Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1860-02-07
sTAUNToN, VIRGINIA, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY I, 1860
LETTER of REV. DIR. BRECKINRIDGF
10 THE Hon john. @. BREoKINR1peE.

IL
Vice President Of the United States and Senator
elect from the Commonwealth Of Kentucky:
For period of nearly seventy years the peo-
pie of Kentucky, even from the moment of their
own existence as free and separate Common
wealth, have bestowed, first upon your grand
father, and then upon Your father. and then up
on yourself, every mark of confidence and love
it was in their power to bestow; and in no in
stance did they ever r. fuse to either of you any
distinction that either of you was willing to ac-
cept and In no instance did they ever complain
that either Of you had come short of what they
expected from you. Such testimonials on the part
of such a people, accumulated until YOU now
fad Yourself IN position for good or evil to the
whole nation, scarcely inferior to that of any
other person, increase all the ordinary RESPONSE
bilities which rest upon you to the very highest
degree, and add new ones the most affecting
which can address themselves to true heart
Every man in this nation, still more every man
10 the Commonwealth which has so signaly
honored you, will ponder these things Just in
the degree that they expect or hope anything
from you, in this season, which you have your
self, in themost public and emphatic manner, de-
clared to be full Of peril to- the whole American
people, and most peculiarly to the people OF
Kentucky. know you will admit that every
one of them has the right to address to you these
noble refiections- warning you by them, in q
manner at once earnest and confiding, that your
people do not expect to allow their destiny to be
compromised, and you yourself to be carried a.
way by events and parties; but that they ex-
pect aud desire that, let what may come, you
should SO counsel and act that Kentucky may
do her part, as becomes her, for the safety and
glory OF the whole; and that when the worst
comes she may live or die according to her own
free and seperate sense of her duty and her hon
OF. Nor Is there one among them all, who, from
private station and impelled only by the deep
est interest in the country and in you, could
more properly than myself address to you words
OF confidence and of hope, and urge upon you con-
siderations connected alike with your own fame
and the. glory of your country, whose due weight
may be easily overlooked amidst the passionate
| violence which to all calm men seems to prevail
at Washington.
| AS to the dissolution of the American Union,
the settled and deliberate conviction of Ken
lucky Is that it is no remedy for anything what
ever, but that it is itself the direst of all calan-
tiles. Kentucky never had any existence as a
| Commonwealth except as one of the States of
the American Union. She never had disloyal
thought towards that Union, or towards any
sister State; she never for one instant desired
to enlarge her rights under the Federal Consti-
tuition, or to exercise any of those rights often
sively, or to deny others tleir equal rights un-
der the Constitution. Wholly unable to com
prehend how it can be to the interest of any
State to secede from the Union, or how the
right to secede Can be Considered anything else
but porely revolutionary, she sees nothing in the
| past conduct of the Federal Government to JUS
tlfy secession II it were constitutional remedy
nothing in the aspect of the times promising any
thing but disaster to tie country, to every sece.
ding State, and most especially to herself, from
the application of such remedy, whether by war,
by revolution, by the formation of new confed-
racies, or by the secession OF individual States,
As far as she can understand, it is mainly the
unruly passions Of unreasonable men, and the
violent assertion OF dubious, or to say the least
extreme rights, and the madness of political par.
ties IN their struggle for power, that has brought
the country to its present perlous condition
The true remedy for such disorders is not in
the breaking up Of the Government, but in the
endorsement OF the laws and posterity will ex-
! ecrate to the end OF time whatever Government
shall allow the lawless conduct OF any portion OF
the people to run into secession, or to drive
others into it, The lives OF traitors ought not
to weigh feather against the peace or security.
much less against the existence of the nation ;
and their blood cements instead of weakening
the foundation of society. Civil war itself
within the Union, horrible as civil war always
is, Is necessarily temporary, and is consistent
with the ultimate preservation of every thing
distinctiye in our present nationality, and in all
our Institutions, generally and particular; and
a universal civil war at this time aoatbiaa the u.
MON could hardly tail to end in the permanent
establishment, for the whole country, of Just
what our fathers established from 1776 to 1889.
But after the division OF the Union upon the
slave line, and the necessary breaking out OF
| fierce and interminable war along a frontier ex-
tending from the Atlantic Ocean to the western
border OF Missouri, no man can foresee state
OF ease when peace can never be preserved along
that frontier as well as it Can be in the Union
and every man can see that any future union OF
the divided portions OF the contederacy, if any
union shall ever be possible, must be upon the
very terms which now exist. The inevitable eff
feet OF the recent events at Harper's Ferry, ia
Ken altogether, must be to give degree of Sc
curity to the whole slave frontier aoithin the u
rsa0n which no part OF it can ever have out Of the
Union; and the handful OF white men and me-
groes whose follies and crimes were consumma-
ted there would probably be the last to try such
an attempt. The whole case ought to be, to ev-
| cry rejecting man, demonstration of the ines
tlmabe value of the Union, both as it sets
bound to the passions OF men, and as it enables us
to punish crime by the due course of law, in
stead OF by private or public war.
Kentucky Is, through CHOICE slave State
When forming her first constitution in 1902,
when forming her second constitution 1898, and
when forming her present constitution in 1850,
the whole subject was carefully considered by
her people, and each time decided in the same
manner; and it is probable that at the present
moment there is less disposition amongst her
people to make any change on that subject than
at any former period. Two facts of great impor-
tance must not, however, be overlooked. The
first IS, that no considerable portion of Kentuc-
ky have ever held extreme views in favor of
slavery, while very large portion of the peo-
| pie have tolerated without preferring it. and
while the common opinion of the people has al
ways been that the relative growth of the white
over the black race would be greater and great
er continually, and at some future or perhaps
distant period, slavery would become an insig
ni6cant element in the condition of the State
The second fact is, that Kentucky has all along
been exposed, along frontier of seven hundred
miles OF river border, to greater evils and los
ses than all the slave States, which have no
frontier, put together; yet she has never for a.
moment manifested any sense of alarm or inse-
curity-made use of any threats, clamor, or a.
buse, or entertained single thought of seces-
sion. She has uniformly acted with calmness.
moderation and dignity her citizens have uni
formly relied upon the laws for redress against
such as law could reach, and against the lawless
promptly redressed themselves, leaving to those
who did not approve her ways to amend their
own, or choose their own remedy againt her,
l L xrl,o E-o L.