New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-12-07
VIRGINIA.

Senator Hunter has lately written letter
advocating the right Of secession, and declaring
his belief that unless new guarantees are at once
given by the North to the Slavery interest, all
the Cotton-growng States will leave the Union.
He then naturally proceeds to inquire with
which Of the fragments Virginia will go, aud on
this most interesting subject he expresses himself
az follows:
course of Virginia the other Southern Border States If
they unite with other Slave states they would coneoerse 81
ose identified with their III they united
nth the North under such circumstance they would constitute
hepess minority association with States whose popua
ton was not homogeneous with theirs ana wnOse I5 ne
treated rios by the dominant majority aud considered as
hs scquesced In that position by the choice which they mad
for their surplus population slaves only in these coStaes
but IN whatever territory might be acquired oy that Onon
Under that Government too they would nd efectua protection
for Their property and Institutions 10 the other COnfedeacy
Il slave population would indeed be Pepned In and local
led Eithn their own borders"
DIR. Hunter does not seem to anticipate the
thorough establishment, in the new Southern
Confederacy, OF those ee-Trade principles OF
which, except as regards slaves, he is 20 able and
so consistent an advocate He forgets that in
this respect the interests Of Alabama, Georgia,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, instead OF
being identified with those Of Virginia, are en-
trely at war with them. Virginia is producer
of negroes for the market, and consequently de-
sires to have prices rule high; the cOtton-grOw-
ing States are consumers Of negroes, and there
fore desire to have prices low. Isn't this con-
Hict. and not O harmony Of interests And why,
then, should they make Virginia an exception to
the system of universal Free Trade which they
mean to inauguratel Why should they pay her
81 ,2G0 for o slave whom they can get from At
RIGA for $1,000 Perhaps these considerations
have never occurred to the mind of Mr. Hunter.
There is another point to be settled before Viz
einia can be fairly admitted into Republic OF
which Messrs Spratt, Lamar and Rhett are
founders and Oracles. 1t is notorious that West
ern Virginia is dangerously inOculated with Re-
publicanism and that there are there those who
even dare to question both the divinity and the
expediency of slavery. Now can this dangerous
element be tolerated by Spratt and Lamar Or
viii the people of Western Virginia submit to the
restrictions on the freedom of speech aud of the
press which must of necessity be established under
the proposed Southern regime We apprehend that
here is serious difficulty in the way of carrying the
State bodily and entire into the new slaveholding
and slayery-extcDdng Republic. If Senator Hun
ter endeayOrs to carry out his programme, he may
perhaps learn that the Alleghanies form natu-
raj boundary between the Eastern and Western
portions of the State, and that secession can be
applied to States whose sections have differing
interests as well as to Federal Unions. We do
not know that, even in the event of the dissOu-
ton Of the Union, this question will be raised in
Virginia; but it is certainly one which lies with
in the possibilities of the case, and which her
statesmen ought carefully to examine before they
make mp their minds as to where they will go in
the great cataclysm which appears to be at hand