The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-06-28


The Disunion Question-Secs salty sT I
Great independents Unson Party.
Mr. Rockwell, the new free soh whig Senator
from Mas &c husetts, in petition from citizens
Of Boston, for Tire repeal of the Fugitive Slave
law, has re-opened the agitation Of the disunion
question in the United States Senate. The de-
bate upon that petition, the other day, between
Messrs. Jones, of Tennessee, Rockwell, and
Sumner, of Massachusetts,, Butler, of South
Carolina and others, was pretty well up to
that pitch of sectional evaporation which cha
of 1850
1t was but a few weeks ago that Mr.. Jones
ridiculed the iSea that storm was brewing
among the ant-slavery elements of the North
and now he has become the veritable Cassandra
of the Senate. The mantle .ef Gen. Foote,
appears to have fallen upon the shoulders of
Mr. Jones He tells Us that :. the Union could
not be preserved one day after the repeal of
the Fugitive Slave law" but then we are con-
soled with the positive assurance that it never
will be repealed. The abolftionists, then, may
rave on; Mr.. Charles Sumner, in the face of
his soath to support the constitution OF the
he Il not a dog, that he should execute the fu-
gisive law; the anti-slavery societies may over
whelm the Senate with their petitions fer re-
peal but, having the assurance of Mr. Zones
that there will be no repeal, upon that point Of
assault, at least, the Union il secnre
But unfortunately the repeal of the Fugitive
Slave law is but an Incidental item in the gene
ral account Of this present agitation of the dis
union question. Causes behind the fugitive
law, and behind the Nebraska bill, lie st the
bottom of the mischief. The demoralEing
spoils party of the administration affords the
key to this portentous excitement revived be-
tween the North and the South. The desperate
exigencies of the administration de manded
some SUCH desperate expedient as the Nebraska
bill to restore the President and his cabinet,
their policy and their party to the lost confidence
of the South and of the constitutional Union men
Of the North But having in advance demo
rallied and destroyed the unity and the ehciency
of the triumphant party OF 1852, the admins
tration is powerless to reunite its scattered
fragments, even upon the constitutional prin-
ciples of the Nebraska bill; and hence the dan
ger to the peace Of the country.
The danger is not in the Fugitive Slave law
where Mr.. Jones places it; but in the absence !,
of any great national homogeneous, conserva-
tive Union party, covering all sections of the
republic. Mr.. Jones virtually confesses that
between the Southern aud Northern wings
the rupture is complete. He admits the evil, as
far as his party is concerned. But we have
no corresponding confession from Mr.. Butler,
Mr.. Mason, Mr.. Petit or any other Senator
OF the democratic side, in reference to the
broken. backed condition of the late national
democracy. None of them, however, can put
in any ;alid claim as champions Of the consti-
tutional rights of the South until their own
position is little more satisfactorily defined.
Do they belong to that pie. bald dominant demo-
cratic party Of which the Charleston Mercury
the organ in South Carolina, the Union the
organ at Washington, and of which, toe, the New
York Evening Post and the Albany .atlas are
the leading organs in the great conservative
State of New York? The contempt of Mr.. But
Ter for Charles Sumner smacks of waggery,
while the Van Burens are admitted to the or
thodox communion table; and the wrath Of Mr..
Petit against the free soil Senator from Mas
sachusetts is all moonshine as long as the
party of the Buffalo platform are counted
among " the Latter Day Saints" of the demo-
cratic church. In the teeth Of an unholy, in
coneruous spols coalition like this, all profess
sions of constitutional consistency, or OF devo-
ton to State rights, or to the Union, are but
dross in the crucible Of public opinion. Neither
parties nor partisans can maintain their ground
in the profession of Union and constitutional
principles, while they are parties to league
with traitors and dissension agitators, through
the corrupting agencies of the spoils.
The debate in the Senate upon the Boston
petition for the repeal of the fugitive law does
not touch the real merits of the general issue.
1t may all be well enough for bold and fearless
Senators to seize upon every occasion for the
expression of their adherence and disgust for
the reasonable principles of such men as Sum-
ner and Seward They are fair game, and
there is no peril incurred in assailng them
This however, is but paltry business, when
the blows, to be efficient, should be struck in
another quarter. Nothing is gained by these
continued and violent Senatorial denunciations
of Seward and Sumner, traitors to the Union
though they may Ire, when the real causes Of
the mischiefs in hand lie nearer home. 1t is
like man with bundle of contraband goods
under his arm, crying "stop thief" in hot pur-
suit of poor devil with nothing in his posses
sion but bad name.
The Senate of the United States in the pre-
sentation of the Boston petition have discovered
that the anti-slavery agitation is revived in the
North. PROFESSIONALLY this agitation rests
upon the scditious principles of Seward, Sum-
ner, and their associates in the cause Of free
soil and aboltionism. Yet, little more than
one short year nno tho country wa : nnef there