Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1856-06-28
Letter from the Hon. william c. Rives.

| ~ CAsrLr HILL, (YA,) June 10, 1885.
MY DxAR SIR:--I agree wlAh you that the pres
ent condition Of the Republic Ia such as to awaken
serious solcitude and call for the best reflections
of patriotic men Of ell parties. whether N or out
of public life. Sections and factions are SO much
excited against each other, and public bodies have
become 80 much heated with these controversies,
| mainly Of their own creation, rs well - by their
personal quarrek, that the only appeal now seems
| to be to the calm good sense and good feeling
which are always TO be found in the lirtuous and
Intelligent masses Of the people.
MY observation OF public affairs for more than
| the third Of a century has satisfied me thai the
contentious which have from time TO time dis
turbed the peace of the country, and more than
once brought its institutions into peril have been
goftcs up by politicians for party ends, not only
without the concurrence, but against the wishes
and sober sentiments Of the great body Of the peo-
pie. Let the people then, in their rightfal sove-
reignty and without being trammeled by party
leaders or party organizations, take counsel only
as their own cool and unimpassioned Judgments
aud intcrpose the blended voice of reason and
authority to command tie peace between an
cry and excited factions. This 1t Is which
truly constitutes a Republic, the form Of gov
ernment delivered to us by the wisdom of our
ancestors. I'm which the public voice and the pub
Hc interest make the supreme -distinguish-
| ing It from those spurious forms which, under .
chinery, have ever had the effect of transferring
the legitimate power Of the people into the hands
| of a few interested party managers. -
In regard to those deplorable events which have
| stained our border with fraternal bloodshed in
civil strife, and desecrated the Capitol by lcen.
| tous grossness of speech and scenes Of personal
violence which bring shame on the cause of repre-
| sentative government, the sober masses of the
people in every portion of the Union, am persua-
ded look upon them with stern disapprobation. In
substituting recurrence to physical force for the
peaceful authority of the laws and the coarseness
of insulting denuncation for the dignity Of ration
al and persuasive argument, they so far amount to
dissolution of governments and Of civil society It.
self; and, unless some means can be found of ar
resting this unhappy commencement Of intestine
troubles, we have already entered upon career of
revolution, and that not bloodless one, which
must terminate in violent dsrupture of the Union,
with all its train Of disastrous consequences to our
selves and to the world
Fortunately, means of correction and those of
the highest efficacy, do exist. The remedy is in
the hands of the independent and uncorrupted
masses Of the people. Let them speak ost let
them hold Tam and order meetings in every part of
the country, to the North and to the South, with
out regard to temporary and subordinate party dis
tinction; let thcm frown down factious and revo.
lutionary and personal violence in all its forms
let them set their faces against all recruiting or
subornation of men, by whatsoever name, to go to
Kansas to settle, with Sharpe's rife, or the mus
ket, or the bowie knife, question Of local domes
tic policy which rightfuly and exclusively belongs
to the free and sovereign decision Of the bona tide
inhabitants Of the Territory, when they are duly
qualified to form constitution of State govern
ment for themselves. In the mean time let the
government of the Union be called upon to exert
all its constitutional powers, whether legislative
executive, or judicial, to repress civil war, not
ly tv, sfo h,.t
preparatory movements. In short, let good citi-
zens everywhere, separately and collectively, JUS
tify, by their conduct and their language, in up
holding the cause of the public peace and the
Union, what was 80 well said of our political sys
tenn by of the fathers of the Republic, that in
moral sense at least, ours is the strongest gov.
ernment on earth, where every man will, at the
call Of the law fly to the standard Of the law, and
meet invasions of the public order as his own per-
sonal concern"
Here, my dear sir, trust is common ground,
broad and firm enough, on which sound patriots
and sober men both ut the North and at the South,
stand shoulder to shoulder in united and fra
ternal effort to restore peace to the country. Il
is ground on which YOU have already nobly planted
yourself in your admirable letter to the Boston
Kansas meeting, and where many of your fellow
citizens of the South, be assured, will stand firmly
| and zealously by your side. With respect to the
principles of that measure, the immediate occasion
OF that unhappy renewal of the slavery agitation
which has poured all these waters OF bitterness
through the land, there may yet be honest differ
ences of opinion between the North and the South.
But these differences, if left to the arbitrament Of
reason and the calm and dispassionate considera-
ton of the nation, win, / am persuaded, soon be
merged In a common sentiment of loyalty to the
Union, on the basis Of equal rights in all its mem.
| bers and a frank and noble determination to live
up to the constitution in all its requirements.
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which
rendered the Kansas and Nebraska bill 80 unpaa-
table to the North, was, as you are aware, not
asked for at the time by the people of the South
or their Representatives in Congress. II was
measure brought forward, and, II mistake not,
largely sustained from the North. But being
measure flowing, as the South has always believed,
from the true spirit and sound construction Of the
Constitution which had withheld from Congress
any power, by geographical line of discrmina-
ton or otherwise, impose restriction Of slavery
in the Territories, either while remaining in their
Territorial condition or coming into the Union as
States, when the proposition was made from an
other quarter of the Union to abolish discrimi-
nation believed to be both unconstitutional and in
furious to the Just equality of the States the South
could not but accept and cordially sustain it by its
vote. The repeal is now the law of the land;
and, being but return to the principles of the
Const tuition, after temporary and forced devia-
ton from them, the South can never agree to give
it up.
Under these circumstances the friends Of the
Constitution and the Union at the North will, am
sure be disposed to look at this great question Of
organic law, involving the equal rights and mutual
harmony Of the two grand divisions of the Confed-
eracy, solely by the calm lights of reason, truth,
and original plighted faith. Was the Missouri
Compromise a derogation from the principles Of
the Constitution, and without any warrant in the
letter or spirit of the fundamental compact of
union between the States, as the South has always
contended and still believesS IL IL was, then
surely all just win say it ought sooner or later
TO have been repealed; and, the repeal having been