The southern press., 1851-05-10
lsafsI Sf tie Ssdthlfk hlshta Aisssiatiaa
Or the Soath carolina college,

1
cf the Soath carolina colleges
To HE Students iaths Colleges and Universities
and 10 he Young men, throughout ths South
erp Safes.
Friends and Fellow- iSfudents:- We have beer
invited by the Southern Rights Association, or
ganized by students in the Uniyersityof Virgil
| MIA, to form an association similar to their own
to protect the rights, liberties and institutions
of the Southern States We obey the invita-
ton, not merely because we deem 1t wise anC
patriotic, in the present condition OF the South
ern States, but because the invitation itse
comes to us from source we have ever beer
accus. omed to regard with the highest respect
Virginia has, in times past, led the counsels Of
the South. IL she is to lead the South no more
If she has become the counsellor OF base
submission 10 wrongs she taught us to defy and
resist as uncomfortable, we mourn her position
and, turning from the humiliating present, look
to that past where she is all-glOrious. by her
wisdom and energy, tho first brave struggle was
made for the rights and liberties secured by the
Constitution against the usurping despotism OF
consolidation. She first blew the bugle OF re-
sistance to the alien and sedtion laws. She
first yindicated the rights of the States, by her
mastery expositons in 1913 and 1899, and in
terposed her power to rescue them from the in
soIent federalism of those dark days. She gave
as those great revolutionary Presidents, under
whose benign administration, liberty and pros
peritv went hand in hand together; and the love
Of the Union, instead of inspiring that jealous
watchfulness, which all experience declare ne
cessary to check abuses in governments, and TO
preserve liberty, grew up in the Southern mind
to be a blind and unreasoning passion
Looking, then, to the past, we bow with
generation to all counses coming from Virginia.
We obey the recommendations of the Southern
Rights Association OF her University, and ex-
tend to her students the right hand Of fellow
ship--not neryeless, we trust-to redeem our
plighted faith to them, or the lost equality and
liberties of the South.
Young men of the South we are, indeed,
fallen on evil days. That inevitable decay which
awaits all nations, Or that redemption which SO
seldom liitAup fallen liberty, j. soon TO be our
destiny. We have not, like our fathers,
scented tyranny in the tainted gale Like
them, we have not disdained to permit even the
touch of its foul pollution. No petty tax OF
three pence pound on tea now arou-es our re-
sistance. Even threats of military coercion, to
cement tyranny by blood-which brought from
our fathers but one response, the stern grasp OF
R'vOrQ-See.u
Southern heart. We have submitted so long to
injustice and oppression, that neither submission
! burns with shame, nor insult fires with an in
toIerable sense of dishonor How else shall We
account for the long and passive endurance OF
the Southern States, to the oppression of the
general government! For the last thirty years.
| It has hcaped upon US, nm hundredfold increased
| in argravation, the very oppression our fathers
resisted and vanquished by screen gears par.
| The people of South Carolina-the people OF
Virginia, and of the other States, denied that il
was consistent with selfgovernment and liberty
| in taxation, that they should be taxed by any
power beyond themselves. The claim of the
British Parliament to tax them, in all cases
whatsoever, was, in their view, if submitted TO-
establishing tyranny over them. The mockery
of representation in Parliament, which was moi
strong enough to control or prevent any taxes
/ Parliament might propose TO lay on them, they
disdainfuly rejected. Self-tayation alone gave
| them the power to protect their property
alone gave them liberty in taxation; and, with
1 this alone, would they be satisfied. And yet
what has been the nature of the taxes which
every man in the Southern States opposed to the
protective policy has been paying, by the laws
| of the general government, since he arrived al
4 manhood (? Neither he nor his representatives
have assented TO them. Our representation ir
Congress, too feeble to protect US, has only
served To rive the sembance of constitutional,
10 those r0bber lnrs, in the shape of protective
tariff. by which the South has been taxed fo
the benefit of the North-the Southern planter
and farmer for the benefit Of the Northern manu-
facturer. Bv this policy, millions of the pro
perty of the Southern people have been annually
/ wrested from them, and transferred 10 the peo
ple of the North. Congress claims TO be just n
omnipoient over Us, in the power OF taxation
as the British Parliament; whilst, in the pur
poses for which we have been taxed, the Britiss
Parliament was far more just and beral u
rroposei to tax US only to assist 10 paying thu
debt which Great Britain had incurred in de
Tending ia, ~ her colonies, against common
foe. But Congress taxes us, so far rs the pro
tective features Of The tariff law are concerned
for no purpose in which We are benefcially in
terested. We are simply pundered for the
benefit Of others. We are taxed TO enrich Ia
vored capitalists, engaged in manufactures, in
favored section Of the Union. There, also, arr
expended four-ffbs Of the public revenue
there, also, monopoly TO the navigation interes
has been obtained.
In the free States, too, the effort has beer
continually made 10 lavish the public domain
4
nal Improvement In fct, the whole govern
ment, from its foundation, in oil its pecuniar!
operations, has been perverted from IFS origina
| design Of being a common and equal benefit e
all sections Of the Union, to build up and enricl
the North at the expense Of the South. Th'
South has been re-colonized TO all intents anc
purposes by the North. We have not taxed
ourselves. We have not ruled ourselves. Boil
in the imposition and expenditure Of taxes, W
have beer ruled by the North, contrary to th'
whole spirit Of the Constitution. and every die
tate Of Justice and liberty. Uodcr the forms o
free-p government, we have been practically Ia
boring under a most oppressive drspotism.
Now, II appears to us necessary to understand
this great feature Of our cond ton, before VI
can account for the subsequent aggressions snc
insults, which have been heaped upon u.s. Sub
mission TO tariffs which have all been protective
| in principle, has east US down from our origina
position or equality and freedom with the peo
pie Of the Northern states. II robbed Us o
that liberty in taxrtion, which the Revolution o
I776 aimed 10 secure. j. Il at all surprising, tina
after submitting to be plundered IN our income
i the North should see no obstacle bot its owl