The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1861-06-25

For more than thirty years the people OF this
country have enjoyed q of unexamPled
prosperity, broken only by two brief wars, from
both of which they emerged trumphantly. Happy
and contented, the wonder and the admiration of
the world, they might have gone on for centuries
yet to come, extending the ouposts of civilization,
peopling the waste places, and making the will
derness blossom the rose, but for the Unsuitable
greed and fanaticiSm of the North, which has for
years been sedulonsly building up Northern COM
merce and Northern manufactures, by taxes and
dferential duties, OF which the South has borne a
large proportion of The burthen. But the greed
might have been tolerated, had it not latterly be-
come combined with fanaticism that not only
denied TO the South those rights which, under the
Constitution were common alike to all the States
of the UNION, but also sought, by melting serviie
instructions, to carry fear and trembling into
every Southern household. 1t was this daring
and lawless interference with the domestic ns,i-
tutions of the South and the natural dread of
what might be expected from q hostile faction
which had newly attained to power, that precipi-
tated the Southern States into rebellion. They
felt that the UNION, as originally constituted,
would no longer be respected. When placed at
the mercy Of the dominant section, every safe
guard which the UNION was designed to throw
around the several members of the Confcderacy,
was, in respect to the people of the slave States,
no safeguard at all. They had nothing to fear
from foreign foes. Their bitterest enemies were
the men who claimed to be Of their own house
hold, and who, on Selling the rens of authority,
had given plain indications that, henceforth, the
South was 10 be permanently subordinated to the
North The Southern States entered the Union
as co-equal members of the Confederacy, con-
ceding only 10 the Government portion of their
sovereign prerogatves for purposes of mutual pro-
lection and defence. The Convention of 1887 did
not establish national government. The ma
tional plan was proposed, and the term national
was inserted in the first draft of the preamble by
the committee on detail; but when it came up for
discussion, OLIVER ELLSWORTH, of Connecticut,
proposed, as an amendment ''the United States"
which was Immediately adopted In the language
of EDMUND RANDOLPH, "the question under discus
''sion at the time was whether the Convention
"woud adhere to the Federal plan or introduce
1.-THE national one.' 1t was settled in favor of the
former by the adoption of the amendment offered
by Mr.. ELLSWORTH. So, also, with respect TO the
phrase awe, the people, upon which so many
arguments have recently been wasted. When the
preamble to the Constitution was reported from
the committee on detail it read as follows:
awe, the people Of the States of New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
''York New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
sVirginia, North Carolina South Carolina and
Georgia, do ordain,' &c.-thus conclusively
recognizing the separate State action of the par
A. Al.
would have received the sanction of the Conven-
ton, but for one serious difficulty. 1t was re-
garded very uncertain whether some of the
States, whose names were mentioned, would con-
sent to ratify the new Constitution. The rough
draft was, however, referred, without change to
the Committee on Style who, to meet the posi-
BILE contingency'to which we have alluded, left out
all reference to the States individually, and en-
braced them under the general head Of the "Uni-
''ted States" which, of course, served to cover
either the whole of the thirteen Colonies, or any
portion of them. 1t upon these terms that
the South entered into the Union with the North
in 1887; and as they entered the Union vounta-'
rily, so they now assert the right to withdraw
from it, because the conditions Of the compact
have not been kept, and for the still stronger rea-
son-founded upon the law of selfpreservaton-
that the very existence of their people is imper-
Tiled. Who shall say that under such circum-
stances, their withdrawal from the Union is not
justifable? They declare that peace and harmony
within the limits of the old Confederacy have be-
come matter of impoSsibility and falling back
upon the natural right which every people has to
'lite, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" under
rulers of their own choice, they have seeded from
the old Confederacy and established new gov
eminent for themselves.