The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-12-02

political institutions Of this country. than their
more numerous neighbors. The Southern colo
MES were founded rather more by the Landed
gentry of England, than the Northern, and at
time when feudalism was still in force. Afr-
can slavery was substitute for feudalism,
rendering it more pacific, and preserving much
of its virtues. And the settlement in Virginia
of several of the seyerer sects of christians, in
South Carolina Of the Huguenots, in Georgia of
the Morayians, tended to reform the rather loose
morality of the Cavaliers of that day. The
Southern colonies had, therefore, the advantage
in addition to the diversity of white and black,
Of greater variety of the more wholesome ele-
ments of the white race, than the Northern.
And so it was that not only the establishment,
but the safety of the federative system, have
been owing to the individual character, the social
system, and the vast slave property of the South.
And the federative system is now associated in
destiny with the sagacity, the energy, the forti-
tude of the white race of the South, and its fif-
teen hundred millions of property in slaves.
= w nile Stdnus the SOlSeum, Rome Sndlt stanu,
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall. "
And hence, we see the assault on slavery and
on the rights Of the States identical and coeval,
and proceeding from section whose hostility to
State rights, was even anterior to its enmity to
slavery.
Now, whence the Southern backwardness in
meeting this assault! When it was first threat
ened, it was met nowhere more promptly, more
unanimously, more decidedly, than In Georgia.
Both parties united-and made the issue upon
the admission of California-and made it very
properly. That was and is the issue. Was
there any fatality at Milledgevile that brought
about sudden attempt of almost n whole LIE.
gislature to misrepresent their constituents
Or have the people of Georgia, in the recent
election, been seized with sudden panic, and
run off In perfect stampede from their own
previous convictions? 1t could not have been in
tended to 60 to the trouble and expense of a
Convention to ratify the admission of Califor-
nia-or even to say on such IN occasion that no
further aggression would be submitted to. Ger
tainly no such auti-climax as that was contenl-
plated.
And then as to Virginia. There are her reso-
lutions year after year soiemnly made and re-
corded. Was it ever dreamed that after all
these, she was to be brought on the Federal
boards, to enact the laughable afterpece Of de.
claring IL at she would quietly acquiesce in the
loss Of territory, of power, of equality, Of
safety, to secure the restitution of few rum
away negroes - Is she to submit to plumber, to
insult and defiance, with no better excuse than
bubble and equivoque! ...~
If these things should happen, then the insti.
tutions and character of the South are blasted
and will soon totter to their fall The great ia
brio has not been overthrown by convulsior
nor worn out by age, nor borne down in battle
but has withered even before the frosts of au.
tumn, by the first wind from the North in Sep.
tember last
We don't believe that the vitality of great
people can so suddenly give out. The apathy
of case, the Incidence of wealth, the sorcery of
party, have lulled the South. Her voice
"Is the voice ola sluggard, l hear her complain
You have walked me too soon, must slumber
| again."
But we tell her in the language of one Of her
own arch enemies, that /" n voice has spoken in
the car of this mighty nation, saying:
Sleep no more"
Congress has murdered sleep"