The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1857-02-03


Columbia the mayor ordered the town bell be tosd
and the exercises at the South Carolina college were i'm
medistely suspended AT Charleston a large palmetto
tree standing of the streets draped in mourn
ing and the flags Of the shipping in port and the public
buildings placed at half mast
LETTERS TO DIR. O. A. BR0wNsoN, ON THE IN
COMING ADMINISTRATION.-No.B s.
DEAR s In considering the subject of American slave
ry two questions be answered First did the slave
States possess many rights under the constitution
enjoyed by those States in which slavery does er
list Secondly have those rghts-supposing them onee
to have existed--ever been surrenderedf
Before the revolution each colony absolutely indie
pendent of its neghbors Occasionally il 10 true the COL
ones united for temporary purposes for instance
that of defence against the aboriginal inhabitants of the
country In the prmeval forests of this continent how
ever for the first time, the great OF humanity was
Analysed and finally resolved by the most successful po
cal chemists that lived into its original elements
In the Old World had been known the fuel Of
powerhe simple prop of the great edice of royalyn
word the chatel Of governments here he became
known the of power and the absolute mas Of
government The carly settlers of Virginia not only In
sisted upon their individuality in colonial point of vew
but radically democraized their internal police For
hundred and fifty years they abored to enlarge the bounds
of individual liberty and found glorious democratic
pire in the West existence without government seemed
promise to the general greater degree Of happi
ness than the tyranny of the European governments"
"They WERE indeed has been well said by of the
eloquent historians of the world aAngo-axons in
the woods again, with the inherited culture and intelligence
of the seventeenth century The Ango-axon mind in its
severest nationality neither distracted by Anacism nor
wounded by persecution, excited by new ideas but
fondly chershng the active instinct for personal free
-
belonged before the Reformation and existed indie
pendent of the Reformation had made its dwelling in the
empire of Powhatan." true history Of the gigantic
struggles of the first Virginians to iberate from tb
shackes of sixty centuries is still desideratum in our L.
brares The patriots of James river long ago laid
beneath the sod Of the valley and their smps
monuments remain By the fading manuscript and tbs
dim light of tradition permitted to make the Jour
ney of the Pilgrim and worship upon the soil sanctRed BY
their virtues and ennobled by their blood The fierce u
bulent though we-meaning democracy Of the aOd
Dominion long before the close of the seventeenth cent
ry hurled defiance at consolidated power and declared
that man. born in the image of God was not the mere
creation Of British charter but being that had Inherit
ed rights from the high and lofty One that inhabiteth
eternity" The gallant settlers asserted that he right Of
electng all officers Of this colony should appertain to The
burgesses," and in this manner virginia established
upon her soil the supremacy Of the popular branch the
freedom Of trade the independence of religious societies
the security from foreign TAXATION and the universal s
tive franchise"
In no material respect was there any difference bsvsu
the motives which actaated the settlers in Virginia and
those which prompted the Purians who lay.ded upou
Plymouth Rock There was general disposition in the
latter well as in the former ESCAPE the spirit
murder rapne, lust conquest jealousy and martydom
which, in fourteen hundred years. had converted Europe
into poor-house of nations Old Cotton Mather of po
rious memory, tells us "the God of heaven served A.
WERE upon the spirits Of his people In tho
English nation stirring up the spirits Of thousands which
the faces Of each other with most unanimous
inclination to leave the pleasant Of THAR
native country, and go over terrible ocean, into more
terrible desert for the pure enjoyment ofa His ordinance
From old manuscript in his possession he presents Us
eight general considerations for the plantation of New
England Four Of these rebuke in the strongest Language
the spirit of that than Hebrew eprosy which our
political surgeons have lately treated under the name Of
know-nothingism. The following four show us what wa
in reality the grand substratum Of all the genuine dsmo
racy east of the Hudson river:
Thirdly. The land grows weary Of its inhabitants in
asmuch that man, which the most precious Of ali cs
lures here vile and base than the earth be tresds
upon children neighbours and friends especially the poor
are counted the greatest burdens which, II things were
right, would be the chieest of earthly blessings
"Fourthly We are grown to that ntemperance ia alr
excess of riot as no mean estate almost will suffice man
keep sail with his equals and he that fails in Il nst live
in and contempt hence it comes to pass hst All sr
and trades carried in that deceul manner and un
righteous course 1t Is almost impossible for good M
right man to maintain his constant charge and i've COM
fortaby in them.
Filthy The schools Of learning and religion are 80 cor
rupted the unsupporabe charge Of sducation
most children, even the best witest and Of the ire
hopes perverted corrupted and utterly overhrown By
the multitude of evil examples aud centious behayior IN
these seminaries.
Sxthly The whole earth Is the Lords garden and Rs
hath given it to the of Adam to be titled and I'M
proved by them why then should we stand aarvins Nara
countries profitable for the use of man. to lie waite with
out any improvement
That the Puritan fell from his first estatetha he Wa
guilty of intoerable invasons of individual rphts-tha
he had hardly landed when he commenced his persecu
ons of the Baptists the Quakers and the Catholics must
be admitted but that he also labored even while enve
oped in amazing and inexplcablc cloud Of bieotry
and superstition to indpdare our race is no less ue
His crimes were great extent the crimes Of the age in
which he lived and two centuries have closed over him
and them let us magnanimously accept multitude
sons which have been offered dying his policy Human
history has furnished us one Solomon, Cesar Co.
lumbus one Bacon, Leo X Louis XIV but when
look back to the little vessels that fret bore English hu
mainly to the Western World, hundreds Of men,
once animated by common hopes and INDUCING com.
mon destiny, Drawing without chart the ocean bows
and the ocean rocks borne onward apparently by the
unseen spirit Of all the greatness Of all the ages.
Upon the breaking out of the Of the revolution the
colonies united their energies agreeing the 18th
November l7 through their delegates in Congress the
celebrated confederation the second article Of which
in these Words Each State retains It's Sovereignty
DOM and independence and every power, Jurisdiction and