The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-10-02

from the absolute dominion of the masters of
the slaves and the soil.
Charleston, South Carolina, is the headquar-
ters of the Oligarcby which originated the de-
sign of dissolviug the Union, to bring under
its subsection the laborer of the white race as
well as of the black race. The power seated
in Charleston is as absolute in South Carolina
as that OF Paris in France, and it aims to extend
over the whole South, Of which it aspires to be-
come the metropolis, the same commanding in
fuence. From this point, every movement for
the severance of the Union has received its
impulse; and now, while in States around her
this scheme is disguised, the FIRST symptom of
which was the breach of the Missouri Compro-
mise, it is boldly avowed in Charleston that
the separation of the States Is the great object,
phaterer may be the fate of the struggle for
Kansas. In late article, the Nelc York Her
aid replied to the threats of dissolution of the
Union Illuminated from the Charleston press,
and said they were empty threats, ike those
made in 1850, when California was admitted
as free State-that South Carolina, which
then gave up the design on the pretence OF
waiting the cooperation of the other slave
States, would succumb to the Union party,
and retract again on the same pretext. To
this the leading organ of authority in the State
of South Carolina, the Charleston Mercury, re-
spends:
"The Herald does not know-what is new.
ertheless the fact-that, in that controversy,
both parties advocated disunion. They differ
ed only as to the mode-one being for disunion
by State action, the other by cooperation, as
it was termed, or the joint action of several
States. But upon the policy Of dissolcing the
UuioB, of separating the South from her North
ern enemies, and establishing Southern Con-
federacy, parties, presses, politicians, and peo-
pie, aoere a unit There is not q single public
man an her limits, not one Of her present Rep
resentatires or Senator's an Congress, acho as
not pledged to the lips IN favor Of disuniOn.
Indeed, we well remember that one of the most
prominent leaders of the cooperation party,
when tainted with submission, rebuked the
thought by saying, that an opposing secession,
he only took a step backward, to strike 6loac
more deddly against the Union We saw him
take the step backward, but have waited in
vain for the blow So much for the facts
upon which the Herald bases its calculation as
to slaveowners and non-slave-owners, the poor
and the rich in South Carolina, in favor of the
Union"
This is a declaration of the settled purpose
of the State of South Carolina to dissolve the
Union, dating with 1850, and only postponed
for the cooperation of adjoining States. 1t
is not made dependent on the result of the con-
test in Kansas. The separation of the South
from her Northern enemies" is denounced,
simply because the People Of the North are
held to be enemies.
The retrocession from secession in 1850
I" ,oas a step backward, TO strike 6loao more
deadly against the Union" 1t will be a more
deadly blow, if the Territories of the Union,
from the Northern line of Kansas to the Gulf
and Pacific, are first conquered and devoted to
Slavery. l do not believe that the purpose
taken by the Multiplying party in South Caro-
lima, which speaks through the Mercury, is har-
bored by majority Of the shareholders of the
South, much less by majority Of the people
but that it is the long .neditated scheme of the
ambitious malcontents of South Carolina, who
look with the eye of Cortez to the conquest of
Mexico and Cuba, and the appropriation of
their riches and the subsection of their people,
the declarations quoted leave no doubt.
The issue now pending will decide whether
the class bent on this career of conquest shall
have starting point in the free Territories of
the Northwest, which shall preclude all inter-
ference with the policy on the part of the free
States. The belt which Kansas will give the
slave class across the Continent, embracing the
whole genial region, is all they could ask from
the North. This gained, the partition line divi-
ding the Union would soon be announced, to
get rid of Northern intervention, and then the
Southern conquerors would turn their arms
towards Mexico.
hold that the strongest bar against disunion
is the preservation of the Territories from slave
settlement. To explain this, some reference
10 the condition of these States, where the null
DUPLICATION of slaves has made their owners
masters of the Government and the soil, is ne
cessary. Governor Hammond, leading Null
ifier of South Carolina, and one of the greatest
supporters of the Slave Interest, cannot be
suspected of exaggerating the mischief it works
on the non-slaveholding whites. Here is his
as to their condition, in an address
before the South Carolina Institute, in 1850:
"They obtain precarious subsistence by
occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plum
derng fields or folds, and too often by what is
in its effects far worse-trading with slaves,
and seducing them to plumber for their benefit"
MIR. Tarver, another Southern writer of dis
tinction, sustains this statement in a paper on
the subject of domestic manufactures in the
South:
The free population of the South may be
divided into two classes-the STAKEHOLDER and the
nonslaveholder. / am not aware that the rela-
tive numbers of these two classes have ever
been ascertained in any of the States; but I
am satisfied that the non-saveholders far out
number the MISUNDERSTANDING by three to
one. In the more southern portion Of this re-
gion the nonslaveholders possess, generally, but
very small means, and the land which they pos
sess is almost universally poor, and so sterile
that a scanty subsistence is all that can be de-
rived from its cultivation and the more fertile
soil, being in the possession of the stakeholder,
must ever remain out of the power of those who
have none"
In treating of the same project, (manufactur-
ing Establishments as a means of redeem
ing the white population of the South holding
no slaves, and thrown out of employment by
being driven from the culture of the soil by
them, the Hon. J. Ii. Lumpkin, of Georgia,
says:
!" 1t is objected that these manufacturing es-
adjustments will become the hotbeds of crime.
But am by no means ready to con-
cede that our poor, degraded, half-fed, half
clothed, and ignorant population-without Sab
bath schools or any other kind of instruction,
mental or moral, or without any just apprecia
ton of character-will be injured by giving
them employment, which will bring them under
the oversight of employers, who will inspire
them with seifrespect by taking an interest in
their welfare"
Mr. VIM. Gregg, in paper before the South
Carolina Institute, handling the same subject,
remarks that
Any man who is en- observer of things
eonld hardly pass through our country without
bsing struck with the fact that all the capital,
enterprise, and intelligence, is employed in d.
recnng slave labor; and the consequence is,
that large portion of our poor white people
are wholly neglected, and are suffered to while
away an existence in state but one step in
advance OF the Indian of the forest 1t is an
evil of vast magnitude, and nothing but a
change IN public sentiment will effect its cure"
j. ID. Taylor, of Charleston, South Carolina,
pursues this topic of the restitution of the
mass of whites in that State and no;nts To the