Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1860-03-24

land, gho while they have many differing laws and
customs aud differ many characteristics yet
content, and were;1for many years, content to re-
main peacefully side by side or that between Can
ada and the United States, with conterminous boun
daries free navigation of boundary rivers like the
st. John, and the st. Lawrence, and reciprocity
treaties, like that negotiated few years SINCE ad
hitting the products of either country without duty.
In brief there is reason why the two confedera-
cies should not exist side by side with friendly
lations free from all commercial restrictions, per-
hitting close and friendly intercourse of citizens 1
of each country and intimate business transactions
just as at present. except that the Northern people
will have voice in the making of our LT1cs, and
we shall be rid Of tile aggressireness or Pritanicdt
fanaticism, which, in its blind pursuit of its own
vain imaginings would destroy Prradise-woud
substitute for the mild preceptS of our Holy Religion
higher law" an "anti slavery bible and an anti
slavery God would hurl the blessed Saviour of
mankind from his throne in Heaven, and place John
Brown the cheat, the horse thief and midnight MUIR
derer, in his stead!
Now, Mr.. Editor, can there be any doubt as to
which course would be adopted by the Northern
States upon withdrawal of the South from the
present confederacy? Doubtless, if only two or
three of the Southern States to withdraw, the
North might attempt to coerce them; but would
the other Southern States permit this? To do so
would be to surrender the liberties of the whole
South! This, however, is not the question now I'M
would be undertaken against in of the with
drawal of the slave States from nationality with
the North? Bear in mind that it is not the border
people have to fear; they generally friendly
and know enough of the negroes not to desire more
of them as public nuiSances among themselves
Then it would only be by the united action of the
North that any great or important aggressive action
could be TAKEN resulting in military attack upon
u.s. Now, would the Northwest, the North and the
New England States be likely to be united among
Themselves? Are their interests so mutual and de-
pendent reciprocally to unite them in any great
enterprise, much less involving the expenditure
of millions and the sacrifice of thousands of lives
the dIsrupture of all business the destruction of all
prosperity and the utter ruin of numbers of their
best people? With whom is the great Northwest
most closely connected? Certainly with the South,
through the great channel of the Mississippi, which
it would be as much an object of the South to keep
open and free, to retain the business of the North
west, Qor we are not likely to drive off our best
friends to propagate abstraction of our own,) as
it would for the Northwest itself! With whom
does New York and Pennsylvania carry on the most
profitable trade? Certainly not with New England !;
in fact, it has been declared by some of the members
from New York City, that New York could not
afford to break with the South; and her orators
! have declared they had best break with New Eng
land!
Again when the North should meet in council,
momentous occasion as the disruption of
our present Confederacy. and to consider what
was best to be done for their own safety and pros
perity it would be her statesmen who would then be
called from their present exile; her Everetts her
! Winthrops her AppletOns, her Dckinsons, and her
Seymours, would then lead the deliberations of her
! councils and the action of her assemblies The
| Wilson's Summers I1ickmans and Chaffees would
descend to the obscurity whence their vile dema-
| gogical pandering to ignorant fanatciSm, only
| has raised them. There would be no question of
Low
territorial rights for these persons to make a
noise about, but these would he changed for the SOL
emn consideration of the future of their country
| And when the question comes up before such an
| assembly of conservative statesmen, whether they
| should commence civil war, of which none of the
most sangune could foresee the end the wsest fore
tell the result; or whether they should offer an
! alliance of comfy and free trade to a sister Repub-
! lie, from whom much was to be gained by trade
and commerce. so much to be lost by distracting
! and deSolating war-can there be doubt as to the
way they would decide? None My own opinion is
and have been closely intimate in Massachusetts,
for twenty-five years-that in less than two years af
ter the formation of Southern Conederacy, Massa-
chusets herself would agree not only to return all
fugitive slaves that may escape hereafter to her ter
ritory but to restore all her SOIL in order to
obtain treaty from the South, by which her manu-
features would be received by us the same terms
| they now are In fact Southern Confederacy
|
! New England in the hollow of her hand. For the
prosperity of New England being dependent exclu-
| svely upon manufactures and commerce, without the
market of the South for the former and the protec-
ton of the navigation laws for the latter these
| ly her sole employment, must perish.
! No, Mr.. Editor, when the North find, too late,
! that they have driven their brethren of the South
into ConfeGeracy, for their self preservation,
reflection will then come, and their object will be,
most assuredly, not to begin destructive and use
less against them, but to recOrer by negotiation
and treaty the advantage of their former trade and
relations and in bidding for this l venture to pre-
dict that Massachusetts, will out do all her competi-
| tors
Many other reasons could be adduced to prove
the utter improbability, almost impossbiity, Of a
civil war being a sequence to the formation of a
Southern Contederacy, but really it would seem like
silly surplusage to argue the matter further The
nineteenth century is not era, in which disas-
trous and desperate crusade for the propagation ola
fanatical creed is likely to be undertaken by civz-
ed nations, and there assuredy is other for
a murderous onslaught upon unoffending and
homogeneous people, than that we can't be made "by
moral suasion" to believe that slavery is a sin
against the laws of God and man. for we find it
clearly ordered in the former and it has been &C
knowe6ged by the latter in all civilized and uncvi-
liked nations, and in all periods of history till the
supposed interests of England excluded it few
years ago, at least far as the black is con-
| cerned CoOoctt, Coleman Lester and others, tell
that yet the achte laborer of England has not
been freed but is in far worse state than slavery.
Having thus shown that confederacy of the fif-
teen slave States would present to the civilized world
nation whose friendship and alliance is every way
desirable and whose wealth and power must soon
make it take rank with the first of the earth-whose
revenues would at once and without any burthen
upon the people, enable it to support dgnifed and
liberal government; and further that so far from an
attack upon by the North, trade and alliance
would be equally sought for there, it only remains
to consider the relation that would exist among the
States and peoples of the confederacy.
And here we are at once met by fact of no small
Importance in this consideration: it is that we are