The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-09-10
From he Richmond (Va.) Enquirer
THE DISUNION PRESS ON SECTIONAL OR
GANIZATION.
Virginia will give it no Aid and Comfort.

viii give IL no Ala ana Comfort
The disunion presses of the South, such, for
example, as the Charleston Mercury and the
New Orleans Delta, are warm in their advoca.
cy of a Southern political organization, as a
substitute for cur present Democratic organi.
cation. In this they only show that they
rightly understand the adaptation of the means
to the end they have in view. The overthrow
of the national Democratic organization in the
South, and the substitute of q sectional one iu
Its stead, we regard as indispensable to dis
solution of the Union of the States; as COM
Pletely so as was the conquest of Sebastopol to
Crimea. Once break down the National Dem.
ocratic organization, and the Union which it
has upheld for three score years will also be in
ruins In very short time. But preserve the
Democratic party in the force of its numbers
and OF Its political principles, as enunciated in
their National Conventions and carried out by
their present Chief Magistrate, and the strength
Of the Union will laugh TO scorn century's
siege of Black Republicans, Federalists, and all
other dssGiiGnts.
Ii is hardly necessary for us to assure tie
distant reader, that Virginia will continue to
stand unfiinchingly By the National Democra.
cy, while they stand by her rights and interests
as they have hitherto done. She is proverbial
for her Jealousy of Federal power, and has
never been behind her sister States in inferno
sing her authority TO prevent its abuses She was
the first to resist the encroachments of the Gen.
ersl Government, and will be the last to acoui
esce in them. Almost single handed-certain.
ly without the active support or CO operation of
an individual State, North or South-Virginia
arrested the progress of usurpation in the DAYS
of the elder Adams and on no subsequent oc.
casion has she permitted any of her sister
States to get ahead of her in the assertion and
maintenance of the doctrines of State rights az
taught by her own Jefferson. She will still {" 90
as far as he who goes farthest" in the same
direction; even to the extent of disruption. for
adequate cause. When, in the language of
Jefferson, she shall be called on to choose be-
tween separation from or submission to a Gov.
eminent without limitation of powers, we need
not tell the reader where Virginia will he
found.
But Virginia is emphatically Uniop.Iov;ng
State. She contributed more, in blood and
treasure, to Its formation, than any of her sis
tiers, and it is therefore quite natural that the
talk about disunion should fall " discordant on
her ear" She wants the Union preserved and
administered on the principles of its forma.
tion-upon the letter and spirit of the Consti
tution-upon the principles of the Democratic
party as defined in their much abused " plat.
forms" and as illustrated in faithful Demo.
cratic Administrative. She will not bearken
to the voice of the SecessioBists while she sees
in the Presidential Office a conservative eonsti
tutional ststemen of her own selection. sur.
rounded by a Cabinet of national men, the ma
jority of whom represent her peculiar view.
Instead CT plupgiDg into the vortex of dis.
union, she will indeed pray that the Union.
as its affairs are now administered, may in du
ration exceed that of the Egyptian pyramids,
which, after the lapse of more than forty centu.
ries, still stand erect and mistaken above the
foods of the Nile.
The objections to the substitution of a section
al party in the South for the present Democrat.
ic organization, must suggest itself to the mind
of every intelligent person who is not a Dis
uuionist per Sc. The inevitable result would
he the triumph and complete escendency of
Black Republicsnism in the National Govern.
ment. This is just as certain as that a com.
plete Northern organization, embracing nearly
twothirds Of the electoral votes, would prove
too strong for Southern organization, compre.
hending but little over one-third. The effect OF
the proposed change of parties would therefore
be most injurious, most ruinous to the Southern
cause.
The people of our section will find, in the his.
tory Of former organizations for the advance.
ment of Southern rights, an instructive warn
ing against the extremists of 1857 and their
schemes 1t is a remarkable fact, that a large
proportion of the influential Democrats of 1882
who left their party on account OF Jackson e
proclamation and its offspring, the Force Bill,
found final resting place in the old Federal
party. They looked upon the tariff as " bill OF
denominations" as g measure which would ruin
the South unless arrested by State Rights inter
poeition. As patriots, as friends of their own
native land, they were compelled to abandon
the old hero, because he refused to permit a
sovereign State to nullify "the internal tariff y
law They became snti-J ackson men, and thus
cheered the heart of their former enemy. Nor
aid their cooperation with Federalism long re-
main of negative character. 1t soon became
positive. The men who left jackson because
Il VAS not an extreme State Rights man, and
,ac;sIv because he would not let South Car
o1ins nuilify the tariff Law, were found, in the
snacs of a few revolving months, fighting shout
e. m shoulder and arm in arm, with ultrt
Fsderalists, in favor OF protective tariff,