The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-10-28
The Change.

When the late session ofCongress commenced,
there were not more than half dozen Southern
members who did not insist that the South had
a right to something in the pending controversy.
Mr.. CLAY, Mr.. BENTON, Mr.. WALES, Mr.. SPRu-
ANcE, and perhaps a couple Of members in the
lower house, might have been willing to make
an unconditional surrender to the North. But
all the rest commended for some part Of the
matters in dispute. There was much difficulty
with many of them, as to how much they would
contend for, and in what way, but there was very
general and loud demand for the rights Of the
South and the Union of the South. What has
been the result! The South has practically got
precisely nothing at all. We defy the most in
genious submissionist to show single solitary
relic of Southern right, moo enjoyed of all those
mighty interests which moved fourteen Southern
Legislatures to high resolves, which filed the
columns of thousand Southern papers with
arguments, which Numbered along nine months
debate in Congress
There is not solitary inch Of the vast terri
tory acquired from Mexico, on which Southern
institutions can 60 with safety. Not one from
which they are not now excluded, or soon to be
excluded by the effects of the recent laws. And
worse than that they are, in case Texas consents,
speedily to retreat southwark, no less than ten
degrees of latitude, from AZ to 80 in that State.
Congress might have left California to her
Provisional Government. That if inconvenient
- Ill u,o,lJ boyo ham
half as much, so, rs to exclude the South. Con-
gress might have established territorial govern
ment for California. That would have answered
every purpose but plumber. Congress might
have limited California by the line of SO. 80, and
admitted her. That would have been irregular,
but not fraudulent. But Congress determined
on doing precisely what was irregular, fraudu-
lent and unnecessary, because it was fraudulent,
and under the pretence of non-intervention.-
Congress might have left the Texas boundary
as it was, and Texas might have extended her
jurisdiction over all of it. But that would have
left all the new territory open to Southern emf
grafton. So on the pretence of the wishes and
the rights of New Mexicans, and in violation of
the rights and wishes of fifteen States, Congress
has undertaken to make them pay their share of
ten millions for their own dishonor. And hav-
ing thus provided two Free-soil States, one on
the Pacific, and one on the Rio Grande, as bar
riers against Southern emigration to the new
territory, in addition to the Mexican law, Con-
gress does not prohibit the South from going
there-it only closes the door against her
emigration into it--and into litigation: and calls
that non-intervention.
1t is asserted that the South has secured the
Fugitive slave bill. Yes, and one month has
elapsed, and just one fugitive has been arrested
and recovered under its provisions NJ more.
And a dozen mobs have assembled to resist and
half dozen Commissioners resigned to defeat,
its operation. Aud now there is more danger.
and difficulty in recovering fugitives than before,
and not one tenth as many are recovered as
before. And there has been more indignation
manifested in the North, at the attempt to secure
one plain constitutional right of the South, and
that the most unimportant of all, than in the
South at the wholesale confiscation of all her
territorial rights, and the doom of future pro-
scription and degradation.
The submissionists may bubble about nom
Intervention, and swagger about what they will
do, if the North shall invade the remnant of
what is left to invadc-we have shown that
in these respects they have not even plank to,
stand on-but what is the sophsm, the rhetoric,
by which 1t is attempted to be shown that sim
gle right or interest has been practically secured
out of the recent wreck of Southern equality
property and power. That has not been at
tempted: because, in such an attempt, audacity
itself would blush, and cunning, like Achitophel,
could only hang itself.
When reduced to this hopeless paralysis, the
only thing that submissionists can do, is to cry
out for passive obedience and non. resistance to
Union-that is to governments doctrine that
cost the house of STUART the throne of Eng
land-that cost England herself her colonies.
Yet this is the forlorn foundation on which par