Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-10-18
Ghe freeman.
DANIEL P. THOMPSON, Editor
MONTPELIER
STATE RIGHTS.

We have often asserted that the South, through
nearly their whole course of Slavery aggression
upon the rights of the North, have been running
directly counter to their old and professedly fa-
vorite doctrines Of State Rights as taught by
Jefferson and Madison, that had this doctrine
been honestly carried out, it would have shielded
the North against the worst, if not all the out
RACES to which they have been subjected; and
thar, therefore, it stood us in hand to adopt this
doctrine into the free creed Of the North, and
insist upon its observance, as the most effeciual
method Of meeting the South, it being an i'm
plement of their own manufacture, and one of
the most difficult Of all, for them to parry.
With these views, we have all along watched,
with no little curiosity, to say the least, to see
how far the South, in their late bold attempt to
nationalize the great abomnation of Slavery,
which can alone long be sustained but by the
extreme old Federal construction of the Const-
tuition, contended for BY Adams and Hamilton,
would go in keeping up their hypocritica and
absurd professions Of fealty to this Jeffersonian
doctrine State Rights, and have wondered at their
persistence in keeping up those professions SO
long. But the tide. it seems, is about to
tura. The South, seeing their error, and caring
not straw for any principle that does not bolster
up their darling institution, are now rapidly
changing their ground, discarding the old Demo-
cratic land marks of Jefferson and Madison, and
substituting the more congenial ones of Hami
ton, Adams and the Hartford Convention Fed
eralists. We have recently noticed many ind-
democratic presses, but the Memphis Eagle,
the leading paper of Tennessee, is, we believe,
the first Southern Democratic Journal that has
broken ground, openly on the subject, as the ed
itor has distinctly done in the following, which
was drawn forth by an article in the Nec York
Times, showing that the disunion which the
South are threatening, would be the death-knel
Of Slavery.
Let the South read and ponder on these out
givings well May it not be that the North is
endesvouring to aggravate the South to the
point of secession, as the initial step towards the
ultimate consummatisn of the abolition of South
ern slavery in the way here plainly indicated -
And may it not be, after all the true policy of
the South to stand BY the Federal Constitution
and La,os as prescribed in the American Plat
form! Certain we are, that if the whole South
and the Conservative, Constitutional men of the
North will place themselves upon that platform,
there will then be no danger to be apprehended
for the rights of the South-no danger of disun
ion. The extreme doctrine Of State Rights must,
ere long, become distasteful to every tue South
erner. Fifteen years from this the only adro-
cafes Of these doctrines must be looked for North
Of Mason and Diron's Line"
Here is the reputation of these great princi-
pies of Democracy as broad and distinct as Ian,
guage can make it. But what will honest North
e'n Democrats say TO that!