Southern reveille. (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1851-185?, 1852-10-13
Letter from Hon. Q. ]. Ingersoll.


Curtis, William Strong, VIM. Heidenrich,
and Henry A. Muhlenburg. Committee:
GENnENEN-Busied with getting the last
volume Of my historical sketch through the
press, am obliged to decline the honor Of
your kind invitation to Reading, next Satur-
day, but submit some suggestive reflections
concerning the Presidential election.
No. 81 Of the Fe,iarlist. which terms that
place in our government the Executive De-
pagtment, treats its arrangements as the
greatest constitutional difficulties. Though
the method Of choice has widely departed
from the originality provided, there is such
special providence in republican institutions
that both the Conventions at Baltimore drew
blindiolded from lotteries, high prizes Of can
didates.
Il is much worse than unjust, il is impoli-
tic. for one party to calumnitae the candidate
Of another. Jefferson and jackson were ele'
waited by outrageous abuses, which always re-
coils upon the utterers. Il is gross miscalcu-
lation of-the manlincss Of the instructive
multitude to suppose that it discredits Pierce
to call him coward, or Scott a fool
On this occasion, since the Union has been
so recently endangered, both parties signalize
an absorbing cOncernment one vital national
essence, paramount to all the rest. Each
party casts down an African serpent turned
into the miraculous American rod which is
to swallow up all the other serpents Of all the
magiciaus
That extraordinary coincidence and emu
lation is my motive for this appeal to his
countrymen, BY an elderly man in retirement,
with no selfish or er-weening party motive.
One Of the solitary four Of the large Penn
sylvania delegation in Congress reduced qua
ternity. who alone stood fast from the first
and endured TO the end resisting the Wilmot
proyiso, free-soil and other foreign notions,
alien to American Institutions, takes this oc.
casion for yindication.
Pennsylvania, chief Of the central States,
which belt and bind this republican confede-
raey-kcystone Of the coyenant-to Penn
sylyanians it belongs to recognize slavery as
tolerated BY liberty. and preserve the union Of
States, wherein some hold slaves and others
hate fellow-countrymen because they hold
slaves
The parties contesting the Presidency both
acknowledge the paradox as conclusive as it
is patriotic, that African slavery is part Of
American liberty. Europe decries both sa-
very and Democracy as equally incompatible
with good government But both are monu-
mental bases Of American institutions; fla
grant facts deiying European disparagement,
and disproying its philosophy From liberty
combined with slavery American republican
nationality has arisen, towering before the
world in development unexampled. incredible,
ave fabulous. Agriculture, commerce man
ufactures, nayigation-all the useful, many
Of the elegant arts, national wealth immense,
and national glory unsurpassed, social happi-
ness. public prosperity, al flourish in this
nation Of United States, lCith slavery, if not
bv slavery, amalgamated with liberty in the
very marrow Of the bones Of this country.
i Such is American history, and American
reality, which Europe may disparage but
cannot deny.
American independence sprang from Eu-
ropean recognition Of American slavery. as
part and parcel Of American liberty.
The Treaty which recognizes these United
States as sovereign, and United States in 50
many plain English words, guarantees to their
inhabitants negroes as pyopcrty Tart. ~
by sanction, national and international, Eu-
ropean and American; Great Britain and
these United States the high contracting par
ties France and Spain the spousers; and
all the rest Of the world witnesses to that
solemn recognition.
Revulsion Of scntimentality some years
after that acknowledgment took place, strange
and metaphysical Franklin and Adams
who prefaced and executed that Treaty, in
what they reverentially termed the name Of
the most holy and undivided trinity, brought
themselves to believe that there Is no trinity
English and French Missionaries, Wilberiorce
and Lamartinc that there can be property IN
: negroes; other jealous rising in fervor to fu'
S ry donounco slavoholding as damnablc sin
! our republican constitution a national course
Washington Madison and all other slavehol
ders monsters Of iniquity.
These black polemica convulse US. Steer,
Ing clear Of the fatal rocks Of that sea o.
troubles, by the compass Of obvious facts, we
behold pullulating millions Of happy slaves
producing cotton, tobacco. rice sugar, corr
+ and other ezuberaut staples Of this land o
liberty. Their labor enriches and harmoniser
A 4