The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-10-20

secession TO some of his friends in New York,
IL is very fair compilation of the various efforts
in defence of the compromise, which its friends
have attempted to pass off as arguments. Mr..
CLAY has added nothing new--not even an il
lustration.
lie says, with some exutation:
"Every where-North, South, East, and
West--an immense majority of the people are
satisfied with, or acquiesce in, the compromise
This may be confidently asserted in regard tC
thirteen of the slaveholding States, and thirteen
If not fourteen, Of the free States"
The satisfaction, or acquiescence, of the i'm
mense majority of the thirteen Southern States
il simply that, of the two evils of submission o,
disunion, submission is the less. 1t is about
the same sort of satisfaction, or acquiescence
with which q man who has had his arm crushed
determines that it is better to suffer the pangs
OF the fracture than of amputation. So he grins
and bears it. As for the satisfaction of the North
it is that of person who, in knocking another
down, complain that in the operation little
finger nail got hurt, and who is indignant that
he could not PROSTATE his adversary without
is that she does not, and will not, submit either
to this compromise or the Constitution. The
satisfaction of the South is so profound that she
declares, by an immense majority, that if one
more such measure of fraterna regard and con-
cord be perpetrated, she will commit treason
forthwith in resistingit.
Mr.. CLAY says that opposition to the Fugi
tive-slave law is constantly abating. If this is
true, it is because the attempts to execute the
law are abating still more constantly. We have
heard of no attempt to execute since the last
grand browning outrage at Syracuse.
Mr.. CLAY says that the law ITSELF with two
exceptions, has been every where enforced"
Now such declaration as this ought not to be
made. The law has been successfully resisted
or defeated in Syracuse, in Christiana, in Boston
in two cases, and in Buffalo in two cases
making six, instead of two.
Mr.. CLAY thinks the opponents of the Fugi-
tive slave law ought to renounce what they
profess to be their conscientious principles on
the subject, and submit to the law after while,
but if they don't, he has the utmost confidence
the proper corrective. What that is, he don't
inform US. What the prospect is, we leave to
be inferred from the following response made
by the New York Tribune, the Wing paper of
the largest circulation in the North:
"But Mr.. Clay undertakes the force because
he does not fully appreciate the character of
Northern repugnarce to some provisions of the
Fugitive slave law. He does not realize that a
large majority of those with whom this repug
nance is deepest are among the best Of our citi-
zens-intelligent moral, and law loving-and
that they srink from the enforcement of the
Fugitive slave law as it is, because that law
weighs upon their understandings and con-
sciences, as standing in direct and emphatic an
tagonsm to the great law of love which they
must not, dare not dsobey. Whatsoever ye
would that men should do unto you do We even
so unto them"-sueh is the commandment, OF
no doubtful import and of universal obligation,
which they cannot reconcile with the demand
made on them by this law for direct, efficient,
personal aid, in effectng the ca, ture and return
into bondage of those whom this Fugitive
slave law marks out AZ its victims. Can there |
be any doubt that their embarrassment has a
real foundation! Let us suppose Clergyman
praying in the midst of his congregation for the |
speedy coming of the Divinely promised King |
dom of universal righteousness and justice, the |
breaking Of every yoke, and the overthrow OF
all oppresson-when U. 5. marshal and party
gallop by in hot pursuit of three women fugi- |
tives from slavery, each painting from weary
chase through swamp and brier, the blood
trickling from her laceraed limbs, and streaking
the brow of the infant she still strains to her
breast as she painfully continues her flight
Can that pastor, that gregalion-supposing
them to have any real religion in their hearts
fervently pray that the pursuers may succeed in
overtaking those wretched fugitives and bearing
them back into bondage!
Mr.. CLAY then turns TO notification and Sc
cession. He admits that notification "derved
an ambiguous, but contested, support from the
resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky in 1893
g, but they afford no color or countenance to |
secession"
But he says that notification and secession |
have sprung from the same metaphysical school
and the latter is the ally, if not the offspring, of
the former" Notification and secession are the
offspring of the first principle asserted by Mr.
JEFFERSON in his Kentucky resolutions-and
that is, that these States are not united on the
principle of unlimited submission to the federal
6N'0'p"o"s- Ito says hnns sho iiBHs VI beScs-
sion is not recognized in the federal Constitu-
ton. Nor is the right of State government
to impose taxes to be found in the federal Con
stitution. If the States have no rights but what
are to be found in that instrument, they have
Just about no rights or powers at all-they only
have restrictions
Mr.. CLAY thinks there could be no right to
secede during a furious war when the enemy is
in the midst of us. This only shows how hard
he is pressed. If one man owes another money,
it may be said in the same manner that the lat
ter has no right to insist on payment if the debt
or is sick, and his wife is SICK and he has just
lost his property by FIRE, and is only able to buy
his bread. But he would attempt by supposing
such case as this to prove that man had no
right to money due him, would argue just like
Mr.. CLAY.