The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-11-25
The Montgomery AdcerfiSer IS very gloomy
but hesitates. The editor says:
The Defeat of the Northern Democracy.

We think that we are in no danger of be
ing accused Of eXaggeration of evil, when we
assert that the recent elections present the most
startling and the gloomiSt chapter in our his
tory. The day has gone by when words of
warning to the South were laughed at by her
too coniding people. None but the most rabid
optimsts see anything in our present condition
that does not point directly to Southern seces-
sion or abe abolition of Southern Slavery
Those who have so often been ieered at and
fldiculed, those who have so often been alluded
to as always ready 10 fire at the crisis, those
who, with McDufe, saw the cloud on the North
ern horizon no bigger than mans hand and
eren then prophesed that it would overshadow
the whole Northern sky-those men, whose
words were once called the rawlings of madmen,
are now respected as the men to whom Provi-
dence gave prophetic vision. 1t is no longer
a question of the right of secession. Men no
longer deny the ability and the will, on the part
of the North, to deprive MS of our equality in the
Union. 1HE WHOLE SOUTH IS NOW LOOKING
FORWARD TO DIsUNIoN. Some view it as the
last sad and gloomy alternative, that is to save
from degradation and dishonor. Others
look to IT as the natural impulse of distinct
community, to discover a connection with Il
people wtA whom We hold no ideas social or
political, in commons, 10 some, the cry of dis
union sounds like the. lknell of human freedom
and republican independence, a concession to
the principles of mOnarchism and European
tyranny. To others, it is the inspiring blast
that summons the ireemen of the South to
stand forth IN all the glory of Southern nation
atty; rebuke to Northern socialism on one
side, a defiance to foreign tyrants on the other
To the vision of some disunion appears a
hOrrid monster, clothed in all the bloody pano-
,,f,Ya Il l.. Al.
rapne, the beginning of the end of American
civilization. Others, more sanguine, look to
a separate Confederacy, as the true era of South
ern progress. They see the South, holding at
the bidding of her mighty staple, whole nations
IN subsection they see her advancing with gi-
ant strides along the pathway of nations, until,
with a society combining the freedom of ancient
Greece with the conservatism of regulated la
Dor, with climate and a soil unequalled in the
world, with every national blessing which n be-
neilcent Providence can bestow, she stands the
mistress of modern Christendom, exceeding in
power and grandeur all that we have been
taught to believe of ancient Rome
As we have said, there are two views taken
by our people with regard tn the result of a dis
solution of the Union; with regard to the prob
ability of that event, there is but one feeling
The recent elections at the North have warned
us OF what we are to expect. Republcanism
no longer looks to the Territories it has fixed
its demon-gaze on Alabama and on Virginia.
and REPUBLIcANIsM Is THE NORTH Its great
champion has declared that the North and South
cannot exist together-that one must be crush
ed-that the South is the weaker. and must
succumb.'
II the Adre'tiser will publish the Republican
platform adopted at Philadelphia in 1856, and
the recent speeches at Rochester and Rome by
Mr. Seward, the readers of that journal will see
that neither the Republican party nor Mr..
Seward mediate any invasion Of the constitu.
tional rights of the States.