The Oxford intelligencer., 1860-06-06
From washington.


meeting In Charleston ON the 18th inst, and
to address it. Il would be very pleasant to
ME to be with you. But while so fatiguing a
trip would be severe tax on my not yigor-
Gus health, should neglect my duties here,
at time when they are becoming very i'm
portant; and can, in few lines, say to you
all that could say at your meeting, to attend
which would have to travel twelve hundred
miles and lose ten days from the Senate.
Practical craftsmanship consists in taking
the best nert step. Honor, honesty and phi
losophic craftsmanship require that that step
should be taken on broad lone of policy,
based upon sound and comprehensive princi-
pies. In my opinion the next step which all
the States whose delegates seeded from the
late Convention in your city should take, aud
in fact bound in honor to take, is to appoint
delegates to meet in convention at Richmond,
on the day appointed by the seeding dele
gates. hg
AT this critical time, with events deeply af-
fecting any opinions any one may entertain as
TO what that convention should do crowding
rapidly upon us, think that those delegates
should be chosen from among the ablest and
most reliable men of each State, and that they
should be clothed with ample and almost un-
limited discretionary powers. The only in
struction | would give them would be, that
they should take care that these States should
receive no detriment. 1t might not be inn
proper to commission them as delegates to
any other Convention which these times may
bring forth, and which, in their judgment, they
might see fit to unite with.
Whilst the broadest and perhaps truest pol
icy of the whole country is to maintain the
union of all the States, under the Federal
Constitution, it is undoubtedly wise policy
to maintain such union of the slaveholdng
States, and other immediate neighbors, but it
is essential that the eight seeding cotton
States should be kept together in the closest /
bonds of union and good feeling. With their
large territorial area, their present and grow
ing population, and their surplus productions,
eagerly sought after in nearly every market in
the world, and commanding annually two
hundred millions of dollars in specie they
would, if organized by themselves under our
present Federal Constitution, constitute Re-
public that would at once command the re-
spcct Of every civilized power They have
substantial basis on which they may stand,
whoever may fall
1t is, therefore, their policy, and any other
would be suicidal, to maintain with each 9th
'r at all times and in every crisis, the most in
'imate and fraterna association. They should
hen, a7 have said, meet, according to APP
'ointnent, at Richmond, represented by thelr
'est men, invested with almost all power. (
Such ameeting, do not think, would have
my tendency towards bringing about the dis
lnion of the United States. | believe its ef-
ect would be precisely the reverse. A large
Majority of the people of the non-slayeho!d- I
ng States, misguided by ambitious and IA
atical leaders, seem bent on our destruction, ,
ynorant that it involves their own. That il i,
oes, it is in vain to argue to them. They
re told and believe that we are weak and =.
! the face of the fact that We have been strong :.
nough to control this Government ever since /,
was established, and to make the country !.
] that it is, they have been made to believe
lat the South dare not face the North on any !.
ecisive feld-in short, on the issue of dis. /
mon. And that issue is what it seems to
c, they are now pressing keenly on us, in
Ongress and everywhere. We must meet v
and meet it now. And, in my opinion,
c way to meet ii is, not by wild resolves OF
legislatures or Conventions, by absurd bra ID
dos of newspaper editors, or by the reck- OF
IS defamation of travelling orators; but by
e calm, noiseless, vet stern assemblage at er
chmond of the best men Of the seeding at
ates-better, perhaps, of all the States hi
10 shall, saying little, threatening nothing,
acting less even than our rights, and only wi
lat we must demand for the present, with III
t, of course, sacrificing the future, leaning ba
Ways, without paltering with principle, to-
rds the conservation of this Union-so act Al,
to show that we ask nothing and fear moth e.,
:. What that precise action should be | -.
not now pretend to say. wa
II depends on the developments of the
It few weeks. No one, and least of all, -
: delegates to Richmond, should be tram -
He'd by being required to prophecy. What ~
time demands Of the whole country; of =
Democratic party Of the South; above 90
of the eight seeding Cotton States-is
rcsentative men, invested with full author MS
TO meet the crisis nor
n conclusion, permit me to say that not san
y DO not despair, but entertain not fee .no
, of dependency Come what may, with Al
surplus productions of Cotton, Rice, Su-
etc, and our superstructure Of black red
es, sce are sgfs against all the Vaccinations two
political inriguers from abroad and our at.
lagOgues at home. the
Ihave the honor to be, imp
With the utmost respect. 'sf will
Your ob't. servit fn n