The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-03-17


moved What was this bat direct encourage
ment to free negro mob to set aside the law,
and to oppose the officers il they attempted TO
execute its | am not one of those, however
anxious may be TO see this law enforced, who
would advocate the use Of the army to secure
its enforcement. hold that when any State in
this Union shall choose to set aside the law, it
is within her sovereignty, and beyond our pow
err. Ihod that il would be total subversion of
the principles of our government if the strong
arm of the United States is to be brought to
crush the known will of the people Of any State
of this Union. Such is my theory of this gov
eminent 1.-THE people of Massachusetts choose
to nulify the law, if they choose to obliterate
the Constitution, if they choose to deny the
supremacy Of the laws of the United States
they have but one step more to take-and the
impulse with which they are moving compels
them to take it that is, to declare the authority
of the United States over them to be abrogated
We, Of the South, have been constantly ar
raigned AS those who oppose the government of
the United States, who nullify its laws, and who
manifest u violence against their execution.
The charge is AS untrue rs it is common. Look
to the history of the country, and find in times
past where the laws of this government had been
nullfed. Locate them, We who can, upon any
planting State. Elsewhere there may be found
examples, but not there.
g But special reference was made to the State
of Mississippi. Now, sir, whatever newspaper
reports the senator who made that reference
may have read, tell him those reports are utter
y untrue Process, in the case to which he re-
fers, was delayed; and have yet to learn why
it was not longer delayed, when the executive
of sovereign State, charged with high func-
tons of office, which he could not lay down ex-
cept by resignation, proposed to give the gov
eminent security to go to New Orleans and
stand trial, if they would suspend the process
until his term Of office closed. This, it seems
they could not grant. Justice was hungry for
that significantly, will not say Many 9TH
ers have passed nnnoticed. Offenders against
this Fugitive slave law have gone unwhipped of
justice. Still there was one mark, against which
the arrow must be levelled, and that was the
State-rights governor of Mississippi-a man
who had grown old in honorable service civil
and military, and whose gray hairs had brought
him accumulated honor He must be dragged
from the duties of his station, to answer the
charge of aiding and abetting an expedition
from the United States, which it was well known
from his public position he could not have aided.
"Then, sir, let the senator from New Hamp-
shire learn that this governor, surrounded by a
people attached to him, himself man of mill
tary fame-who might, therefore, the more
readily possibly have been suspected of seeking
to resort to arms--resigned the office which he
held, abandoned the trust confided to him, that
he might go and answer to the charge, which he
believed to be without single spot to rest upon,
and entirely unfounded. So much for the refer
ence to the State of Mississippi.
"Now, Mr. President while am quite willing,
| may say anxious, to know what measures the
Executive may take, and as the question of mill
tary force has been drawn into this debate,
take this occasion to say, that hope the day is
far distant when the militia of State will not
enforce the laws of the United States within it,
and suppress instruction against the State and
| hope the day is equally distant when the fed
eral government will attempt, by its army and
navy, to enforce obedience upon a State. If
this free-negro mob represents the true feeling
of the State of Massachusetts-if this be the
action of the State herself-let her go ], for
one, will never give my vote to extend single
arm to force her into obedience and | trust
that the history Of our country may never re-
cord such scenes as horse guards charging upon
peasantry, or steelclad coursers turned ont to
ride down the ignobe rabbe. TIE people are
the soveregns. Let them act as their wisdom
and their patriotism may direct; and when they
cease to have the wisdom and patriotism neces-
sary, of their own volition, to sustain this gov
eminent, then, say, the government is at an
end"
And, now, in dismissing the vile ms-state-
ments of this common defamer, we will remark
that it was stated few weeks ago, by the Lou
isiana Courier, and has not been yet contradicted
that the writer of these letters for the Picayune,
whose nomme de plume is lie Diable Boiteur, is
an individual of the name of Grund, to whom
Senator Davis once referred in his place in the
Senate, as "the basest Hessan of them al"--
What connection that remar k had with the fore
going mis-statements, and how true and just it
was, are points which may be safely left to our
readers.