New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-02-15

NOTHING TO LAUGH AT.
Ludicrous as the overbearing insOlence of the
South ia in certain aspect, there is another view
of it in which it is neither ridiculous nor tri6ng.
There are in this Republic possibly 10000 slave
holders, whose interest it is to extend and perpetu-
ate Slavery, and certainly no less than twenty-five
millions of persons who, whatever their interests
may be when weighed by the laws political econ
omy have mquestionably the. right to think as
they please, and say what seems to them good,
either as to the character of that institution where
it exists already, or upon the expediency OF trans
planting it to territory where it now has no exist
eDce. We take it this proposition is too selfevi-
dent to need any argument in its support. If it is
not, then our form of democratic government is
delusion and snare, our assertion of the inaien-
able rights of humanity an absurd and pernicious
sham. Nevertheless, the obvious and Notifying
commentary upon it is, that a small fraction Of the
people not only pretend to dictate to the great ma
ority what they shall think and what they shall do
upon this subject, but institute measures of cOer-
cioD, which measures are submitted TO by multi.
tudes of persons in spirit which shows them to be
not the most cowardly and most abject slaves
merely because it pleased Almighty God to give
them birth in Northern households rather than upon
Southern plantations. That such is the fact-that
such presumption should exist on the one part, and
be submitted to on the other, has, in certain view
of it, ludicrous and absurd aspect. There is an
other, however, in which we can see it only as a
source of the intensest and most Notifying hu-
initiation, and subject of serious reflection as to
the future of people where two such moral ele-
ments are at work.
Consider q single fact There exists, at this
moment, throughout the Southern States, an actual
Reign of Terror. No Northern man, whatever
may be his character, his opinions, or his lfe but
simply because he is Northern man, can visit that
region without the certainty Of being subjected to
q mean espionage over all his actions, and rigid
watchfulness over all his expressions of opinions;
with the risk of personal ndgnity, and danger even
to life and limb. This Notifying necessity of sub
mission to contemplate despOtism, or suffering
the penalty of any assertion of an Independent and
manly spirit, is confined to no condition of life, but
is enforced upon every visitor, whether he be poor
mechanic ike Powers, who hammers stone for q
paid with imprisonment for asking the settlement of
just debt, a peddler who sells books as harmless
as dictionary, or Member of Congress- who, for
words spoken in debate, may be- by the bludgeOn of
bully, incapacitated for the rest of his life for fol-
lowing any honorable OF useful career. Nor is it
come under this degrading compusion. Northern
merchants who FELL goods for Southern consump-
ten are called upon to square their opinions ac-
cordiDg to the plantation standard, aud any re :u-
sancy on their part is visited with the discipline of
the loss of trade. Editors of petty Southern news
papers hardly capable of forming intelligent no
ton upon any subject and quite incapable of
writing two consecutive sentences of even tOlerabe
English, form their Black Lists and White Lists,
and compel the obedience and subsidy Of large COM
mercial houses of great, and wealthy, and power
full city, thousand miles distant. And, worst of
oil, this state Of things seems accepted rather as in
the natural order of events, than as monstrous
growth of an iDsoent tyranny on the one hand, and
the subserviency of an infinitely mean, and sordid,
and peddling poltrOOnery on the other.
Anu mere is us ldtcSb ucfCiopuiCHts N hioihluS
paper of yesterday publishes "a card" signed
james p. Hambleton, editor OF The Southern Con-
" ftdtracy." The Black List of The Contederdcy
had included the name of Davis Noble & Co.,
No. 81 Chambers street, and the purpose of the
card is to exonerate this firm from the charge i'm
Piled in that publication the editor being salts
fed, on "the best evidence that the aforesaid firm
" are true, constitutional men, having never been
50 tainted with airy Of the Anti-Slayeiy sms of the
" day, either directly or indirectly, aud that We
hereby recommend them to their former patrons at
the South, as concern in every respect deserv-
"ing their continued patronage and support"
We neither know nor care what the eridence may
be which has produced this change-whether 1t be
suit of clothes PAIR of shoes, hat, bill OF dry
goods bill of wet goods or fifty dollars in current
bill the fact itself is enough. The disgraceful
fact is enough that this Hambleton is at this moment
in New-Yo that he is, while we write, making
round of calls upon tradesmen receiving sometimes
mt ney sometimes goods, and always the evidence
Of the most despicable subseiyiency, on condition