Abbeville press. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1860-1869, 1861-02-08
Delay Futile and Fatal.

We have new proofs every hour that tho
Union is already lost. Our best and abest
men declare that dissolution is an event of
the past. thing Of history. Our own
convictions force us to confess and accent
the fact. unwelcome aud lamentable rs it
may be.
The churches have been split asunder :;
all the national organizations Of parties
have been wrecked, one by one; the Fed
eral Government itself is seclionaized, and
| six sovereign States have withdrawn their
delegated powers and disowned its author
ity. These are but evidences of the great
fact, lurking under and behind them ALL,
that our one people have become two pco-
Piles. The universal tone of the almost
unanimous Northern press is Of intense
hostility to the South. Newspapers be-
come the more potential in their sway over
the Northern mind the more they grow in
rancor towards the South. Novels publish
ed to libel us through the world as mon
sters incarnate and these novels-such is
the avidi'y of the Northern taste for their
scapdal--lnake the fortunes of their au-
thors. The greater the libel the greater
the fortune. Statistical essays, designed
to prove us poor, weak, indoIent, and d-
vided at home-production too stupid
and false to find market except amid an
atmosphere Of hatred and intolerance, run
rapidly through editions of many thou
sands, demonstrating TO n vast army Of
mecenary writers, that lie who most grossly
Iibels the South reaps most largely of the
reward ot Judas. The South is invaded
by an armed band, largely supplied will,
arms to he put into the hands of the SER
vile race who are incited to insurrect;on
and our citizens are shot down in cold
flood. A few men of the North frown
upon the act, but the people applaud and
protect the murderers from the process OF
law. Thus the proofs are overwhelming
that the Northarn and Southern people
are alienated.
For forty years has hatred for slavery
which is only another phrase for hatred to
the Sou,h-been taught Systematically in
the Northern schools, from books e,nbel.
Iished with pictures Of negro women un
dergoing the lash, and negro men in The
aGonies Of unheard. of torture and it is the
generations thus schooed who now vote a,
the Northern polls, and revel in this de
famatory literature. These are the genera
tions that have just assumed the prerogative
Of electing President without the aid o
the South, and of managing the affairs o
the Confederacy By q sectional government
controlled by party uncont minated by
Southern support. How many compro
mises proffcred by the South have this par
ty re jected with cool distlain within the las
two months? The manufacture of scheme:
of compromise has grown to be a trade
with class of Southern men of late bu
the article lie rejected by the Northern mar
ket. The rejection of them is as contemp
tuous as the repeated proffer of them ha
been humi!iating. The last expedient o
Virginia-that of the five Commissioner
to Washineton-promises no better result
The hope for its SUCCESS seems as forlorn a
the dotng hope of the widow for re-inspi
ration after death has laid his incxorabl
hand upon the corpse.
The only question now left is, whethe
Virginia shall recognize the fact of dissolu
ton, and take her measure accordingly
Whether she looks to reconstruction O
the old Union, or to becoming part of
{ new one at the South. the policy of della,
is equally fatal. To hesitate much longer
is to identify with the North in the sec
: tiopal antagoDism, and to draw upon her
self the distrust and execrations Of tn
Southern States. Without securing on
particle Of the respect of the North, or Q
the world, she would utterly forfeit tn
affection and confidence of the States ideuti
fed with her by every tie that can bin,
Commonwealth together. The mother o
States, she would be inviting tile bite
curses of her offspring; mother Of states
NEE she would be no longer. Her allanc
; with the North would be as hollow an,
uneuduring as it would be ruinous and dis
graceful. She would be made an accom-
, plice ie the armed coercion of the South
He soil would betomo the camping groun
of armies, not merely as the point d'oppu
of assault upon the seeding South; bu
being the largest slaveholding State in tb
Union, as State deserving to be- 'suspecte
and overawed. But the spirit Of the prou
and ohivalric portion of her people woul
not brook this. calling humiliation; an
r their evaporation against her own submit,
sionists would be more intense than .hei
hostility against the invader. Civil wa
would light it's lurid flames over her surfac
and iDternecine havoc and destruction woul
reign throughout her borders. A war Wit
the North partake of4the cbaAsc.er Of
, conflict between foreigners, and the, Gu
Gtota L. ~f -.