Daily national Democrat., 1858-10-22

the safety Of the Federal Administration or
the success Of national parties" s.. The el-
ovation to the public councils Of the ablest
and purest Southern men,"
Such is the basis of the League Of [ nited
Southerners, as formed by VIM L. Yancey,
of Alabama, upon the plan originally sug
gested by Edward Rufiin, of Virginia. There
is more in the objects of this Association than
appears upon the surface Those objects
have been fully explained in Mr. Yarcey's
speeches, and appear to look mainly to the
ascendency of the South in the councils of
the Nation or a dissolution Of the Union
The policy of the cotton States must govern,
OF the cotton States will secede. Slavery
must be carried into all the Territories of the
Union, and there maintained, whether slave
holders are in the minority or majority
The slave trade, against which the Govern
ment of the U. S, as well as every other
leading civilized government of the earth,
has Illuminated its legal anathemas, must be
reopened and perpetuated The Federal
Congaess must do all in its power to extend
the institutions of slavery and to encourage
them where they are, or Alabama, South
Carolina, Georgia, and the rest, will at once
secede from the Union, and set up South
ern Confederacy
Now, this man Hancey is a man of no or
binary abilities He is shrewd politician
an eloquent orator, and as ambitious as Luci.
fer. lie is thoroughly impressed with the
Importance as he conceives it, of having the
South control the policy of the General Gov
ernment because he believes that when the
control passes entirely into the hands of the
free States the institution of slavery will re-
ceve its death blow He is actuated by
what is, in some measure, a patriotic motive.
1t is true it is limited patriotism, but it is
none the less enthusiastic for having the ex-
treme South only for its boundaries. What
the whole Union is to a patriot of the Wright
and Clay and Webster school, the little sec
tion of cotton-raising States in the South is
to man like Yancey. lie cares nothing at
all about the North The free States are
the continent of Europe. He looks upon the
Union as mere compact between the indi- |
vidual States, by which they are bound no
longer than they see fit, and that the Gener-
al Government can no more question the
right of Alabama, or Sonth Carolina or
Georgia to refuse to obey a law of Congress,
when either of those States chooses to con
slider is at an unjust or unfair enactment,
than it can question the right of England to
manage her own proper concerns. Mr. Yam
eey is, therefore, a very dangerous man, and
ought to be put down; for, it is obvious that
when the whole South thinks as he does, the
Union is at an end Southern councils can
not always prevail. There must inevitably be
at least an alienation of political power be,
tween the two sections. No principle, con
sistent with those upon which our Federal
Constitution is founded, can be established,
which will in all cases, and with perfect uni
formity, operate in favor of either slave
States or free States The scale must occas-
lonally turn one way or the other, and it may
be that the principles of our government, as
by the successive decisions of the
supreme Court, may chance to operate entire
" in favor of one section against the other,
10 far as the extension of slavery over newly
Icquired territory is concerned If such
hould be the operation of these principles,
uch men as Yancey and his League of Uni
ed southerners would instantly pronounce
OF dissolution of the Federal tie and they
claim that the Southern States would have a
perfect right to walk deliberately out of the
Jnion. Now, the true doctrine is that they
nave no such right. 1t is nothing but rev
'lutionary right, which is a right without
aw, right to be maintained by force A
)eGceGble disbanding of the States of this I'm
on was never contemplated by the trainers
If our Government. Each individual one of
hem is bound by the Constitution, and the
Interpreter of that instrument in disputed
ases is the Supreme Court Secession would
'e nothing more than refusal to obey SOME
aw of Congress. In other words it is moth.
ng more, in effect, than notification. The
eceding State would declare itself indepen
lent but, as a matter of course, it could not
transport itself to another quarter of tile
world, 1t would still be within the acknowl-
edged limits of the United States. and the
Federal Government would exercise its iuris-
diction over it. The people of the State
would resist the attempted exercise of a Civ
en- law of Congress-the military power of
the Government would be called into requi-
sition to enforce it, and, unless the people of
the State were strong enough to consummate
their rebellious purposes, the attempted act
of secession would fail No State can there
lore go peaeeably out of the Union, and any
man who breaches secession breaches simply
All such persons, then as Yancey, shonld
be treated as nothing more than plotters of
treason and insurreetion, and every true
friend of his country should look upon them
with deep distrust and unconquerable aver
sion. Yet we are sorry to say that this spir-
It Of secession is much stronger in the South
han formerly. 1t has spread from South
Carolina into nearly all the Southern States,
and the Democracy of the South is becom-
ng, instead of a great conservative party,
mere Southern party, having for its object
-he upholding simply of Southern institu-
ions and the political power and aggrandize-
nent of that section of the Union. We do
not mean to say that Yaneeys doctrines are
dominant, but principles tending towards