Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-11-15
.VVhich section q. the. Union has nj
the Most h tight 10 Complain.

Extract from article In the n o. Pieayune.l
From the adoption OF the CONSTITUTIONS
the election of Martin Van Bnren-from
1889 to 1874 period of sixty-two years,
a Southern man occupied tue honored post
of Chief Executive of the nation, with the
exception of the single term of each of
the two Adams, from Massachusetts,.
During this period, that of nearly two
generations, two=thirds of the foreign mis-
,sious and the more important of domestic
Offices were enjoyed by Southern men.
From 1871 TO 1860 but two Presidents
Harrison and Fillmore-Nho were not
emphatically the choice of the South, and
really nominated and elected by the South.
OF the six Presidents since 1871. three
were Southern men.
ltwas the boast of Southern statesmen,
as late as ten years ago, that the South
had dictated the domestic policy of the
mutton. The purchase of Louisiana Ter
ritory was at The instigation of the South
The annexation of Texas was conceived
by Southern minds and achieved by South
ern votes. The war of 1912, from which
the country emerged with so much glory,
was voted for and sustained by the South.
The war with Mexico, which added an
empire in extent to the territory of the
Republic, is due to the policy of the men
of the South thus extending our South
ern boundaries from the Western limits of
Texas to the Pacific Ocean. or all this
has the South reason to complain?
But our position is scarcely less im-
proved in these series of years in regard
to the question of slavery. If, under the
operation of the laws of climate and pro-
duction, slavery has been extinguished in
that little patch of States denqminated
New England, in New York, Pennsylvania,
and New jersey. the purchase of the Ter
ritory of Louisiana has given MS Louisiana,
Arkansas, and Missouri as Slave States,
region of country much larger than that
from which State sovereignty has eradi-
Gated human bondage.
The annexation of Texas in lS45 de-
voted to slavery a territory equal to all
New England, New York, and New Jer-
sey, and the acquisition of New Mexico
by conquest. in which slavery has been
established by Territorial law, carries the
institution two degrees above the line of
the Missouri Compromise. Can we COM
plain that the territorial limits of slavery
have been circumscribed, or go back to
this history of its extention to strengthen
the catalogue of our grievances?
Bnt it is said the perpetual agitation of
the question in aud out of Congress has
driven the South to unjust concessions.
the cause of resistance to the Federal
Government; and that each, as it followed
the other in the order of secession, iu-
creased the intolerance and aggressions of
the free North.
The Missouri compromise was the first
in order. If it was wrong the South has
to blame only itself; for it come from
representative of slave State, and was
supported. by the almost unanimous vote
of Southern delegates of both Houses of
Congress. 1t was ratified again by the
popular vote of the Slave States, uantil it
came to be regarded to haze almost ms
binding character US the Constitution
ITSELF
The great struggle on the question of
slavery resulted in the compromise bill of
1850. Here again the South gave birth to
the act, and it was sustained, not only by
the Southern vote in Congress, but was
ratified by the People themselves. Geor-
gia, and Mississippi, and South Carolina
made the issue of resistance against it.
and the People, with majorities unprece-
dented in any political contest. sustained
the work of the noble patriots of that
gloomy day.
The South is then precluded by its own
action from re-Opening the issue then set
tied, and making them living questions at
THIS time. Right or wrong, they belong
to the dead past. a golden era of peace
and general accord followed, until the ele-
nents of sectional strife were again let
loose from their scaled cavern by the re-
peal of the Missouri compromise and the
Kansas and Nebraska bill,