Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1860-08-03

ceded from the Convention, went home and
opposed the election of the Democratic NOM
inees, Cass and Butler.
| In 1852 he went back to Baltimore with
the same proposition to 'srule or ruin" the
Democracy, but was again voted down, even
more emphatically than before.
In 1856 he again makes his appearance
in the National Democratic Convention,
which assembled that year at Cincinnati,
but this time advocating the very reverse of
his old doctrine of Intervention for protec-
ton. He had absolutely got up instructions
to the Alabama delegation, of which he was
chairman, to demand non-interventian, and
if the Convention did not grant it, to secede
and ''lead off the ball" of disunion, that
terrible catastrophe to which all his desires
seem to tend But the Convention recog-
nizing in the principle Of -interven-
ton" an old doctrine Of majority of the
party unanimously granted the demand of
Alabama, through her spokesman, Mr.. Yam
Icey, and so the demands of this arch-trait-
or and conspirator against the Union, were
a third time banked.
But his undying hatred of the Union,
though for time artfully cloaked, even as
he and his followers now endeavor to throw
sand in the eyes of the people on this mo-
mentous subject, was not allowed to slum-
Der or grow cold. He nursed his wrath to
keep it warm. In less than two years after
the adjournment of the Cincinnati Conven-
ton, we find him heading the notorious
Southern League" organized avowedly to
break up the Union, as the following first
article of its constitution, drawn up by his
own hand, fully proves:
"ART. |. The members of this organi-
cation shall be known as the League Of the
South, and our motto shall be, a South
ern Republic IS our only Safety"
About the same time appeared the follow
ing private letter piling Pelion upon Ossa
Of proof of the reasonable designs Of this
American Cataline:
MONTGOMERY, June, Is, 1858.
Dear tS,r:-Your kind favor of the 18th
is received
hardly agree with you that a general
movement could be made that will clear out
the Augean stable. If the Democracy were
overthrow, it would result in giving place
to greedier and hungrier swarm of flies
The remedy of the South is not in such
a process. 1t is in a diligent organization
Of her true men for prompt resistance to the
next aggression. 1t must come in the na-
ture of things. No national party can save
us, no sectional party can ever do it, But
if we could do as our fathers did-organize
committees of safety" all over the cotton
States (and it is only in them that we can
hope for any effective movement) we shall
fire the Southern heart, instruct the South
ern mind, give courage to each other, and
at the proper moment, by one organ
ized, concerted action, que can PRECIPI-
TATE THE COTTON STATES INTO
A REVOLUTION.
The idea has been Swallowed forth in the
South by Mr.. Rufin has been taken up
and recommended in the ADVERTISER THE
Montgomery organ of Mr.. Yancey,l under
the name of League of United Southern
ers," who, keeping up their old relations on
all other questions, will hold the Southern
irsue paramount, and will influence parties,
legislatures and statesmen. / have no time
to enlarge. but to suggest merely.
| In haste, yours, &C.,
W. L. YANCEY.
To JAMES s. SLAUGHTER, ESQ.
This was private letter, hastily written,
it is true; but a subsequent one. written in
explanation of it, to the editor of the Rich
mond Sonth, Mr. Roger A. Pryor. he makes
the matter worse by saying that in precipi-
tating the cotton States only into a revoIu-
ton, he meant that in such movement as the
revolutionary movement contemplated by
himself and the Southern Leaguers, he could
place bat little trust in the border States
''such as Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee,
Kentucky and Missouri" He cannot trust
Tennessee, he says, because she so long kept
an abolitionist in the Senate-meaning John
Bell, of course-and because a Tennessee
Methodist conference refused to expunge
certain antl-slavery opinions which John
Wesley had inserted in the discipline. He
cannot trust Kentucky, because Kentucky
for SO many years upheld such freesoilers as
Henry Clay and Johh j. Crittenden. Vir-
ginia he did not mention. nor did he dis
crimlnate between Virginia and the other
border States, because his purpose did not
call for it. He then proceeds to say:
1T is equally true that I do not expect
Virginia to take any initiative steps towards
a dissolution of the Union when that ext
gency shall be forced upon the South. Her
position as border State, and a well-con-
sidered Southern policy, policy which has
been digested and understood and approved
by the ablest men in Virginia, as you your
self must be aware, would seem to demand
that when such movement takes place by
any considerable number of Southern States.
Virginia and the other border States, should
remain in the Union, where, by their posi-
ton and their counsels, they could prove
more effective friends than by moving out
Of the Union. and thus giving to the South
ern confederacy long abolition hostile bor-
der to watch. In the event of the move
ment being successful, in time Virginia and
the other border States that desired it. could
join the Southern confederacy, and be pro-
tected by the power of its arms and its
diplomacy Your charge that l designed
too, and did, impeach the fidelity of Vir-
ginia, is untrue, however much of truth
there may be in it in reference to those bor-
der States that | have named"
Alabamians! It is as clear as the noon
day sun, from the foregoing facts, that in
severing and disruptinp the Donoor.t;oI