The New York herald., 1860-12-17
Southern Secession C0nvontions-South
Carolina Leads on To-day.

SorOAlno Aeoo1 On VO-0oys
The State Convention of South Carolina,
charged with the fearful responsibility Of a
new Declaration Of Independence in behalf Of
that Commonwealth, meets at Columbia, the
State capital, to-day. The members Of the Con-
vention are said to be unanimously in favor Of
an ordinance declaring the State absolved from
all further connection with, and allegiance to-,
the general government of the United States,
and protesting, for all time to come, against
any reunion with the non-slaveholding States,
in any contingency or upon any terms whatso-
ever. 1t is generally believed too, that within
the next three days some such ordinance will
be passed, and that the State Legislature and
her executive authorities and people will there
upon instantly proceed to action under their
new national responsibilities, limited in the
outset to the boundaries Of South Carolina.
AS in all great revolutionary agtations, it is
airy action that is most dangerous to the cause
of peace. 1t is not surprising that the
friends of the Union, North and South,
should feel the Importance of arresting, if
possible, this revolutionary act of secession
on the part of South Carolina. To this
end our late city Union meeting has
detailed Hon. Millard Fillmore, Judge
Bronson and Mr.. Richard Lathers as COM
mittec to proceed to South Carolina, in order
to urge upon her State Convention the proprie-
ty and expediency Of delaying little this at
tempted act of secession. We presume, too,
,hat Soma IF fha p,.mbnra Of N.f;onal Co,,
mittee of Conference, recently appointed at
public meeting vt Trenton, New Jersey, are
now on their way to Columbia. and that dis
tinguished visiters from other Northern States,
and official commissioners or volunteer dele
gates from many Southern States will con-
tribute to give to that quiet and charming lit
tie city the strange faces solemnities and
busting manifestations Of a revolutionary as
semblage. But we have no hope from these
peace commissions at Columbia of any inlu-
ence over the action of the Convention. We
expect that within the next three days South
Carolina will stand before the world in the at
titude of an independent nation, and quite as
ready to appeal to the red right hand of war
as to listen to the counsels of peace.
Following in the wake of South Carolina,
the other 'cotton States,' which are shortly to
try, each for itself, the direct question of Sc
cession in State Convention, are Florida,
January 3; Alabama and Mississippi,
the 9TH, Texas, the sth (called by A sort
of popular spontaneous combustion, in
default of call upon the Legislature from the
anti-secession Governor, Houston); Georgia, the
9th, and Louisiana the 23d of the same month.
special session Of the Legislatures each of
Virginia and Tennessee meets on the 7th Janu-
airy upon the question of State Convention;
and from all these and other State movements
the reader may perhaps be able to comprehend
the length and breadth, the strength aud mo-
menum, of this Southern last resort of disunion
and separate and homogeneous Southern con-
federacy. We may safely say that, with any
hing like emphasis and uniformity in the work
Of secession on the part Of the "cotton Si,tes"
j. will be much easier to precipitate all the
other slave States into the same movement
than it viii be TO reclaim the original seceders
How, then, can this Union be saved or re-
stored? With South Carolina once outside the
Union, how are we to arrest the anticipated ge-
neral stampede Of the cotton States in the same
The President in power has failed
to point out the remedy for this violent Southern
epidemic; the President elect, standing back
upon his dignity or his perplexity, continues as
dumb as an oyster; the House Committee on the
Crisis sits from day to day. like a consultation
Of auack doctors over q patient in the col
lapse Of the Asiatic cholera Is there any
hope. A drowning man will catch at straw.
Senator Toombs, from the central camp Of the
Georgia secessionists thinks that it Is possible,
by amendments to the constitution, to save the
Unio,, lie suggests trial with the republi-
cans Il Congress, and a little delay. He would
baye II e act of secession on the part of Geor-
,ia deferred till the 4th of March. There
n.y be :. ,mething in thcse hints worth more to
he cvrnt, than all sbe gold and silver mines
N TIE face of the globe.
BIZ, AZ th~ great southern incentive to dis
niouais this ovcrsha lowing republican party
2 the North. W ith its waichwords Of eternal
ostili,y 70 the q ytensioa of slavery the frs.
necessity for the niovis the abandonment by
hat party. Of tbs, evolutionary idea Nor will
be crisis admit or urtl o. delay. If Mr.. Lin.
oln would be Presit en-, ~ these United States,
. they now stand. he an'Fhis party must come
own from their Chlca 10 platform, and recog-
Use slavery and tb~ " slave olgarchy,' no, as
u,laws to be expelled FROM the Union, but As
astitu,ions indispensable to the maintenance Of
ne Union. Is lis expecting too much. We
ear so, and tha, ,hs procee drgs Of the present
y sk in Congress viii show that the hatred Of
,e republican r,rty agains Southern slavery
:. Sngcr than ttnit love for the Union
Or ssted, then. that South Carolina viii Sc
.d. nd that several other section States"
i'll sv-~dily follow her example, wha. is to be
one t,5,reclaim them' The answer to that
ae.tiop. has been suggested BY Senator
-, ~, Il, INA meantime there Ia N dan