Weekly national intelligencer., 1851-02-15

for peace expenditure would require yearly
tax Of over seventeen cents per acre upon all
land, productive or unproduc.iye But foreign war,
ivil commotion, or seryile war, would easily in
tease the expenses to ten millions of dollars,
which would require a land tax of half dollar a
year per acre. lnsurrection or servile war would
also lessen the value of land, destroy ability to
cultivate and to pay tax: fields must, in either
OF these cases, be abandoned selfpreservation
will require the congregation Of inhabitants in
towns, camps, near forts, &c.
SECESSION abrogates, of course, so far as concern
the seeding State, all the provisions. wisely i'm
planted in the Federal Constitution for the pro-
lection OF individual interests industry life proper
ty &C. and among others the protection to the plant
ing interest contained in the interdicton of the
laying ofduties upon exports. To that mode of ras-
ing money, South Carolina out of the Union, might
and must resort. This source of revenue is even
already bOasted of by those who are intent upon
disunion. An article in the " Camden Journal" of
the 3lst utimo, anticipating the objection that the
State is too poor for separate existence" says
/" There could be no greater mistake. She has
eight or ten millions Of exports; duty of 80 per
cent. would afford her revenue of nearly two
and half or of three millions of dollars enough
: to support grand Government"
So here are these rabid revolutioniss coolly pro-
posing, one of the natural incidents of secession,
to lay export duty of thirty per cent. on the cot
ton, rce &c. produced in the State and with the re-
venue thus extorted from the planting interest to
defray the expenses of the new Government Was
ever such infatuation With the burden of such
export duty how could the cotton of the seeded
State of South Carolina compete in the foreign
market with cotton from the UNITED States, having
no duty to pay whatever, with cotton from other
countries The alternatives between which the
State would have to choose in regard to duties upon
imports, also, would be appalling, but yet newt
able: If she imposed higher duties upon them
than adjacent States, she would have no commerce ;
if lower, no revenue.
But will the State of South Carolina, by seces-
sion, attain any one of the objects for which
she will have broken the bands of the Union except
the qualification of mere senseless hate? Will she
have compelled the Federal Government to induce
California to alter her boundary, and to continue the
line on the parallel of 360 80? And, indeed,
should this happen, voluntarily rby compusion, of
what possible avail would it be to her, out of the
Union, and having no more rights in it than the
citizens of any other foreign Power? What in
demnity for the past will she have obtained, or
what " security for the future!" Will she have
rescued her slave property from the danger with
which she processes to believe it now to be me-
naced Quite the contrary. Possession and mas
terry of her slaves are now guaranteed to her by
the Constitution and it is that guaranty alone
perty. The loss of few fugitive slaves
and very few have fled from that State
would be mere song in comparison with the
loss of this guaranty. Without it her cotton
and rice fields would too probably become battle.
fields. Should that be the consequence of the
withdrawal Of South Carolina from the protection
which the Union has afforded her in this respect
whence would she draw recruits for her army and
navy? How raise products. even to sustain her
civil list and pay the interest on her borrowings?
On the other hand, if the gain Of the State, by
secession, in any of her objects or aspirations,
would be absolutely nothing, what would not be
the amount and variety of the positive losses which
she will encounter the moment she sets foot out
side of the Union?
She will, in the very act Of secession, plunge
into anarchy.
She will have lost in that single false step all the
guards with which the Constitution surrounds the
rights Of all who live under its protecting care.
Her People will have lost the security against
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus except
in cases of invasion or rebellion. They will have
lost the exemption from the operations Of bills Of at
tainder or er post facto laws. They will have
lost, as we have already intimated the interdic-
ton of duties on articles exported to foreign
countries. They will have lost the protection
against the establishment of orders of nobility
loss which we do not doubt that there are persons
in the State who would rejoice in. They will have
lost the security of trial by jury which they now
enjoy, and the definition of treason, for which revo
and martial law would be substituted in
the very first emergency.
They will have lost the benefit of the existing
constitutional prohibition Of an established Religion
the right of the People to the freedom of speech
and of the press, and to assemble and petition for
the redress Of grievances.
They will have lost, besides all these, the protec-
ton against quartering troops in any house in time
of peace the protection against being held answer
able for crime unless by indictment by grand