The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-02-28

were not blinded by schemes Of personal ambl-
ZION or corrupted by the hopes Of public
plumber, they would instinctively see and feel
their danger and the danger Of the country.
BY thirty years of agitation the anti slavery
parties, whose first organs were the Boston Ii
beyotor and the New York Journal Of Commerce,
have made the issue, and ii is now distinctly
presented by the republican party whose
avowed and settled policy it is to overthrow
the institutions of the Southern States by force
or fraud, by fair means or foul, by any means
ut their command.
The republican partyar the advanced guard
of which John Brown and his followers were
the forlorn hope, tho storming Zonaves and
Turcos of the crusade. Behind the republican
party are large antislavery army in reserve
and many of its troops are called democrats
whose organ in this city is the Journal of Com.
merce. They are waiting to see If the republi
can party is successful, that they may follow
up the blow, or if it should be defeated, that
they may come to the rescue. Last of all
follow the terrible chasseurs, "the men
of wrath and without a conscience, y
as Theodore Parker describes them
The business of these Is to finish the
battle without mercy, when the main body have
made the decisive charge, and produced dis
order and confusion in the ranks of the foe.
We have had no war worth speaking of for
bait century, and the consequence is that the
fighting element abounds everywhere-a rest
Tod ovxv CO.
clustering and every desperate enterprise. In
the cities, and even in the villages of the North,
the fighting element is also, for the most part,
the immoral, idle, dissolute element, which
fears not God and regards not man. The Euro
pean revolutions Of 184S have largely added to
it by emigration, throwing upon our shores
vast numbers Of men by no means friendly to
law and order-nen, for the most part, social
istic and atheistic, and holding that property
is robbery" In the Far West and in northern
Pennsylvania they have become q disturbing
element in the social system, and readily fall
into the anti-slavery ranks. On the Atlantic
seaboard the New York Tribune is their special
organ.
Such are the materials of the chasseurs Of
the anti-slavery army, destined to invade the
South-men of prey, whose passions once let
loose, would not be satisfied with the destruc-
ton of the property of the Southern States,
but would turn round upon the property
owners of the North and demand fair division
of the spoils, according to the principles of
elderly, fraternity, equality" inculcated by
Charles Fourier and Louis Blanc.
In view, therefore, of this state of facts,
is not the conduct of the Democratic
Senatorial Caucus like the trifing of children
playing upon the brow of volcano, which
already sends forth smoke and murmurs its un-
needed warning of the fiery food which is go
soon to issue from its mouth, carrying terror
and destruction on every side? How much
more digni6ed and becoming are the proceed
ings of the meeting at Charleston, attended by
some of the first men in the State, such as ST.
mons, Hayne, Pringle, Gilliland, Ravenel,
Lowndes, Butler, and others too numerous to
mention. These men understand and realize
the nature of the issue which must be fairly
met. Thoy say "The battle must be fought in
the Union;" ave do not believe in dissolu-
ton of the Union as thing to be desired of
itself, bat we do believe that there are greater
evils than dissolution of the Union, and that
one of these is unconditional submission to
purely sectional domination that is politically
and socially hostile to us;' eve seek to avert
the terrible alternative of civil revolution by
the discontinue and utter prostration of the
republican party" The President is the rep
resentative Of the whole country. He must be
elected either by the democratic or the repub-
lican party. There is no middle party. The
only cohesive element in the republican party
is the violation of Southern rights, and the des-
truction of the constitution"
Here is the issue and the platform in a nut
shell, just as we have often presented it to our
readers. The creed of the republican party is
to destroy the constitution and violate the
the effect Of breaking up the Union, because
the Southern States regard that as lesser evil
than unconditional submission to party Or
ganized in avowed hostility to their rights
solemnly guaranteed by the constitution. To
avoid the terrible alternative of civil revolu-
ton, the men Of Charleston propose to unite
with their brethren of the South and the con-
servatives Of the North for the utter prostration
of the republican party. That is sound, prac-
teal common sense. 1t is wise determination
on the part of the Southern States to unite A
common danger compels them to do so; and
common danger ought to impel all the conser-
vative elements of the North to follow their
example. United we stand, divided we fall.
The North has as much at stake as the South;
and the dissolution of the Union would be
equally fatal to its interests and destructive of
its prosperity, to say nothing Of the sanguinary
civil war which would probably revel the
whole country from Passamaquoddy to the Rio
Grande.