Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1856-04-24
From Washington.
WASHINGTON, April 13.

The antagonism between the friends and sup
porters of President Pierce and Mr. Buchanan,
becomes more and more manifest every day.
An address from Virginia member of the House
to his constituents, in which q strong preference
for Mr. Pierce is expressed, is about to appear.
pamphlet from Richmond has been circulated
here, in which the claims of Mr.. Pierce for renomi
nation are urged. The following extract shows
the spirit in which the contest is conducted:
Everybody recollects the part the Democracy
of Virginia played in the National Convention of
1852; with what undertaking devotion they, ad-
hered to the fortunes of Buchanan, until ample
experiment demonstrated his cause to be desper-
ate; with what studious care they selected anoth-
er statesman worthy Of their confidence and of the
highest honors of the nation with what burst of
enthusiasm the Convention greeted the venerable
Barbour when he pronounced the name of Frank
lin Pierce; how that name was reverberated from
State to State until, by the unanimous acclaim Of
the Convention, it became the watchword Of the
Democracy in the campaign of 1852. 1t was o
scene of the deepest dramatic excitement to the
spectator, and is Of more subdued, but not less
genuine, interest to the reader now that it is mar
rated among the pregnant passages Of history.
"Let us make the distinct issue before the coun-
try. Let us proclaim our principles without
equivocation and with shout of defiance. And
for leader let us select no timid time-serper, no
skulking coward but let us take the veteran of
the war, all coveredas he is with glorious wounds,
and bid him conduct US to defeat or to an honora-
BILE triumph. He never swerved from his support
of the South nor abated jot or title of heart in
our service. AMI is this the man whom the South
will betray for some easy person who has been re-
posing in inglor1ous neutrality, while Franklin
Pierce was enduring the sweat and agony Of the
strfe?"
Gov. Wise, who is popular in Virginia, and fav-
orably known through his late canvas of the State,
to nearly all the democratic politicians in it, is, on
the other hand, strenuous advocate for the nomi-
nation of Mr.. Buchanan, as he was at the Balti-
more Convention.
1t is conjectured by some ofthe South I'm demo-
cratic politicians, that the contest between Mr..
Buchanan and Mr.. Pierce will lead to the nomina-
ton of Judge Douglas. But others think that,
will take up Southern man, and that Senator
Rusk, of Texas. is prominently indicated as fav-
orite both of the North and the South.
Gen. Webb, ofthe New York Courier & Enquir-
er, hos issued pronunciamento in favor of the
nomination by the Republican Convention of Sena-
tor Seward and proposes the issue of "Kansas
and AntiKansas," as the sole issue of the contest
The same issue is distinctly made by Mr.. Seward
in his late speech. He presents in the issue the
immediate admission Of Kansas "with it's present
constitution" that is with the constitution form
ed last fall by an illegal convention, elected e1-
clusively by party in rebellion against the terri
torial laws. 1t is the weakest issue that the
Black Republicans could make.
The proposition Of Mr.. Seward has been already
much damaged by the proceedings and debates in
the Senate upon the spurious memorial Of the
self-styled Kansas Legislature, for the admission
of the Territory into the Union as State, with
its present constitution"
Judge Douglas remarked, upon this subject:
81 think it was wrong to receive this memorial
at all, much less to refer it or to print it. The
movement in Kansas does not make it State,
either in the Union or out of the Union. 1t has
none of the attributes or qualities of State. The
attempt to make it o State is simply to put the
Federal Government at defiance--an net of revolu-
ton, as the Senator from New York designated it
yesterday. He said it was revolution which
Congress could sanction; but / am not disposed
to sanction it, among other reasons because it
IN net of rebellion and revolution"
Judge Butler, in the course of his remarks in
the debate on the same subject, said:
''Now, sir, what do gentlemen say? That this
is an initiative proceeding to make State govern
ment. Will the Senator from Maine tell me that
there is parallel in the history of any well regu-
lated Government on earth-1 will not say Anglo
Saxon, English, or any thing of that kind-where
government, deriving its existence, its organiza-
tion, its very life from a legitimate source, has
been superseded by another ilegitimate one, where
the real government has recognized the other, and
has dispensed with the recognition of legitimate
authority and adopted q spurious government
standing up in rebellion against it? Is there any
such case in history? Here the palpable fact
stands out before you-that the Congress of the
United States have, by solemn act, organized a
territorial government for Kansas; and the Con-
gress of the United States is now required to re-
pudiate that government, and to recognize as o
State the existence of another standing up in open
rebellion against it. Those who refuse to recog-
nize 1t as State, or as that is in the chry-
sails condition approaching State are to be de-
nounced as the defenders of tyranny that would
deny the right ofpetition.
''Sir, whatever may be my peculiarities, have
no affinity for tyranny; have less for that wild
liberty which finds its vent, its escape, and its
abomnable orgies in anarchy. That which dread
most is the unrestraned discretion of man-fana-
tical, wild, ungovernabe man-that approaches
its object through the process of anarchy. These
men, who have thrown aside legitimate constitu-
tion, now under the mask of the right of petition,
attempt to approach this body and we are to break
down all our rules to print their petition. There
is process horrible to me as that which claims
to be above the Constitution, the laws and the
rules Of my country. Sir, the "bigher law" sys.