Southern standard. [volume] (Columbus, Miss.) 1851-1856, 1851-04-12
riots and shdictive than it has been at any former

period.
Under these circumstances it is proposed to hold
a Convention of the people of Mississippi, for the
purpose of taking counsel together and devisine
some method of arresting this storm that rushes
so furiously on to our destruction.
| Would it not be passing strange, to see people,
capable of apprecatng and preserving their liber-
ties, quies ent under such circumstances. And
yet there are those amongst who not only
counsel submission and acquiescence in all that has
been done to effect ruin, but oppose the propo-
sition to hold a Convention of Southern men, to
consider what measures are necessary to be taken
for the security of their rights and who denounce
all who favor the proposition, traitors and enc
mics of the government. These men are very
willing to trust the rights of the South to the ten
der mercies of an abolition majority in Congress
but are awfully alarmed at the idea of Southern
men meeting to consult and determine for them
selves.
The vilest slanders, and the most unmitigated
abuse is heaped upon the head of those who pro-
pose to take some action in defence of Southern
rights 1t is admitted that the rights of the South
have been trampled under foot, and no one can
doubt that there is imminent danger of greater
outrages in future And yet, what do these men
propose Why, simply abject submission, pas
sive 0c9uiescence.
Will submission restore our rights, or secure us
against future aggressions Did any people ever
secure their rights or stay the hand of the tyrant
by submission to wrong? Is that the way our
fathers acted in the days of the revolution Will
not such course have the effect inevitably, to in
yite further outrage and aggression? Have we
not acquiesced in these wrongs for many years,
and has the tide of aggression decreased in vol
ume velocity ?
No sane man can believe that the progress of
abolition in the -saveholdng States, will be
sta yad hy alSa han
manly resistance on the part of the South Moth
ing will induce suspension of assault, but tie con-
OtcttOn that the South oCaH not submit.
Are likely to produce this conviction by
tamey submitting to all that has been done? If
we submit to the past, will they believe when
we threaten to resist other wrongs No; we but
invite them onward by submission. If we submit,
and further outrages are committed, re-
sponsible for them-we were faithless sentinels,
and cried "all's well when we should have Civ
the alarm. And it, as a consequence, the
Union is endangered, will not be bameless-
Who then are the best friends to the Union, those
who propose to lie in wait until another attack is
made on the Constitution and Union, those who
propose to make a manly and timely resistance
The so-called Union men, tell that if slavery
is abolished in the District of Columbia or the Flu
gitive Slave law is repealed, they will be in favor
of secession and resistance. Yet they pursue a
course calculated to produce those very results
Whether they mean to keep this promise is anoth-
question.
All this clamor about the Union is not an appeal
to our reason-it is rapid defamation
Are freemen to be frightened from a proper de-
fence of their acknowledged rights, by the hob
goblin of disunion, so artfully conjured up >
Will they permit the raw head and bloody
bones J" of disunion to deter them from the dis
charge of most sacred duty to themselves and
and their posterity?
Mssissippians will soon be called upon to an
swer at the ballot-box.
ALGERNON SIDNEY.
STATE RIGHTs.-The following is extracted from
speech delivered by John Randolph, in reply to
Patrick Henry, the subject of State Rights
1t may be found in the first volume of Garlands
recent Life of Randolph. 1t must be recollected
that the speech from which this is an extract was
delivered as far back as 1900:
Should the Federal Government therefore,
attempt to exercise powers that do not belong to
and those that do belong to it few, specified,
-defned-all others being reserved to the peo-
pie and to the States-should it step beyond its
province, and encroach on rights that have not
been delegated, it is the duty of the States to in
terpose. There is no other power that can inter
pose. The eounterweght, the opposing force of
the State, is the only check to overacton known
to the system.
In questions of noeuDo ct htue, where rights of
property concerned, and some other cases spe-
cited in the Constitution, | grant you that the
Federal Judiciary may pronounce on the validity
of the law. But in questions involving the right
to power, whether this that power has been del
egated or reserved, they cannot and ought not to
be the arbiter that question has been left, as it
always was, and always must be left, to be deter
mined among sovereignties in the best way they
can. Political wisdom has not yet discovered any
infallible mathematical rule, by which to determine
the assumption of power between those who know
no other law or limitation save that imposed upon
them by their own consent and which they can
abrogate at pleasure Pray let me ask the gentle
man-and no one knows better than himself-who
ordained this Constitution Who defined its
powers, and said, thus far shalt thou CO. but no
farther? Was it not the people of the States in
their sovereign capacity? Did they commit an
act of suicide by so doing ?-an act of self ami
hilation No. thank God, they did not but
still alive and, | trust, becoming sensible of
that Importance of those rights reserved to them
and prohibited to that government which they or
dained for their common defence. Shall the crea-
ture of the States be the sole Judge of the legality
constitutionaty of its own acts, in question of
power between them and the States Shall they
who assert right be the sole judges of their
authority to claim and exercise it Does not all
power seek to enlarge itself grow that it
feeds upon Has not that been the history of all
encroachment, all usurpation If this Federal
Government, in all its departments then, is to be