
that Government had to send an army to protect
foreign province from our citizens Yet the
North American with all these facts fresh in its
knowledge, deliberately charges the South to be
the exclusive seat of this kind of political inn
morality.
The North American tells US it is Sin the
South alone that no one is amazed to hear
Governor of Texas talk of arming troops to
seize New Mexico out of the hands of the Uni
ted States" Did the North American never
hear of Governor of Oho-a Northern State
that actually called out its force to expel the
United States territorial authority of Michigan
from small strip of disputed territory! And
is it not known that the United States retired
on that occasion! And is it not perfectly new
thing for the Federal Government to claim pos