The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-08-08
From the (Va.) Spirit Of Jefferson,
The CONFERENCE.-The Defeat.

II will be seen by reference to our Congress
sional summary, what has been the fate of this
bill By several different amendments offered
and passed at different times, the parts Of the
bill relating to California and New Mexico and
Texas, were stricken out, and all of the bill that
remained was the establishing of territorial
government for Utah, fixing the southern bound
ary at the 35th degree of north latitude. Thus,
by the vigilance and craftsmanship of Southern
senators, the Constitution SO far has been pre-
served from infraction and mutilation. 1t is
true that they were aided in this work OF pa
triotism by Northern fanatics, but it is well up
derstood by what motives these were actuated.
The Southern senators that were opposed to
the bill had nought but patriotic purpose in
view-to protect Southern rights and preserve
the Constitution in its purity--while those of
the North had anything else, rs we can conceive,
but patriotic object in view. But their fanati-
cism was made to subserve noble purpose for
once. An effort has been made to cry down
Southern men who were opposed to the bill by
clubbing them "disunionists," and in such SLAM
dcrous and impertinent epithets, none seems
to have INDUCED of late so fully as one OF the
correspondents of the e Baltimore Sum-" 1t is
hoped, however, that it is not with the approba-
ton of the editors OF that paper The " SUM-
has circulation i'm different parts of this State,
and we presume in States further South, and it
may be important to know in what estimation
the Southern opponents of the Compromise bill
are held by it; especially in view of the fact
that it permits its columns to be used to de-
nounce them as disunisnists. That paper pro-
fesses to be an independent, not neutral, jour
nal, and we hope it may have the independence
to avow explicitly its approval or disapproval Of
the language referred to. The South should
know her friends. We mean to attribute no
want of patriotism to those advocates of the
Compromise bill who really believed that it was
the balm by which the agitation on the subject
of slavery was to be healed, but we cannot adj
nit that they were governed by any higher or
purer motive in their advocacy of it than were
those Of the South who opposed ii, for we re-
Iigiously believe that these were true friends
Of the Union, as their efforts to preserve the
Federal Constitution in all its purity and provi-
sions abundantly prove We know that there
is ultraism in the South, and no one condemns it
more heartily than ourselves. We have been
panied Mt the utterance of some sentiments by
few Southern men; but we feel assured that
there are but very few indeed in the South
who look to dissolution of the Union as the
only remedy for the evils Of which we complain.
| The South will stand by the Union rs long as
there is a fragment Of it worth preserving; nor
will we look to its dissolution as means of
averting more dreadful evils, until the thought
is forced upon us by the injustice and despotism
of our Northern brethren. We will not despair
of this Republic yet. We are amongst those
who still cherish the fond belief that there is
enough of that patriotism which swelled the boz
SONS of our ancestors, left in the descendants,
to keep this Union together ,.. as N.