Washington telegraph., 1855-09-26
Sectional Parties,


attacks of the Abolitionists unon the recart
patriotic letter of Ex-Governor Hunt against
the organization of sectional parties North
or South, makes some admirable remarks.
which we take pleasure in republishing for
the benefit of those Of our public men who
advocate with more zeal than reason. the
formation of Southern party in our midst.
We may be permitted to indulge the hone
that the untoward fate OF those who have
hitherto engaged in such unpatriotic at
temptS. may serve as check upon the rash
ness of the unreaecting, and will at least
render ambitious politicians slow to triGe
with that deepest feeling in every Ameri-
can breast, the love of the Union
" O. Crescent
''All attempts in this country to form
mere sectional parties have always failed
and must always fail-if we are TO work to-
gether as one people. in one Union. The
men who have been engaged in forming
these sectional parties have always been ru-
lned by them, and must always be ruined
unless the public are prepared to ruin the
universally and unity of our Federal form
OF Government. Prior to the formation of
the old Confederation, attempts were made
to organize sectionaliiy-but in vain.--
Pending the formation, of the Federal
Constitution, numerous like attempts were
made, and at times became alarming
but the authority of Washington, and the
good sense Of the public men, and the
public feeling North and South, put them
! all down. During the discussions in the
State Convention Of the Federal ConStitu-
ton, submitted for State adoption, these at
tempts were renewed, particularly in Eir-
einia-but with poor success in the end
for the more the UniCn of the States, un-
der one Government, was discussed the
stronger became that sentiment Of Union.
The Hartford Convention. made up main
ly of the patriotic men, acting under patri-
otic but fiery impulses, indignant because of
losses Of property and other wrongs, was,
after the adoption of the Constitution, the
next organized effort for 4 sectional party.
the wbiskey rebellion and Shay's rebel
lion against the Federal Unity. where rather
State exctemcnts against The Federal Gov
eEnment or the Federal Union. The Hart
ford Convention organized under auspices
the most favorable for success The war
bad stung the New England States to the
quick There was ten times the excite
ment about it that there is now about the
Kansas Nebraska bill. But the orsaniza-
ton of the Hartford Convention for mere
Northern COnfeieracy party. was political
death to almost every man concerned in it.
This Hartford Convention has been so
odious in the Northern mind, that it was not
until 1913 any attempt like it was renewed
in the North, when Giddings, Francis Ad-
ans, the Van Burens and others got up the
famous Buffalo Convention, against the COM
promise bills of 1850. which however fash
ed in the pan The Birney efforts of
1871. though they succeeded in defeating
Clay in the State of New York. hardly de-
serve the name of an organization. In the
South, however, in 1S3I-'32, a Hartford
Convention was gotten up in Columbia, s.
c.. to nuiify the Tariff law, and ''to secede"
South Carolina from the Union. Until that
time, the little Palmetto State had influence
and power in the Federal councils far be-
yond the numerical weight of her repre-
sentation-but since that time, and because
of the Hartford Convention, she has become
a nulli;y, and her public men Of no account.
4 desperate effort was made to galvanize in-
to existence a Hartford Convention at Nash
vile, Tenn. but it did not have much sue
cess. Its ultimatum, short OF dissolution
and disunion, was the extension of the
line of the Missouri Compromise OF $500
to the Pacific Ocean-the line, curicusly
enough, that the South almost in mass. in
1854, repealed-and the restoration of
which is now the general call at the North
particularly of the AbOlitionists. who bitter
ly resisted its recognition in 1913.
All these sectional political efforts. and
all those Northern or Southern parties have
failed-and in failing, have dragged down
all concerned in them They have had on
IL spasmodic and galvanic existences. The
effort now to organize the great commercial
and trading State Of New York-;he State
whose canals. aud railroads, and steamships.
bring net only all the produce of the Union,
but of the world to it. and through it, into a
State outside of the other States Of the Union.
South, will also fail Ii viii sputter. and
splutter, however. as did the Hartford Con-
vention. and the Columbia Convention
but all will end in a fz-ic. Our interests
are too vast for Us thus TO make Chinese
barbarians of ourselves, and TO shut out 9th
ers from our parties. or our party organiza-
tons
THE New YORK LlQuoR Law.-This
law. it may be pronounced now, is gen.
orally disregarded, save in some few unlm-
portant localities, where the people can be
supplied from elsewhere 1t is deeply to