Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1860-02-10

keep base life afoot" by retaining their slaves
TO the day of doom, my life for it. sir, they
would spurn the ingiorious compact If I
live to read message emanating from that
high Office which has been so nobly filled by
those slavoholding Presidents of our history
whose broad patriotism embraced with equal
warmth the North and South. the East and
West, in which the country is congratulated
that the long struggle is over. and the gov
eminent planted Gas the cant phrase runs
by which the Constitution is repudiated)
''on the side of freedom to see the mission
aries of fanatcism, like Wade or Wilson,
sent to every foreign court, to infame to a
yet higher pitch the existing hostility of
foreign nations to our institutions; to be-
hold in the high office upon which the puri
ty, wisdom and justice of Marshall and Ia
ney have shed lustre, some minion Of Abo-
lition who, paltering with theplain language
of the Constitution, will ''keep it's word of
promise to the ear, but break it to the hope;;"
when that common public authority which
should cover, with defensive shield, our
property and character. is turned like an ag-
gresslve sword against each, sustaining with
its patronage the men who traduce our char
acter and falsify our institutions repeat,
that whenever this climax of injustice has
been reached, as we'll it may be under any
Black Republican administration, whatever
may be the sentiments of others, [ shall feel
that the North has begun its work of con-
verting African slaves into frecmen, by con-
verting Southern freemen into slaves. Up
on the day that shall witness the Inaugural
ton of this policy by the North, and the
quiet submission to all the degradation that
must follow in Its train by the South, there
will dwell, through all the years of history,
cloud of shame. The free and equal Com
monwealths which rejoicea in it's morning
light. will vanish with it's evening rays; for
as darkness wraps the earth in its shadowy
curtain, another sun than that of nature,
will sink below our Southern horizon, the
quickening nd'ennobling sun Of liberty and
glory.
If you are prepared to submit to the cleo
ton of a Black Republican President, when
may | ask, ought resistance to begin? The
constituency which places him in office, can
give the Senate to the same party before the
expiration of his term. Will you be ready
when he fills his cabinet, the foreign mis-
sions, and the judicial vacancies with men
of his own party and principles? VIII you
resist, when the public printing is given
to Greeley, and your own money appropria-
ted to sustain apress which makes relentless
war upon your rights and honor? or when
Beecher is appointed chaplain to the Senate
and breaches insurrection in ear-shot of your
slaves? When Chase is nominated to the
Supreme Court, would you not hope that
the possession of Independent Office would
render him conservative, and think it pru-
dent to wait for unconstitutional decisions
II you permitted the bulwark which you now
aaye in the Supreme Court to be Frustrated
by the elevation of jurists who have stud
led in the schools of the higher law, could
you believe the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia, OR the repeal Of the
Fugitive Slave Act, worth the costly sacri-
fee Of peace and Union? When would the
cup of humiliation and wrong be full enough
to Justify freenaen in dashing it from their
lips? Ii there is any point at which sub
mission in your judgement would cease to
be virtue, is it not worth considering,
whether the prestige of established authori-
ty, the possession of the public revenue, the
direction of the public force, which we shall
have permitted to pass quietly into the hands
of onr adversaries, may not be sufficient to
turn the scales of victory in their favor p
And will not this circumstance at which you
may afterwards make in defence of your
rights, must be referred to the stern arbi-
trament of the sword
But it may be said. for there is nothing
we hear more frequently. that peaceful
dissolution of the Uuion is impossible. The
future, Mr.. Chairman, is known only to that
Being, who rules alike the hearts of men
and the courses of history; but whilst I ad-
nit that the seperate action oe a gle State
would render the danger of civil war imnli-
nent, can conceive nothing more improba-
BILE than an effort by the North to keep the
entire South in the Union, by force. Let
our people in that language, both of digni-
ty and sorrow, which the occasion would in
splre, without menace or reproach, announce
their unalterable resolution upon the occur
renee of this contingency, to supp ess the
exercise of all Federal authority whatever
within their limits let them invite every
State which may be willing to establish JUS
Ice anu equality peGWeeu all Interests, anu
all sections to unite in the formation of
new Confederaey and proffer to adjust all
open questions Of debt, property or territory
by negotiation upon fair terms; and there
must be madness in the head and worse than
folly at the heart, before the North could
seriously entertain the thought of forcible
aggression. She must prepare for long
and bloody war She must raise great
army of invasion, for small one could not
pass the border. She must collect this army
when thousands upon thousands of her own
sons would refuse to profane the God given
strength of freedom in the unnatural strife
She must support it by direct taxation, in
period of general bankruptcy. And what
could she hope to accomplish by these cost
ly sacrifices? What is she to gain by car
rying fire and blood through region with
which she is deeply interested in maintain
ing peaceful and lucrative commerce p
Why should she desire to subjugate the
South and maintain a Union between free
States and tassal States, which would prove
to her source Of weakness in peace, and of
danger in war? Her sober second thought
would recall the eloquent and wise words of
one Of her most gifted sous, Fisher Ames,