Weekly national intelligencer., 1851-01-25
THE PAsT.-No. III.
THE SOURCE or THE EVIL OF THE DA,

The expedent of Modification was as we have
seen in the preceding number on this subject, re-
sorted to by the State of South Carolina, ostens-
bly, as peaceful mode of procuring an abandon
ment by Congress of the existing Tariff. 1t was
SO represented by Mr.. CALHOUN on different public
occasions, and especially in elaborate Letter on
the subject addressed by him, whilst Vice Presi-
dent, to the Pendleton Messenger, under date of
July 26, 1881, in which he denied Modification to
be anarchical and revolutionary" as it was rep
resented by its opponents to be, protesting at the
same time his own deep and sincere attachment
to political institutions and the Union of these
States" In his place the Senate of the w. States,
towhich body ho was returned in January ls33 after
resigning the Office of Vice President, he reiterated
that construction. But could any man of sound
mind have deluded himself into belief that the
laws of the Union would be allowed to be trodden
under foot with impunity! To be abrogated by
the mere show of resistance to their execution
To be made butt of by the State Authorities, in
total disregard to the supremacy of the Government
of the Union, the vital principle of the Constitu-
ton; Of the allegiance rghtfully due to the United
States by the People of South Carolina, as of all
the other States of the faith plighed by oaths of
so many of them who were and had been in public
life; and Of the influences of honor which all men
Of character habitualy respect! It would be diff
cult to persuade us that the Convention which re-
solved upon this dangerous experiment did delude
themselves. They were too predetermined, had too
long been bent upon trial Of strength with the &C.
neral Government, to have overlooked the hazards
which they incurred. If any portion of the South
Carolina Convention was so deceived, certainly the
trainers of the Ordinance were not No one can
look at the terms of the Ordinance of Nullif-
cation, indeed, with any idea that it intended
only legal and civil resistance to the authority
of the United States. 1t is clear on the contrary,
that the trainers Of that act looked to conse-
quepces altogether uterior to the purposes avowed
by Mr.. CALHOUN, when they ordained that any
attempt on the part of the Federal Government to
. enforce : the acts thereby "declared null and
void would be considered as inconsistent with the
continuation of the people of South Carolina in the
Union; and when, without waiting for the event,
the State proceeded by Legislative acts, to author
ize enlistments of men for military service, to col
lect ammunitiens of war, to provide commissariat,
to organize at once body of two thousand volun-
teers " for the defence of Charleston to call out
Militia and Volunteers, and to make, in word,
preparations very nearly as formidable on paper as
the Federal Government has ever made preliminary
to war with foreign Power.
Most happily, however, the explosion was pre-
vented, and the project of Dsunion, to be effected
through the process Of Modification, by whomsoever
entertained was frustrated for the time. Frustrated,
we say, but, as is shown by recent and intermediate
events, never lost sight Of.
Through the whole of the excitement which
preceded and attended the Modification era, let us
here repeat not breath was breathed of wrongs
experienced by South Carolina, in her relation of
a slave holding State, from the Federal Govern
ment, as a component part of the grievances upon
which she undertook to legislate herself out Of
the Union, and, if checkmated in the game of
notification, finally to absolve herself from all
connexion with it. In no one of the public do
cuments issued by the Nullifers, either before
or during the experiment of notification; neither
in the several treatses on notification issued in the
form Of Letters by Mr.. CALHOUN ; nor in the Ordi-
nances of the State; nor in the Procamations of
her Governor, do we find any trace of this grev-
ance, which is no,D made the pretext for another
attempt on the part Of the same State to break up
the Union. ."..
Not that the South had not had occasion to COM
plain of disregard Of her rights, not by the Gene
raj Government, but by individuals and societies
who oficiously and impertinently interfered W it'll
them. But the discomfort of the South at
these intrusons into her "peculiar Institutions
we again repeat, and desire it to be remembered,
constituted no part of the ground upon which the
first attempt was made by South Carolina to get
out of the Union; and that her alleged grievances
in that particular are of more modern date.
That the South should feel deep solicitude on
the subject of the institution referred to, from the
nature and extent of the interest involved, is most
natural. The slaves of the South are estimated at
a value of nearly thousand millions of dollars.
And when to the consideration of this large amount
ofproperty, we add that of the relations which the
slaves bear to the white race in that section of
country realize the cause Of that sensitiveness,
which is not generally understood in the North,
and which is there, because inexperienced, so
generally condemned. Looking at the frame work
Of society in the South, we make every reason
able allowance for the excitement of its people on
subject SO absorbing.
But we feel bound to say, as our columns will