The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-10-15
The Peace Measures. !"


y 57el The peace Measures" II s,',s..,
! The storm which now convuses the who'll
Il country, North and South, in consequence O
I the passage of the series of acts facetiousl
/ styled athe measures Of paci6cation!" afford
' the best commentary on the real character o
those measures The result also furnishes ad
ditional proofs of the hoilowness of the pretexs
under cover OF which they Were pushed through
when the entering wedge of the Texas parti
ton had opened the way for their easy passage
The great cry ever on the lips of Mr.. Clay, and
taken up by his echoes, little and less--was
the danger Of continuance of excitement
! awful consequences that would speedily ensue
were this excitement and "agitation" not allayed
. and people with weak nerves shook in Their
shoes at the visions of Civil War and fraternal
strife, conjured up BY the preachers of paci6ca.
tion-by: force, .......
The country itself was repeatedly referred to
(rather disrespectfuly as we thought as "dis,
tracted" and nothing but the blistering of its
Southern members by the five plasters prepared
by the Thirteen could bring it to its sober
crisis, that one Senator det Jared that the Union
would make positively its last appearance" in
six days time-and the organs of the Compro-
mise all serted aloud and spared not" in like
lamentations.
In short, panic was sought to be manu-
featured for the Occasion; and so emphatic were
the panic-makers that many good simple souls
believed they were in earnest, and actually ap.
pretending some dreful disaster from tn,
least delay in legislation, aided to swell the
alarm which assisted the Compromises, witt
the cry Of Union ever on their lips to tramp,
its charter, the Constitution, under foot and
with it the rights the liberties, and the honor OF
seven millions OF freemen. ,..,...
The same stab which those compromises in.
dicted on the Constitution, has smitten the very
heart of the country, for the vital principle
this Union is that Constitution, the one can EMO,
no healthy life while functions of the other arein
terfered with, and when forcbe disruption takes
pl ce, men who cling to the Union that remains
embrace only a galvanized and CHASTITY corpse,
the soul Of which has fed. .':-
To no such schemes Of miscalled compro
mise did We lend our sanction--to no sucl
infractions on the sealed charter of their ber
lies will Southern people submit. And tn,
mt Of the Compromises can delude even
the bndest Of heir votaries no more-fol
behold the end of their predctons-wtness
| The peace they promised as the instant effect OF
their compromised Mr.. WEBSTER, Mr. CLAY
| and Mr. CAss could declare, in substance, il no,
in words, to the South "we will save your honor
if You will surrender all the land"-and the
South sees she has been juggled out of both
and that more is yet demanded of her. The
North. cries out against the sole shadow of con-
stitutional provision only, but that law written
by no human finger on the tables of stone,
-" Thou SHALT NOT STEAL" and still we are
called upon to confess that all the patriotism
and conservatism of the country is comprised in
the Thirteen wise men who prepared, and those
who will swallow, their panacea.
| The truth can always wait for its justiica-
tion--and Time, the great indicator, has al
ready proven 10 which side of the controversy
this touch-stone was to be applied--as well as
the sincerity of the professions, or the sagacity
of those false prophets of peace who made them.
| While the consequences Of the Compromise
have utterly discoln6tted those who set it in mo-
| tion-while these engineers, hoistcd on their
own petard, keep prating about preserving the
'unty of the party"-the warnings and the pre-
at. Al ....
ton, uninfuenced ty selfish motives, vanly
sought to impress upon disregardful ears, have
already become fixed facts, existing realities
not now to be denied.
Forcwarned, those Compromises chose to
send forth raven from the Ark, instead of II
dove: and no olive branch will that i'll. omened
bird bring back to them. The opponents of the
niscalled measures Of Compromise, resisted
them from the first, because they were unjust
and unconstitutional, and therefore not to be
borne by n free people. They resisted them be-
cause they knew that to make trucking eonces-
sious 10 fanatcism and to fraud, instead of abat-
ing, always increase their joint or separate de-
mands, and act like adding fuel to fame. They
saw through the shallow devices oil the panic.
makers, and laughed to scorn the sounding
phrases Of a sham patriotism, that was ,isy only
because of its utter emptness-and warned the
country of the renewed agitations which must
follow the passage of these measures, unless
Southern manhood was inundated on the altar
of Presidcnt-makinS parties.
Among others, we foresaw, and repeatedly de-
clared, the fllacy and the fraud of the parrot
cry of ~rAcIrIcArTos," which drowned the Sun al
still voice of justice in many hearts, both in and
out of Congress-whilet the Compromises sung
it as Justify as ever did nurse to ull fro.
ward cbiltl--and 10 THE RESULT!
What that RESULT has been, no man can pre-
tcNd TO be deaf or blia, or bgotted enough moi to
see and feel. Renerei and 1"yre rt0icn agita-