The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-05-14
F}om he Richmond Esraminer,
TO the People Of South Carolina.

you in regard TO your own, and the common III
terests Of the South. The convention which is
to assemble in Charleston on the 10th of May,
will probably attempt to shape the course OF
the State for the future and as in this, the in
terests Of the entire South are deeply involved,
! make no apology for the liberty am about
to take.
If understand the main question correctly,
it Wv hat course is it best to adopt in order to
secure the cooperation of the States of the
South? | assume, (and sm sure that, in this
at least, | do not mistake your purpose) that
: in no event. do you mean ingIoriously to sub
nit to the wanton insults and outrages OF the
so-calIed national government know enough
of your spirit and intelligence to say thus much.
But when and how you will yndcate your just
rights remain to be considered. On t!,esepoints
permit me to say few words M
You have endeavored through the convention
at Nashville, to procure consultation with your
sister States with view to arrest the fearful
and fatal encroachments of reckless and cor
rupt government. You have solicited them to
meet you in council for this high and sacred
purpose. They, with you, soleInnly engaged,
under the highest and most sacred obligations
that they would defend the common Constitu-
ton against all assaults, foreign and domestic.
They have repeatedly declared, in the graycst
forms Of legislation, that the national govern
ment has deliberately and dangerously violated
that instruments but, instead OF fulfilling their
solemn engagements to you and to each other,
they have, or rather their respective governments
have, declared their willingness to submit, re-
CARELESS of their honor, their oaths and the in
terests of posterity
Such are the facts and you are advised by
some, whom you heretofore trusted, to follow
their bad example---with promise, the most
extraordinary ever made by sane men, that OPP
preston will increase, that tyranny will grow
stronger, until you and they will be forced, alb
solutely compelled to re win your lost liberties
! by the sword! Strange madness Astounding
deluson Wait until your enemy is doubly
armed, and you yourselves stripped naked, be-
fore you attempt to preserve that which is more
precious than life ITSELF Is not this the counsel
of Messrs Hamilton, Barnwell, poinsett, Cheves,
and others 1t seems to me so. Past outrage
and aggression, they admit, have proved impo-
tent to rouse the people of the South to sense
of their danger; but they promise us that still
greater evils are yet to come This prompts me
to inquire what is our present condition! refer
not to the thousand acts Of gross and wanton
abuse of power on the part of the national gov
eminent. | will not point you the pages of the
Journal stamped with the indebe marks of
pass by these, and ask attention only to that in
famous system ofmeasures called 'the Compro-
mise" What is the condition in which that base
act has left you! 1t assumes, in respect to pow
err, that you can be taxed at pleasure, against
your consent, and in despite of the votes of
your representatives that by those, in no way
responsible to you, you can be compelled to en-
ter into the battlefield, and shed your blood,
for any designated purpose; that you can be- as
you have been, compelled to acquire territory
by conquest or purchase, while it is distinctly
4 declared to you that though all other people
may, you alone shall not be permitted to enjoy
any part of it; that as punishment for the sup
posed sins of your fathers, no institutions like
yours shall ever again be recognized as repub-
lican, and no people toerating them shall ever
be permitted to enter into this Union; that in
case you, and you only, shall violate an arbitra-
ry act, creating new and arbitrary offence, the
punishment shall not be fine ana Imprisonment,
MS in ordinary cases. but that your slaves shall
have their freedom, and be placed on AN equal
footing with yourselves: that looking to your
own debasement and degradation, you shall be
made the instruments for debasing and degrad-
ing Others, by furnishing the means of purchas-
ing the soil and sovereignty of your sister States,
to be transferred to your Unsuitable and hostile
|
your part to these principles and provisions,
shall be construed and punished as high treason
Do exaggerate? Have not faithfully and truly
presented the substance of the several acts re-
ferred to! And if so, do you wait for ,grosser
outrage, or deeper debasement! protest, be-
fore God, cannot conceive OF state of degra-
daton lower than yours and ours il we quietly
submit to this. Even that of the Russian scri
of your own slaves--is more honorable for
in neither case is it voluntary Necessity
stern compulson, pleads their~excuse before
earth and heaven Will it also plead yours
No Your submission will be voluntary self.
abasement unequalled in its turpitude, save in
its faulty.
But it is said by your advisers mean those
, who have addressed themselves to you through
the public prnts-that ultimate submission is
not to be thought of that they recommend
temporary submission. II would be as well to
advise chaste female to adopt similar policy
in case of violence offered to her person, as q
I means of preserving her virtue. Are these meu
blind to the history of the past to the experience
$ OF the present, TO the very nature of things
What have twenty years of tame submission eff
fected Is the virtue, is the power of the South
J greater now than then! Could any man twenty
years SINCE have believed it possible that at this
day, the representatives Of the Southern States
would have gone up to Washington city, and
deliberately bartered the honor, rights, and in
terests of their constituents fer place and plum
! der Would it, could it have been believed that,
n open day, in the face of high Heaven, without
the covering of ig-eaf to conceal the base
transaction, men in the South would be found
to perpetrate such an iniquty And yet it is
so. Every intelligent and impartial man in this
country believes the whole net, in its inception
and consummation, deliberate and infamous
political and pecuniary swindle Again would
it have been believed by any living man, two
years ago, that a legislature Of Virginia would
have been found to sanction this unprecedented
enormity-in the very teeth of its repeated and
solemn declarations! And yet such is the fact.
Wait you, then, for Incorporation from such men
Rusticus expectat dunn denuat amnis,
Labitur Ell labetur in omne volubilis evum.
; Permit me to say to you, in all sincerity and
! frankness, that unless you present such an issue
to the Southern people, as shall startle their cor
rupt party politicians you will never secure co.
e operation. The people of Virginia, and the