Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-02-16
[For tho 1ntOllIgencer,l
Sectional strife.--No. s


[For tho Intclligencerl i
Sectional strife.--NO. 8.
Messrs., Etlitors:-Before the Southern
States proceed further in their prepHra-
tions for internecine strife, by the passage
of non-intercourse bills, armory bills and
all other kinds of bloody and belligcrent
bills, i would like to lay before them
few. calm considerations, such as occur to
n mind in the peaceful shades of private
life, undisturbed, unruf1led by the tempest
of national politics. "Strikc, but hear"
Fellow -citizens, if you think separation,
dissolution, civil war, confagrNtion, de-
vaStation, TO be n good thing, go on, you
can have them all, all and more of them
than my tongue can tell or my pen de-
scribe. Go on, moulding bullets and
forging bayOnets for breasts that never
entertained - wish concerning you. except
for your happiness. your prosperity, your
opulence, your greatness. Go on, but
remember that you are preparing to do
war upon men whose restless energies
arc ready to combine with yours, in car
rying our common country forward to the
very pinnacle of national felicity, to make
her the envy and the desire of all lands;
and whose only crime is n desire to infuse
a little more mildness into the national
marines, little more humanity into the
national temper. Coon, utifyou choose
to pause little before you pass tho Itubi-
con, VIC will reason with you in no unfra-
ternal spirit
In our last communication, we called
the attention of the reader to the fact
overlooked, ignored by pro-slavery orators
and others, that the Federal Government
had annexed to the Southern States, inn
mcnse territories without the slightest
F1,o 1f N
miserable bondmen, who groaned within
their boundaries. To the fNEt that the
electors, i'll the Northern States, had fully
concurred in the liberal policy of the
Federal Government towards the Southern
States; and gave MS an instance their
nctioniin the annexation of Texas. We
further adVerted to the blissful reign of
peace and fraternity in 1888, when the
party in the Northern States, supposed to
be least favorable to the South, could
scarcely keep up its organization and
party spirit, and sectional strife seemed
on the point of dying out. Even now, If
our Southern fellow-citiZens would con-
tent themselves with the state of things
existing at that time, and with the legis-
lntive arrangements made previously to
that time, the party in the North disposed
to disturb those arrangements would
speedily be reduced to the condition of n
helpless and hopeless minority. If the
Southern men, would faithfully abide by
the compromises of 1850, they might
abandon their homicidal preparations,
and beat their swords into plougbshares
and their spears into pruning hooks =
The party in the North, determined to up
hold the compromises of 1850, would be an
overwhelming and inviucible majority
A cordial concession on the part of the
70, h2 I a
for the return of the saturnian days of
peace and fraternity. Suppose we tell our
Southern friends that they are bound
to mako this concession by plight
ed faith, by every principle of hon
or and morality: we have ample Hu-
thoritv for the declaration. Obliviousness
is very convenient for men of sinuOus
ways and crooked politics, but candid and
fair dealing men sometimes have trouble
some habit of appealing to the record
And ut the risk of being thought q little
impolite, we now make that appeal In
1852, the Baltimore Convention, which
nominated Franklin Pierce, adopted into
its platform the following resolution:
tResoIpsd, That the Democratic party will
resist all attempts at renewing, in Con-
grcss or out of it, the agitation of the
Slavery question, under whatever shape or
color the attempt may he made" And the
Whig convention at philadelphia, In the
same year, adopted IL resolution in language
similar, yes, almost identical. Be it re-
mcmbcred, that both these conventions
were filled with Southern men, and in both,
the Northern members werc obscQuiouS to
the feelings, the wishes, and even the pre-
jndices of Southern lncn. If ever his
torical fact was decisive of political
question, here it is; if ever historical
fact was omDipotcnt to show which was
the aggressive party, in political contest,
here it is. And be it remembered that, at
the date of these resolutions, the Dred
Scott fire brand had not been thrown
amongst the combustibles in our national
temple The Missouri Compromise was in
full force, was universally acQuiesced in,
and was in accordance with innumerablc
acts of legislation, from the first meeting
of Congress in April 1889, until that peril
cd. The doctrine that the territorial legis-
laturcs, in the Mexican conquests, had
ample power to establish or prohibit slave
~, was then orthodox. In one word,
sqnattcr sovereignty was then universally
popular, especially at the South. SuchwOs
literally the statc of things when these
resolutions against agitation passed. Sup
pose the North had first broken the peace,
by attempting to secure to freedom, some
portion of territory dedicated by previous
compacts aud compromises, to the ebony
god, what language would have been copi-
Gus enough to afford anathemns and OBJ
iurcations sufficient for the occasion,
against Northern perfdy? And those OBJ
iurgations would have heens effective, for
few northern voters would have supported
their representatives in such an attempt
is it employing Language too strong, too