The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-09-18
From The Mississippi Clarion.

Inc people OF the North have valued The
Union by the Wilmot Proviso, against which the
people Of Mississippi have declared in the most
solemn form, in their primary and sovereign ca
Der Convention, and by the Legislature. they
will not submit. The resolutions of the October
Convention, afterwards adopted by the Legis-
lature, are as follows:
a. That we would regard the passage, by
Congress, of the" Wimot Proviso,' (Which would
in effect, deprive the citizens Of the slavehodng
States of an equal participation in the territories
acquired equally by their blood and treasure,)
as an unjust and insulting discrimination
which the States cannot without political degra-
datiop, submit; and to which this convention,
representing the feelings and opinions OF the
people Of Mississippi solemnly declare they Will
not submit,
s. That the passage Of the Wmot Proviso,
or Of any law ahOlishing slavery in the District
Of Columbia, by the Congress Of the United
States, would of itself, be such bre lch of the
federal compact as, in that event. will make it
the duty, as it is the right of the slaveholdng
States, to take care of their own safety, and to
treat the non-slaveholding States as enemies to
the slavcholding States and Their domestic inst-
tuti0ns. ~
The people Of the North have valued the
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia have declared, and the enactment Of
which by Congress, they have said, they would
resist at all hazards, and to the last extremity.
Mr.. Chase says the people OF the South will
enforce the Wilmot Proyiso; that though the
present Congress may be more DESTROYS to reach
results which will satisfy controlling political
influences, than to meet the Just expectations OF
the people whom they represent, and the princi-
plies Of the Proviso may be sacrificed by some
settlement carried through the forms of lcgisIn-
ton, the people will unsettlc that settlement
That should the present Congress determine
that the territories should not be secured by law
against the ingress Of slavery, the people will
reverse that Observation-Disclosures, should the
present Congress bury the Proviso, athe people
will write upon its tomb, Resnrgam, CT shall
rise again,) and the same history which records
its resurrection may also inform posterity that
they who fancied they had killed the Proviso,
only committed political suicide"
The people Of the North have valued the
Union by the Wilmot Proviso, and they regard
the Provso with equal reverence with the
Union. They look upon it as the arch of heav-
en- above them, without a thought that it can
ever decay or fall. The people Of the South
value the Union by all the blessing it confers
mot upon the negroes, but upon the free
white men of the Republic, who inherited their
freedom from their fathers. They despise the
Wilmot Proviso because it is nm ordinance of
tyranny and despotism. 1t gives freedom to
no one, but it deprives the freemen of the
South of their rights under the Constitution
it fastens upon the slave more closely his man.
ncles. 1t is, at the same time, an ordinance
of tyranny and cruelty.
The people of the South value the Union by
all the blessings which it confers. They value
it by the memories of the past, by the glories
of the present, and by the hopes of the future
They are determined to maintain the Union
under the Constitution, against the Wilmot
Proviso, and preserve in its purity to coming
generations, the inheritance Of freedom, be-
queathed to them by their fathers If the
North, holding the Wilmot Proviso of equal
value with the Union, and having the numerical
power to enforce it by legislation, are deter
mined in spirit of fanaticism and with a lust of
domiion to destroy the Union, the RESPONSE
biity will be upon their heads, and they will be
the traitors to the Constution-the traitors to
the memory of their fathers--thc traitors to the
blessings Of the prescnt--and traitors to the
hopes of the future.
The South values the Union above the Will
mot Proviso. She will stand by the Constitu-
ton and the Union, against the assaults Of fa-
naticisin, and the aggressions of fraud, and
when she can no longer save the Union, she
will save herself and the equal liberty of her
people.