The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-12-11
THE KEY TO SOUTHERN F1L1BusrER1se
From the Richmond CvaJ whig No, ?,

From the Richmond (va) Wing, Nov q.
We laid before our readers, few DAYS ago,
an extract from the late Disunion manifesto of
Hon. r. Barnwell Rhett, of South Carolina, ad-
dressed to the Governor of that State, wherein
ne takes bold and open ground for an immedi-
ate disintegration of the Union, a league, often
sive and defensive, of the Southern States, and
Southern Confederacy, totally independent
of, and disconnected with, the North. We fol-
low it up, to-day, with an article of similar
tenor, from the Ne,o Orleans Delta, the special
organ Of Jefferson Davis and the sscessonists
of the Southwest, in which it is very distinctly
minated to Mr.. Buchanan, that the conditions
of the success of his Administration are the
admission of Kansas as a slave State-the
practical enforcement of the Ostend Manifesto
with respect to Cuba-the keeping of his
weather eye open to political movements in
Nicaragua and Mexico-aDd general compli-
ance with the programme laid down by the
flibusters, secessonists, and manifest DESTINY
men of the South. From these developments
of popular sentiment in the South, it is plain
that sectional troubles and snimosities are not
yet at an end, but are liable to continue with
increased violence, unless checked and re-
strained by wise and pacific adjudication.
AS a matter of abstract right, as we'll as in
consonsnce with the spirit Of our Government.
selfprotection. In Government of mere num-
bers, as ours, approximately, is, there should al
ways be some check by which maiorities should
be compelled to respect the natural and the
constitutional rights of minorities. This plain
requirement of justice and right, we know. ia
liable to be dsregarded, when there comes to
be too great an infusion of the spirit of Democ-
racy among the People. The Wings of Vir.
GINA have felt this, in being deprived of all
political rights, so far as the Federal Govern
ment Is concerned, as effectualIy as if they
were aliens and enemies. Notwithstanding
this, no one, whatever may be the heat of party
prejudice, will deny that minorities haze rights.
equally as sacred as those of maiorities and
that no form OF popular government fulfls its
true end, that does not concede these rights,
and protect the minority in their enjoyment.
With this conviction, we have protested
against the political Acknowledgement of the
Wings of Virginia, as respects the Federal
Government; and with this conviction we now
protest against the exercise of the power of
numbers in the North, to degrade and impose
upon the people Of the South. For, of ali the
forms OF tyranny on earth, there is none more
CALLING than the tyranny of numbers. And all
experience has shown that no Government can
long exist, and preserve its integrity, where
legislation is controlled by the passions of the
multitude, and where mere majority, without
any constitutional check, frames and dispenses
the law.
To this evil can be distinctly traced the
irregular and ilibustering spirit which now
pervades many of the people of the South.
The people of the South, except those who are
afflicted with the mania of Democracy, are
just, conscientious, and conservative. The dis
position shown by some of them to enlarge
the political power of the South, By making ad-
ditions to our territory and population, pro-
ceeds, not from any spirit Of lawlessness or
disorder, but from conviction that it is essen
tlal to preserve our equality in the Federal
Government; and that, in this Democratic age,
the only plan of safety is to oppose numbers to
numbers.
We have here the true key to the solution of
the hhbuster sentiment in the Southern States.
Let the North concede rs what we believe the
Constitution and the natural rights of man en-
title us to, and we would hear little of this per-
Petual cry about Cuba, Mexico and Central
America.
To suppose that the Northern wing of the
Democratic party will consent to the practical
execution of the wishes and designs of those
In the South, represented by Barnwell Rhett
and the Neio Orleans Delta, is to suppose what
no one, at all oonversant with Northern senti-
ment, will for an instant believe The moment
that these extreme designs are disclosed, that
moment the Northern Democracy will be driven
from an alliance with their Southern associates,
and will help to swell the party which has al
ready grown so potential under the banner of
hostility to the institutions of the South.