Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1850-04-27

that the secession take pIacen s4sproof that al tho
cause. alleged only pretexts invented since
plot of twenty years incubation"
1t was the articles in the Richmond Enquirer,
we repeat, whose bold denunciations and defances
OF the Union first seriously drew our attention
TO the subject of this Nashville Convention. II
was the roar of the breakers that first awakened us
to the danger ahead, and taught us our duty to
spare no efforts to assist in saving the good ship
United States from strandng on the rocks to which
wind and tide were hurrying her.
In coming to this resolution, we obeyed an
impulse of duty far above all considerations of
party. We could not stop to inquire in what pro-
portion the mischief on foot was the work Of Wings
or Democrats. We discovered that many Wings,
most respectable gentlemen-some of them highly
valued personal friends-taking views different
from ours, because, perhaps for one reason. they
had not wide view of the whole field as we
had-favored this Nashville Convention project
some of tlTem, Judge SHARKEY, for example, taking
a conspicuous lead in the existing agitation. We
could not stop to discriminate between different
shades of politics at such moment. If any Wings
besides Judge SHARKEY have taken offence at cur
earnest and certainly most dsinterested efforts to
save the country from civil war which at one
moment appeared to be no farther off than some
time in June, whilst may regret having incurred
their dispeasure, have the consolation of know
ing from our Subscribers in all the South That we
have the hearty appreciation Of the great body of
them; and, what is of more Importance to us,w
have the entire appreciation of our own conscences.
There is only one other point in Judge Sharkey's
Letter which seems to require special reply. It is
the importance which he attaches to the remark,
by us, that the Address of the Mississippi Con-
yention "begs the question of aggression by the
Non-Slaveholding States. Writing rapidly as Edi-
tors of a daily newspaper necessarily must, our
expressions will not always stand the test Of cri-
scism, nor do they always convey with precision
our meaning. Certainly il was part of our inten-
ton, by the phrase excepted to, to say that there
had been no aggressons, in the meaning of the
South, by the North upon the South We have, on
the contrary, again and again pointed them out and
condemned them What we meant was, that the
address" materially over-sated those aggressons,
including among them some for which, as far as we
knew, or do yet know, there is no foundation what
ever. Of these in our article of March l6 we par-
cularized two, and we re-state them now as they
may be found in the body of the Address:
First That ,he onsavehoding States that when,
tby the admission of States they shall obtain three
ouhs of ALL they amend the Constitution and give
Congress power abolish The service eren in the
States where may be sanctioned By the local policy"
Secondly That refusal by Congress receive petitions
from persons demanding the abolition Of slavery has raised
cutlery that the great right of petition has been and
that that outcry has been yielded TO by Congress- thereby
asserting poper to abolish sarery."
| These are not the doctrines Of Northern States
men Of either political party; nor, we trust and
believe, of the Free Sellers themselves.
These few observations all that shall
the LETTER of Judge SHARKEY.