Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1861-10-09
NJ ESSAGE.
Executive DEPARTMENT, 4
Nashville, October Z 1861.
: fbs .S,u,1fe-

| the Legislature twice in extra session
| NV messages to, and the legislation by
those extra sessions, will furnish full iufor-
nation as to the action of the State in the
| most important period in its history, result
| ing in the resumption OF her original soVe-
reignty, by the almost unanimous action of
| her people, and a union with the Govern
| ment of the Confederate States of America.
Impelled to this action by ''a long train of
4 abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same object,v evineing settled purpose
| upon the part of those controlling the FEEDER
al Government to degrade the Southern
States below the level of equality, depreciate
and destroy their property, in open violation
| of the pIainest guarantees of the Constitution
| leaving those States no alternative but hu-
| initiating submission, or manly resistance to
the tyranny of usurpation-
In contemplating the present condition of
the country and the exciting and important
events which are now transpiring, it may not
be Improbable to review. briefly, the history
of the past, and follow step by step the pro-
| press of that revolution in the public senti-
ment of the North which has eliminated in
the utter reputation of those vital prinei-
pies of personal freedom, political equality
and State sovereignty. upon which the Union
| of the States was originally established
| As our country expanded into the msgnif-
cent proportions of great empire, major
| ity of the Northern people were dazzled by
| the opening splendor of the nation as a unit.
| In contemplating with pride and satisfaction
| the development of a gigantic power, capa-
| BILE of contending upon equal terms with any
other nation of the earth. they overlooked
| the important truth, that this colossal Gov
| eminent was indebted for Its greatness to the
| aggregated power of the separate sovereign
| States which composed it, developed by their
| respective local laws and Institutions.
| The country being naturally divided by
l geographical Observation-Disclosures of
/ pursuits, institutions, local laws, and diver
| siiy of interests-into two great sections, up
| on the very instant when the equality and
sovereignty of the States were denied by
| majority of the members composing the Con-
| federacy, the tendency of the stronger sec
\ ton was to widen the breach between them,
| and to stimulate sectional animosities, in or
| der that it might seize upon the control OF
the power and purse of the General Govern
/ ment
| The struggle for supremacy, therefore, was
| soon narrowed down TO contest between
| these two great sections the South CALAMITY
| battling for the maintenance of COnstitu
| tiOnal liberty, State sovereignty and political
| equality, while the North. disregarding these
| great cardinals. sought to obtain power and
| spoils upon their ruins
In such a contest the victory at the ballot
| box necessarily Injured to that section which
was numerically the stronger.
| The exclusion of the Southern States from
all pratical participation in the control of the
| General Government was the immediate and
unavoidable consequence.
| Upon the election of President Lincoln un-
| der such auspices, the Southern people were
| left in condition of dependence as hopeless
as that held by their fathers when they oc-
cupied the position of provincial subjects of
| the British Grown. All positions of inhu-
| ence and power in the Government at the
| disposal of the Presidential Chief, were i'm
mediately filed with those who were the most
| bitter and clamorous enemies of the South
| He who had manifested the greatest degree
| of virulence against the domestic Institutions
and well-defned constitutional rights of the
Southern States and people, was regarded as
possessing the highest claim to Executive ia
vor and patronage. What hope could the
Southern people indulge, for justice at the
hands of such rulers?
| The Congress which was in session at the
| Inauguration of the President, enacted a tariff
law for the undisguised purpose of transfer
| ring the earnings of the farmers and planters
| of the South into the pockets of the manu-
facturers at the North.
The Executive. Legislative and Diploma
| tic functions of the Government were in the
| possession of a party, backed by the power OF
| dominant section, declaring and inaugural
L
| structive of the rights and liberties of the
people of the Southern States, and measures
| were in active progress to carry out their OFT
repeated threat to reorganize the Judiciary.
so as to make that last and only remaining
| bulkwark of Constitutional liberty, subser-
| Went to their selfish and sectional purposes.
| Having exclusive control of the Govern
| ment, they refused to listen to any overtures
| on the part of the South for peaceful solu-
| ton of the difficulties and dangers which
| they had thus precipitated upon the country.
| In the blind >Eantonness OF sectional pride
| and imaginary power, they haughtily refused
| to entertain any terms of compromise or to
| abate in the smallest degree their arrogant
pretensious-
They iusuitingly proclaimed that the will
of msiority was the will of the Govern
| ment, and hence the will of majority of the
| people of the Northern States must be re-
/ garded as the law of the Union, regardless
| Of Constitutional restrictions, justice and
| equality.
4 Having exhausted every peaceful measure
| which the most devoted friends of the Union
could devise, in fruitless efforts to induce this
| sectional party to pause in its career OF un-
| just aggression, the people of the South, al
| II lost as one man, prepared to meet the crisis
| as became descendants of brave and iber-
| ty-loving ancestry. Eleven States have re-
/ sumed the powers which they had delegated
1 to the General Government, and in the exer-
| else Of their inalienable rights, have united
| themselves together and started out upon
| their career under the auspices of a new Con-
| federaey.
Our late associates, dissenting from our
| course, aud maddened by unexpected resis-
| lance TO their assumptions of authority, have
hurled upon our unoffending people their le-
| gions of mercenary soldiers 10 order to bend
| the necks of the freemen of the South to the
| CALLING yoke of military despotism.
| Their President has officially announced
i through the medium of his message. the
/ monstrous heresy. that the several States of
| the Union are indebted to the Federal Gov
/ eminent for their existence, and the duration
of their separate authority, in effect assigning
/ to them the same relation to the Union that
/ counties bear to States, and foreshadowing
i the policy of consolidating such States as
submit to it in single sovereignty, while
| such as have the spirit to resist, are to be
subjugated, and held as conquered provinces.
| Let US, for moment, survey the humilia-
ting spectacle which is presented by the pres
| ent condition of the North, who, in their sui
| cidal Efforts to aid the despotism which hes
been established at Washington have suffer-
| ed themselves to be despoiled of the last
| vestige of that real liberty which they inner
| tied from their fathers
| However bitterly the opponents of the Re-
publican party may nave resisted us advent
to power, who of its most determined enc
mics could have believed that within six
| short months after the Inauguration of their
chosen President. the freedom of the Press
would have been utterly anpihilated, and
| the circulation of all newspapers through
the mails prohibited which dared to question
| the wisdom of his policy or his measures !?
| Who could have believed that within so brief
a period, the citizen who ventured to express
his disapproval of the policy of the Presi-
dent, or even to utter s. words of peace and
| good will" would have been regarded as
| guilty of a crime sufficient to consign the
/ offender to dungeon!
| Who could have imagined that the writ of
ha6sas corpus, that great bulwark of personal
| freedom. would have been suspended or de-
MED, and entire States placed under martial