The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1855-08-14

ready to receive you and your followers; and
if you come not speedily thereafter to execute
your threats, your coming will not be waited
for-but they will seek you on :he soil where
you now vainly suppose no danger will ever
come. The fact which you ought to know bet
ter than do is, that after two or three hundred
thousand men are arrayed in battle on each
side, it makes no sort Of difference, as to the
probable result, whether one or the other
party has the greater reserve Of physical force
left out Of battle; because, after two or three
hundred thousand fighting men, in the present
state of the art of war, every thing depends
merely on brains. The sum Of these two facts
is very clear; namely, if the North wants to
settle the slavery question by the edge Of the
sword, the North is in very fair way to be
perfectly gratifed; and when she gets what
she wants, there is At least an exceeding great
probability that the North will see reason to
change her mind very materially as to the
wisdom Of that method Of settling the ques.
ton.
Moreover, let it not escape your attention,
that many circumstances aggravate the con-
duct of the men of the North, and exasperate
he hearts Of the men of the South, in this
whole business all Of them tending to strength
en- US, and to weaken you, at every stage Of the
bloody struggle to which you are driving the
country. For, in the first place, let slavery be
all that you assert it to be--the time is long
past when it was either honest wise, or patri
otic, for you to take that ground, even in an
argument having merely ordinary bearings,
much less in one looking TO bloodshed and con.
quest. All that was settled between US before
the old confederation was formed; it WAS set
tied again in the common danger and common
glory of our great revolution; it was settled
again in the Federal Constitution. l say moth
ing about the unspeakable folly Of a'guing as
q statesman, that slave State and free State
supposing the question to be now for the first
time considered. What say is, that it is no
longer possible for the men Of the North to
open that question, without revolution, and
without disloyalty to every national act aud
movement of our past history; and what |
mean is, that they cannot do this, without SO
weakening and disgrscir.:: themselves, and so
strengthening aud ennobIi"g US, that God, pos.
terity, fortune. and the heart Of the combat
ants, must feel the effects of the opposite con.
duct and position Of the parties. To which
add, in the second place, that this conduct Of the
men of the North, besides being r base polii.
cal afterthrught, is deliberate breach of faith,
connected 10y the blood Of our fathers; an g.
noble retracton Of plisht.d honor and truth
aud Justice 4 calculated sacrifice nf those Of
their own race and lineage, and house aud
blood, for those Of strange kindred and cline
without any new circumstance or additional
reason for so atrocious per6dy against nature
and against plighted tro,h. Add sgair, in the
third place, the atrociry Of that state Of heart
in which the North presses this bloody arbi.
trament, under the settled belief that she risks
nothing thereby, aud that We risk everything,
aud the fervor Of that state of soul in which
tho South, reused by so much insult, injustice
and damage, really does ,isk all, with sub.
lime purpose, to the last man, 10 win all. And
then, in the fourth place, add the sort Of con-
viclion with which the two parties thus mutu-
ally range themselves in that deadly strife
and If you he rs wise rs you are eloquent,
you may comprehend, what as yet you seem to
have wholly verlooked--namely, the settled
confidence Of the entire slave States, that they
are fully able to make the men Of the North
repent that ever they broke constitutions, and
forgot ancestral ties and outraged national Oh
legations, in order to ruin ten millions Of the
most elevated race on the face of the earth,
upon the hazard, il not the pretcxt, Of benefit.
ting the third part Of that number, Of ono OF
the most degraded races in the world. You
will have battle e. and that without truce or
compromise that whenever you can reach
us--and that until the field is entirely won =
For my part sir, would gladly shuu that bat
tie gladly give my blood to arrest it. If it
were begun. But there mingles with this pro-
found dread Of shedding my brothers blood
not one apprehension of the result Of the con.
flict. For whoever lives to see that battle
fought, will see one more example added to the
muItitudes which already crowd the annals Of
mankind, that they who boast themselves when
they grid their harness on, are apt enough to
wall when they come to put it off,
So far, then you may perceive, that according
to the fixed unanimous conviction of the fifteen
Commonwealtlls you propose to conquer, your
whole North, if it were united as one man, could
no more do that deed than it could make a
world and that, unless it were lost to every glo-
rious inspiration Of the past, and every sacred
impulse struggling for birth in all true hearts,
the North would no more think Of making such
an attempt, upon such pretexts as you array,
even if those pretexts were all true and real,
than it would think of parricide followed by self
murder. But think sir, beg you to consider
what shall add TO show that those pretexts are
neither true nor real.
The very foundation Of your discourse, as you
distinctly state, is the grand principle univer-
sal as you assert-in the law Of slavery, that
man created in the image of God, is divessed of
his human character, and declared to be a mere
chattel. Now, Mr.. Sumner. you cannot fail to