The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-08-10

Word OF Warming % the south.
We published yesterday a sharp, ringing
article from the Charleston Mercury, on the
position of South Carolina and the South in
the great constitutional contest now going on
throughout the Union.
Our contemporary touches the great evil OF
the day to the quick. AT a moment when an
aggressive and fanatical sectionalism, serried
and solid in the prejudices Of the North, is
marching steadily to seize the powers of the
government, with the declared purpose of de-
cial institutions of the South, the professional
politicians of the States whose interests
are most in danger have given them
selves up to personal quarrels and party
strises to an extent that has never been
witnessed in past political contests. That
safety weuld not be surprising; but it's exist
ence in the face Of the most imminent danger
proves a moral and political depravity among
party leaders aud in the spirit Of parties that
forebodes the most dire consequences to the
South and to the whole country.
patriotic citizen can to-day engage, and that is
the contest with Lincoln and the revolutionary
aud destructive aims Of The black republican
party. In such q contest it would be natural
to suppose that the South. whose vital interests
are at stake, would come to the field of conflict
united as one man. Yet what do we behold
Instead of union there is nothing but pickering
and doubt among the Southern party leaders
and party organizations Faction reigns. Party
greed and lust for the spoils of Office are the
motive impulses. No matter what principles
are sacrificed, no matter what dangers to the
puiAic interests and to society are incurred, the
last thing that the Southern politicians think Of
lie evidently the necessity of union.
With the evidence of such state of things in
the South, with what consistency can Southern
man turn to the national and constitution loving
men in the North, asking for help to save the
South from the danger in which it stands? We
of the North need no coursels from the South
as to the path of our duty as patriots and good
citizens, nor will Southern abuse Of Northern
motives avail them in this imminent strait We
want the practical evidence thai the South has
the manhood and the patriotism to lay aside its
petty and local chickering's, and to unite in de-
fence of the equal position of its States in
the confederation. Until the South does this,
II need not look to the North for either
sympathy OF relief in its sufferings. When
it does this, then II will find sympathy, fra
ternity and an overpowering sense Of justice
in all the Central and commercial States Of the
North, and a recession Of the rising tide of
black republicanism in the East and in the West
But the men Of the North have no induce
ment to go into battle for the rights of the South
when the South itself or any large portion of it,
is willing to sacrifice those rights, and the eter-
nal principles on which they are founded, to an
ignoble sentiment Of personal spite, or still
more revolving partisan greed for the spoils of
public place. Let the men of the South cease,
then. to abuse Northern fanatics and lukewarm
Northern friends. and look to the beam that is In
their own eye. When they can show us united
front, banded together on the great principles
of the constitution, the Union and the equality
Of the States, then, and not till then, may they
hope to find allies for their cause in the Central
and Northern States. If they will not do this,
then they throw away their own battle, and It
will not be Northern fanaticism or Northern
mkewarmness that will involve Southern rights
in ruin, but II will be Southern folly, Southern
greed, and Southern disunion and treason to it.
self and its own cause that will elect black re-
publican President and Congress, put black re-
publican Judges upon the benches Of the federal
courts. and carry abolitionists, with wris of ha-
beas corpus for every slave, into every South
ern State.