The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-06-20
Washington, Thursday, june 20, 1850.

the Union, the pretension is seen to be as
alarming as If is insulting. The southern
States, in their legislatures, set forth with
great unanim'ty the rights in our territories
belonging to them in common with the
northern States and declared their determine
ton to maintain them; and, finding in the
northern States no disposition to abate their
demands, the convention in which We are
assembled has been brought together to take
counsel as to the course the southern States
should pursue for the maintenance Of their
rights, liberty and honor.
Such is brief but imperfect statement Of
past transactions; and they toce upon us
the question, in what condition do they place
the southern States? And first, what is
their condition in Congress; The time was
when your Representatives in Congress were
neither offered nor would they endure re-
proach in your behalf. But, for many years
past, they have heard you in Congress ha-
bitually reviled by the most opprobrious epi-
thets on account Of the institution of slavery.
If their spirits are yet unbroken, they must
be chilled by sense of humiliation at the
insults they daily receive as your represen-
tatives You are arraigned as criminals.
Slavery is dragged into every debate, and
Congress has become little else than grand
instrument in the hands OF abohtonlsts to de-
grade and iuin the South. Instead Of peace
and protection, aggression and insult on the
South characterize its proceedings and coun-
ellis. And what is your condition with re-
spect to your sister Stltes' Where is that
respect and comfy which due from all ma
tons towards each other) is more especially
due from States bound together in their IN
tercourse. Instead OF respect and sympathy,
denunciation and hostility on account of your
institution Of slavery have for years past
characterised the communications addressed
to you by the northern States.
And what is your condition in the Union !:
The non-slaveholding States stand combined
not only to wrest from you your common
property, but to place upon your front the
brand of Inferiority. You are not to extend
on account Of your Institutions, but they are
to increase and multiply, that the shame and
sin Of slavery may, by their philanthropic
agen;y, be extinguished from amongst you
But the worst feature Of your condition is,
that it is progressive. As low and humilia-
ting as il now may be, it is destined, if not
arrested, to ga lower deep" Every effect
is cause, and the spirit ofianaticism brooks
no delay in the progress it creates If you
were to yield every thing the North now re-
quires-abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia--submit to be legislated pirates
for conveying slaves from one State to
another-let trial by jury and writ Of habeas
corpus wrest from you in the northern States
every fugitive slave-give up all your terri
tories to swell Northern arrogance and pre-
dominance--would things stop there These
are all means aiming at one great end-the
abolition of slavery in the States. Surren-
dering one of these means, you will but in
flame the power by which another will be
exacted-and, when all are conquered, will
the evil be arrested' In fifty years, twenty
new non-slaveholding States may be added
to the Union, whilst many which are now
slavehoding may become non-slaveho!dng
States. There then will be no needas now
openly to put aside the Constitution to reach
their object. If they will deign TO do it, the
non-slaveholding States will then have the
power, by two-thirds in Congress and three
fourths of the States, to amend the Consti-
tuition, and then have its express sanction to
consummate their policy. Your condition is
progressive.
If, from the past transactions we have mar
rated, we learn our condition in the Union,
they teach us also that our past policy Of non
action and submission to aggression cannot
bring us peace and safety. When the doors
Of Congress were thrown open to agitation
on the subject of slavery, if the southern
States had moved with energy to avert .
state Of things unconstitutional itself, and
surely tending to bring the slaveholding and
non-slavehold ng States into collision, al
though late, it might not have been 10 late
to stop subsequent entertainments upon our
rights But the southern States were pas
sive; and their forbearance has had the
effect of inspiring the Northern people with
the belief, either that we value union with
them more than we value the institution OF
slavery, or that we dare not move from
conscious inability to protect ourselves. You,
have ungenerously stood still, whilst your
supporters and the defenders of the constitu
ton in the Northern States, in their efforts
to protect you from the agitations of slavery
in Congress, have been politically annibllated
or have turned your foes. You have tamely
acquiesced, until to ate and prosecute the
South has become high passport to honor
and power in the Union.
You have unwisely stood still, whilst year
afteryear the volume Of ant-slavery policy and
sympathy has swollen into unanimity through
out all the fon-slaveholGing States, and the
sections of the Union now face each other
in stern collision You have waited until
the Constitution Of the United States has
been virtually abolished-or, what is worse,
is only what the majority III Congress think
proper to make it. That great principle on
whp h our system Of free government rests
of so dividing the powers Of government
that, to common government only, those
,,o,var, chould bn orante,l which must affect