The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-03-14

there are those who speak of Others as sultrs,'
ana who declare that violation of the letter Of
the Constitution justi6es, il It does not demand
dissolution of the Union. On the Other
hand, We, the so called "ultras," contend that il
Is only where constitutional remedies fail, and
after all other means have been tried in vain, that
State lnterposition should be invoked, and the
last alternative be resorted to. Is it then be.
cause we will not shut our eyes to the fact that
this alternative may be forced upon us: that
the attempt is made fraudulently to conceal the
true issue, and substitute that of Union or dis
union as one which we had presented II 10 be-
cause selfsustaining, sectional anti-slavery ma
JOrity in violation of justice, of State equality
and the spirit Of the Constitution, have denied
us the protection and tranquility the Union
was designed to secure and have reduced
US to permanent minority in both Houses
Of Congress-, and in the electoral colleges of
the United States, that we are called on to Join
in the triumphal song over the fall of our
house, as the execrated tyrant of Rome fiddIed
over the confagration of that city? The APP
prevail or disapproval of the measures of the
last session of Congress in relation to slave
property, and the territory acquired by the
United States from Mexico, is one question.
The resistance or acquisition of the South, is
another and very different question. The first
closely concerns your representatives, and am
willing to stand or fall as your judgement may
be made up from the Congressional record
The last is matter for the decision of the peo-
pie, and in which am involved only as every
other citizen of Mississippi, whose fortunes are
identified with the State, and whose ideas of
allegiance require him to abide by that decision,
whatever it may be. trust the decision will
be made calmly and deliberately upon principle,
by reason, and equally uninfluenced by head
long passion or unmanly fear The history of
the South has been one of steady adherence to
the Constitution, of willing sacrifice to the
Union, and doubt not in both, the present
generation will emulate the conduct of their
sires. To do so, and truly to preserve the fame
we have inherited, it is necessary that we should
show our attachment to principles, not to forms;
and that at whatever hazard we should main
tain the institutions and the equality which was
to us. If for this it be necessary
to assert our sovereign rights, even to the ex-
tent of disunion, the responsibility of catas-
trophe we will sincerely deplore, will rest, not
on our heads, but upon those who, regardless of
social and political obligations, have under
mined the foundation on which our Union was
erected. On which it might have securely stood
when contemporary governments, which Were
by force alone, were buried in the
waves of revolution. The consent and affection
of the people was the cement in which our
government was laid to destroy the strength
Of the one, is to ensure the fall of the other.
We could not more surely effect this than to
oerpetrate wrongs upon a section, and claim
submission because it was so done rs to afford
10 remedy?
When California was admitted, did not deny
he constitutional power of Congress to admit
lew States; nor the right of people in form
ng State constitution to determine what their
domestic institutions should be. 1t was con-
ended rather that Congress should first inquire
whether the case came within the limits of the
grant; that, in exercising the conceded power,
hey should look to the purpose for which it
was given that there should be the requisite
number of inhabitants and an organized terri
tory occupied by them, ready to form State );
a people, not merely given number of adven-
turers on an underlined country, but people,
to take upon themselves the respon.
sibity and to discharge all the obligations of
State of the Union. Or that there should exist
before any action of Congress, State ready as
such to enter our confederacy, such as the ease
>f Texas presented.
= There was not sufficient evidence that Cali
fornia filled the requirements of either SUPPOSE
ton the best information induced the belief
that the resources of the country were not ade
]uate to support State government, and the
unsettled condition of the population called for
territorial rather than State organization. That
he latter was adopted instead of the former
mode is to be ascribed to the determination of
80. -. D..
duction of slavery into that country and the
prohibition of slavery contained in the constitu-
ton Of California is probably to be assigned to
full opportunity to know the sentiment of Con-
gress, and could not have hoped to be admitted
as State with a constitution which recognized
and protected slave property.
Claiming then, that the grants of the Consti-
tuition should be exercised in subordination to
the purposes for which each was made, and as
serting that the power to admit new States has
been used as a means by which to assail the in
terests Of section of the Union, the conclusion
is, that under the forms of the Constitution its
spirit was violated by that act. 1t is needless
to notice the argument that, being admitted, the
State cannot be reduced to territorial condi-
ton. No such proposition has been contem-
plated, and the argument does not meet the issue,
which is the bad conduct of the agent, the vio-
lation of the trust to the injury of part of those
for whom the trust is held.
Another illustration of the sectional feeling
which controls the government is found in the
Texas boundary act. Though the limits of
Texas were held to be so sacred as to Justify a
foreign war, which cost us thousands of lives,
and millions Of money; when they came in con-
flct with the aggrandizing wishes of the anti
slavery party, they became so underlined and
unstable, that the Executive of the United
States threatened to use the military power of
the government against the State of Texas, if
she attempted to take possession of territory
which she had claimed when an Independent re-
public, to which she asserted her title when an
nexed to the United States, and in defence of
which our government went to war with Mexi-
co. 1t is true, proposition was made to Texas,
offering ten millions of dollars for territorial and
other claims, if she accepted a proposed bound
airy; but if not, was her old boundary to be re-
cognizedl Not at all; this would have been to
leave her free to choose between selling or
keeping her territory. Instead of this she was
to make her option between receiving the mo-
ney, or encountering the military power of the
federal government Now, the question occurs
by what authority did the federal government
assume to dispute the boundary of Texas, and