New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-12-13
THE SECESSION MOVEMENT.
FROM SOUTH CAROLINA.
THINGS DON'T GO so SMOOTHLY

kns, and especially in the City of Charleston,
system of espionage more tyrannous than ever
prevailed in Austria. Vigilance Committees and
Minute Men are everywhere. At the railway
stations in the Interior if q stranger steps from
The cars, Vigilant Committeeman is at once on
his track; word is passed that suspicious
character is around, and it is lucky for the indi-
yidual against whom suspicion is thus directed if
he is not seized and turned back in his course,
If nothing worse happens to him. This is sure to
be the case, if the spies do not deem the
answer given to every question-impertinent and
insulting as they are certain to Unsatisfactory.
If these gentry do not every now
and then overhaul somebody and make
motions, at least toward hanging some
one according to the code of Lynch, they seem
to think they are not doing their duty. They
have relish for the business, and delight to
talk about hanging i'd AboEtionists," " Yam
"kee hypocrites," &c, terms of which they
make the freest use. The country swarms with
these fellows, into whose hands one having a
Bible or indeed almost any publication other
than " 1860 Association documents, would not
care to fall. AS a general thing, these men are
organized into military companies, soon to be
drafted into the Grand Army of South Carolina.
Ii is astonishing to note how many Colonies,
Majors and Captains there are among them.
Precisely where the rank and file are, no one
readily comprehends These titled personages
all expect to retain their rank and the pay
thereof in the Grand Army. Hence the
struggle in the Legislature to bestOw
On the soldiers the selection of their officers,
instead of giving their appointment to the Gov.
ernor. 1t is related that at muster the other day
il was proposed TO take an expression from the
rank and file of their preference. An active
caucus had been going on for some time, and
every candidate felt sure of being elected to the
post to which he aspired. In order to make it
al fair, it was proposed, and agreed to, that the
candidates themselves should not participate in
the election, but should withdraw Accordingly
II wss requested that all candidates for office
should step FIVE PAGES in front of the line; when
all but three men made an advance movement!
1t is further related that these three, thus
clothed with authority, elected themselves, one
Colonel another Lieutenant-C Colonel, the other
Major, and filed up the list from the outsiders!
This class of men, indeed almost everybody in
South Carolina, seem to think that their subuga-
zion is to be attempted by the people of the
North; that Massachusetts, Vermont and New
York regiments are soon to invade the soil of this
their State, yet all the negroes free, and over
spread the country with slaughter and desOlation
This is the sort of stuff taught them by their
readers. Nothing is allowed that does not pander
A. &C &ba Inc
speech BY a Northern man would be regarded as
an incendiary document, and as such suppressed.
The late speech of the Hon. A. H. Stephens Of
Georgia was not permitted to circulate in South
Carolina, and was very widely suppressed in
Georgia even.
The leaders who are forcing the State of South
Carolina into rebellion, are doing their utmost
to bring on a collision with the Federal Govern
ment They want to be cOerced by it. A blow
from the General Government becomes quite
necessary to the accomplishment of their plans of
precipitation. Thus far, the supposed or real
prospect of collision has kept up the excitement,
prevented deliberaton, forestaIed everything like
reflection, and raised swell by which the whole
community has been carried right onward.
collision in Charleston Harbor, between the Gov
eminent troops and citizen-soldiers, before the
meeting of the Convention on the l7th would
render precipitate action easy. But there
has been no violence, however immin-
ent the danger Of it, and precipita-
ton consequently languishes. The leaders
feel il, and understand the necessity of a new
excitement. Their programme must be played
out, and you need not be at all surprised at
collision any moment unless the leaders are ut
terly defeated, and the whole programme of Sc
cession reversed. 1t is difficult to see how ex-
IRENE complications and collision are to be
avoided. Should Government send more troops
to strengthen the forts on the fact becoming
known, the catastrophe would be precipitated,
for the forts would be assailed before the troops
arrived If they are not given up on demand
after Secession then they viii be assaied.
Evidently the Government does not place con-
6dence in the repeated representations made by
the officers in charge as to the danger of al at
tack on the forts and their capacity for resist
ance, for it is folly to talk as Mr.. Buchanan
does about collecting the revenue in Charleston
ksrbor with the forts there in the hands OF the
South Carolinians-at all events without pro-
tracted struggle to regain them. There is away
the forts may be reinforced without provoking
the threatened attack, and the Government knows
it, and yet does not act. For rebels the South
Csrolinans have a remarkably good opinion OF
the President, and surprising confidence IN the
Secretary of War. Nothing is more common
han expressions Of this sort. Either the Gov
.....oart 5oas not halieva that South Carolina