The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-02-14

Pies.
THE SOUTHERN CREED.--We find in the
Marshall Republican, a circular address from
the Southern Rights Association of Matagorda,
(Texas,) to the friends OF Southern Rights in
Texas. The address, which is signed bv James
c. Wilson, p. T.. Pearson, and M. Talbot, as
committee, is devoted principally to tho objects
OF Southern rights association, and the necessity
that exists for their organization. We extract
the following portion, which may be called the
true Southern creed:
Ours is by no means disuniOn movement, If
by union be meant, adherence to the Constitu-
ton.
We desire to live in the Union, to adhere to,
to venerate, to cherish the Union, as that which
is Of all earthly things most dear; but by this,
we mean the Union MS it is defined by its only
visible exponent - The Constitution of the
United States.
The rights which are secured to us by the
Constitution, are all that we desire, and it il
solely for the preservation of those rights that
we are united.
For those rights we will strive. To enjoy
those rights is our aim, and our fixed determine
ton; in the Union, if it may BE- so without the
Union; it it must be SO.
We believe that when the principles upon
which the Union was formed, cease to be re-
garded-when the Constitution ceases to be a
guide-when part of the people Of the Amer
ican confederacy assume and exercise the power
to do that which the Constitution prohibits, or
to dvest the remainder Of the people Of that
which the Constitution confers upon them in a
word, when the Constitution is made subervient
to the dictates OF "higher law" there is no
longer Union.
We believe that to speak of the American
nj tof,., ,rt, L
been torn to tatters by dominant faction in the
government, is to speak Of an absurdity. When
all that gave an existence to the Union is des-
troyed, the name of Union is merely sound,
having no appropriate Specification. We believe
that he who adheres to the compacts Of the
Constitution is the "Union man." He who Mt.
tempts to injure his fellow citizens, by the viola
| ton OF those cOInpacts, is "disunonst"
We believe that the right divine to govern
wrong or to trample upon solemn guarantees
and sacred rights, is not acknowledged in
America, either as appcrtaining to an individual
potentate over his subjects, or to any one nun.
Der OF sovereign States, over any other number
equally sovereign; and il majority of the
States of America are determined to adopt that
| system, they must exercise it upon those who
are willing 70 submit.
We believe that the Constitution does not re-
quire Such SUBMISSION AT our hands, and We are
not among the passive submissionists.
We believe that the principles of the Union,
| witho ut the name, are moro sacred than the
name without the principles
| We believe that when the blessings which the
Union was designed to secure alike to all classes
OF citizens, are denied to us-when those equal
rights and privileges which the Constitution
guarantees to all Americans, are wrested from
us, and all this is done in the name of the Union
it is our duty TO adhere to the rights, the ben.
hts, and The principles of the Union, and let
who VIII, wear the empty name.
| We believe that justice, honor, the rights of
our children, the privileges and immunities of
frecmen and Americans AZ our fathers enioyed
them d we received them, are things y bicb
we cannot abandon, while we know that the
| NAME OF Understandable as that name is
made by the remembrance Of what it once was
and what 1t was designed to be-when 1t ia used
but as a W ltch-word for every attempt to dcfrnnd
or Cypress us, has in It's sound no charm of suf.
hcicnt potency to lull US into forgetfulness Of
our duties and our rights, or into an apathetic
endurance of the oppression or the fraud.
| LADIES CARVING AT DNNER.-Why doesn't
some leader of the fashionable world put an
end to this barharcua custom What a SIGHT