The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1860-12-17

Len
eorgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
FLORIDA, Texas and Arkausas-composin
with South Carolina) the eight Cotton
States-are confidently expected to follow.
Some OF them will probably do So but not
without desperate.struggIe. The Union has
warm friends in each OF these States, and
among them is Sam Houston, Governor of
Texas. Treatening demonstrations have
been and will be made to induce him to
call the Legislature to meet in extra session
for the purpose Of calling Convention but
we think they will have to hang him up
until he is black in the face before they will
force him to do so. All the rest of the Cot
ton States have Fire-Eating Governors, who
will readily call their Legislatures indeed,
most of them have already done so. We
shall not anticipate the result, though we
shall await it with intense anxiety.
If South Carolina shall be left to stand
alone, we think she must ultimately recede.
Her people, we are aware, do not think so
but single State will not be permitted to
break up the Union. We do not talk of
subduing her; we only say that her position
"a a seeding and quasi independent State
in the heart of Federal Union will be
anomalous and untenable. She may main
tain it for little while, but will ultimately
10 10 return 10 QeF normal con-
dition of n member of the Confederacy.
But if the Cotton States generally unite
with her in seeding, we insist that they
cannot be prevented, and that the attempt
must not be made. Five millions of people,
more than half OF them of the dominant race,
of whom at least half million are able and
willing to shoulder muskets, can never be
subdued while fighting around and over
their own hearthstones. If they could be-
they would no longer be equal members of
the Union, but conquered Dependencies
Suppose they could be overcome and their
military forces destroyed what then? Can
you compel them to send members to Con-
gress2 Can YOU make them accept Federal
ofices2 Can you prevent their tarring and
teathering those who do? If not, how idle
TO talk of subduing theml
As to all that is so well said of the duty
of remaining in the Union and submitting
to its constitutional authority, &C., &C., we
concur In 1t most heartily but suppose they
wOn't-what do you propose TODD about it ?
Webster and Marshall and Story have rea-
soned well-the Federal flag represents a
Government, not mere league; we are in
many respects one nation, from the St. ] ohm
to the Rio Grande; but the genius of our
institutions is essentially republican, and
ayerse to the employment Of military force
to fasten one section of our confederacy to
the other. If eight States having five mil
lions of people choose to separate from US,
they can not be permanently withheld from
go doing by Federal cannon -
We speak thus explicitly, because next
to the danger that the South will presume
ON the readiness of the North to coucede
much rather than allow the Union to be
dissolved, we deprecate the irritation which
threats OF appreheusions of force are certain
to produce. We can whip you !" ''Try
itl'--such are the foolish bantCrs in which
most scenes of human carnage have their
origin. The secessionistS are everywhere
appealing to the courage and pride of the
South, on the assumption that they are
about to lock horns with the North in a life
and death struggle. He who stands for the
Union is held up to odium as a submission
ist--one who lacks the requisite valor or
faith TO standup for the rights of his section.
Do you so fear the proves and power of
the North that you dare not stand up for
the rights of the South ?" is virtually ask
ed. How this must operate, in region
where to be accounted coward is to be
universally despised and spit upon, we need
not say. We propose to wrest this potent
engine from the disunionists by saying.
frankly TO the Slave States "If you
choose to leave the Union, leave it but let
US have no quarrel about it, If you think
it a curse to you and an unfair advantage
to ns, repudiate it, and see if you are not
mistaken. If you are better by ourselves,
go and God speed yOa for our part, we
have done very well with you, and are
quite willing to keep along with you but
if the association is irksome to YOU, we
have too much self-respect to insist on its
Va bovo IivoJ h., o,,c I'D,
try thus far, and hope to do so still, even
though you leave u.s.
They who think to salve over the widen
ing chasm between the Free and the Cotton
States are utterly unaware of the serious
ness of the matter in issue. We are conf
dent that the Fire~eaters, instead of being
in any degree placated by promise of the
North to eyince greater zeal and diligence
in catching runaway slaves, would rather
feel inSulted by it. Lincon's election, we
must repeat, was not the cause of the seces-
sion movement, but only seized as affording
II favorable opportunity for bringing it to
issue. The South especially South Caro-
ina-is poor, deeply in debt, and with faint
prospects Of improvement. No people who
devote their energies to the growing of one
or two bulky staples, buying almost every
thing they eat, drink and wear, ever failed
TO run deeper and deeper into debt until ut
ter bankruptcy superyened !; and Il slave
holding community is least likely to pros
per under this ruinous system. The South
owes this day every pound of Cotton, To-
bacco, Rice and Sugar she has made or will
make from the crop of 1860; yet her build
ings are generally shabby, her furniture
poor and scanty, her homes destitute OF
comforts, and her soil wasting away. Her
poorer white people are indOlent, IMPROVE
dent, and i'll at ease. Cut of from the
North, many of her statesmen fancy that
she would fabricate for herself and soon be
perfect hive of mechanics and manufactu-
rers. To this end, they now think of pro.
Viding by law that slaves shall be employed
only in Agriculture and Household service
opening all the arts to white energy and
ambition. This would probably work tue
overthrow of Slavery in a generation OF
two; but that is not our affair. We repea
that only the sheen of Northern bayonet,
can blind the South wholly to the evils O
secession but that may do it. Let US b.
patient, neither speaking daggers, nor using