The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1860-08-23
The South and Southern Rights.

1t is common 10 speak Of southern rights
and the south as though it was entirely
slaveholdiug--as though th1re were no white
men there no citizens but saveholders.-
'The south and slavery have become almost
synonymous terms. When newspapers and
politicians talk Of the SOUTH they have in
their minds, and convey to their readers or
hearers, nothing but the idea Of slavehold-
ing oligarchy, which seems TO loom up before
their imagina,ions in gigantic proportions of
terrible grandeur, and to constitute the south,
the whole south, and nothing but the south.
We know this mode Of speaking is common
and natural, yet it is none the less unjust be-
causeit conveys false impression. 1t makes
men think that there are no people in the
south, or none worth attention but slavehold-
ers and nggers.' Notwithstanding the slaves
and free colored natives constitute quite n
respectable portion of the population of the
south, the Shareholders, men women and mi
ners, those who own and those who hire
slaves, make but small fraction of the whole
people-about one thirty fifth, and not more
than one seventeenth of the white inhabitants.
If slaves and free negroes are not to be count
ed among the people, Shareholders cannot be
said with any propriety Of speech to be tee
people of the south, but only small fraction
and numerically an insignificant minority of
the whole. In the south Shareholders form
the exception, not the rule and yet oddly
enough in country whose primary principle
in politics is that the will of the majority
should prevail, this exception, this small frac-
ton holds the reins Of government and claims
to be what the world seems inclined to con-
cede to it 'the south
There is another phrase current among ed
itors and politicians. which is abused and per-
verted in similar manner. They speak Of
southern rights, and mean by the expression
the power Of shareholders to buy, SELL rear
and keep slaves, to take them wherever they
please, to catch them anywhere if they at
tempt to run away, and to use the whole
power of the government, civil, naval and
military. for the protection, encouragement
and extension of slaveholding. These are,
in common parlance, southern rights or
state rights They are in truth only the
rights, or rather wrongs, which Shareholders
claim, and by the submission of the people,
north and south, are permitted to exercise. But
they are not southern rights, or state rights,
in the sense theat they are enjoyed, nor do
they enure to the benefit of the majority of
til, people in the south or slave states. On
the contrary, they are great wrongs which
intlct not only upon the colored. but upon the
white people of the south, the deepest injury
The white people of the south, with the ex-
ception of about one person in twenty, have
no real interest in slaveholding, and when the
northern people vote to sustain and perpetu-
ate what they ignorantly oE wckedly call
southern rights they are emies to the
south-to the people Of the sESe states.
There are not few, but many in the south
who are maniully striving for the right of the
southern people to be as free in their persons
in their speech, and in the pursuit and acqui
sition of property, to be we'll educated and as
well governed as we are at the north, and to
unite with US in delivering the government
of this union from the dominion of that des-
potsm which sits on the throne at Washing
ton. These southern patriots ask the people
of the free states to refrain from their war on
southern rights in the true and legitimate
sense Of the term. and to show for the south
ern people modicum Of that sympathy which
they are always wan. to display for the op,
pressed in foreign lands. AS soon as ma,
jority north indicate willingness that the
people south shall have the rights 10 which
they are entitled by nature and by the consti
tuition of our common country, and will tes
tify that willingness by their votes, just so so,
the south. we apprehend, that is, the people
in the slave states, will be ready to assert anl
maintain these rights. The majority in tn,
south will vindcate true southern or stat
rights, when the matter is laid before then
in proper shape, and when they find lha
their efforts are not opposed, but seconded b.
the people in the other states,
North Carolina.