Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1861-02-24
From the National Intelbsencer-
The phuo.ophv OF secession.

letter addressed Dy inc non. u. w. SPfatt, VI
Soutb Carolina, to the Hon. Mr.. Perkins, oi
Iouisiaua. In criticism on the Provisional
Constellation recently adopted by the 'South-
ern Congress" at Montgomery, Alabama
In giving SO large space to such docu.
merit we are governed By the same consider.
atoms which have hitherto induced Us to
publish so largely the proceedings of the
Conventions held in South Carolina and else
where-a desire to place conspicuously be
fore our readers in the South (from whom the
IntelIigcncer receives much the larger por-
tion of that generous patronage with which
il has SO long been honored) clear and
comprehensive statement of the grounds on
which the secession movement has been based
by-iis advocates
If any Union man" at the South may have
been tempted to doubt the propriety of Civ.
ing so much space as we have awarded to
such exciting developments of public disaf
fiction, at a time when the air seemed full OF
political infection, we have only to say that
the chronicle belonged to the current history
of the times. and was demanded of US, as i'm.
partial public journalists. If, on the other
hand, any of our subscribers, in their zeal foI
a cause assuming 10 represent Southern
rights,n may have dissented from the course
we have pursued in opposing, as we have
felt it our duty to do, the whole theory and
acceptance of the Southern people, they will
at least do Us the justice to admit that if thai
cause has not been sufficiently vindicated il
other than our editorial columns, is must be-
because its peculiar champions have been I'M
able TO substaHtiate its high pretensions, with
all the advantages given them in the promi
nence assigned to discussions and proceedings
which were suited to attract by their novel
ty, to allure by their bOlduess, and to capti
vate by the sectional seDsibilities upon which
they sought to play.
In giving to-day the elaborate paper of Mr.
Spratt, we need not say that we entirely dis
sent from the political philosophy which be
inculcates in the name and on behalf of the
secession movement. Yet the prominent
part he has taken in the steps by which that
movement was initiated, the confidence be-
slowed upon him by the people of Charleston
in electing him, with such unanimity, to a
seat in the South Carolina Convention, and
the marked honor conferred upon him by that
Convention in deputiDg him as one OF the
Commissioners appointed to interpret the
action of the Palmetto State before the Con-
yention of Florida, (the first which met after
that of South Carolina,) are all SO many IT,
ties by which he may assume to speak with
authority in expounding the purport and
bearing of the civil revolution to which be
has so largely contributed.
1t will be seen that Mr.. Spratt distinctly
and unequivOcally heralds new cru
SADIE for the emancipation of the South" if
the features engrafted on the Provisional
Constitution framed at Montgomery should
be so far Incorporated in the permanent or
ganic law of the new Confederation as to
fix stigma" on slavery by prohibiting The
foreign slave trade. Writing 10 bis cores
pendent, (who, we may add, is a leading
pr n ha "a
State of Loufsiana,) he proclaims that it was
the great object of the movement which has
resulted in the disruption Of the Union in the
Gulf States, to protect the system of sla-
very in those States, as well in its internal
as external relations, from the antagonism
of free society; and to this end the revival
OF the foreign slave trade is seen to be neces-
sary. He contends that in order to realize
the normal state of "slave society,"" the
number of the slaves should at least be
equal to the number of the freemen; for
where the latter are in excess, he holds that
the conditions OF an 'sirrepressible conflict"
and the consequent subordination of slavery
are inevitable. 1t being indispensable, ac-
cording to Mr. Spratt, that every form of
handicraft labor in the true Stare Safes
should be performed by slaves, be deprecates
the Introduction of white mechanics into
Charleston as calamity threatening the
peace of the city. Al present he thinks that
South Carolina, more nearly than any other
State-much more SO than Firginia-is in
to illustrate the conservative ten
iency of slavery, as to-day there is in South
Carolina no appeal to the mass, because
here is 10 mass to appeal to; there are no
lemagogues, because there is no pOpulace to
breed them" But this happy state of things
may be broken up if slavery be not prompt
" strengthened by the re-opening of the
slave trade, as il is foreseen that white Ia
oorers will come in to fill up the gap left by
/ paucity of slaves; and such white labor
,rs, adds Mr.. Spratt, Twill question the right
Of masters to employ their slaves in any
work that they may wish for; they will use
he elective franchise to this end; they may
acquire the power to determine our munich
pal elections, and they will inexorably use
t; and thus this town of Charleston, at the
very heart of slavery, may become the for
ress of democratic power against it."
With such theories lying at the basis of the
agitation which has eliminated in dissolu-
ion of the Union, it was but natural that its
1riginators should exclaim, in the presence
Of the temporary prohibitions laid on the
oreign slave trade by the Congress at Mont
gomery, that if this interdict "be carried into
The permanent Government our lchole z1ove-
7as1lt is defeated It will abolitionize the Border
cannot share a Government with democracy;
It cannot bear brand upon it: thence another
repolution. IL may be painful, but ace must make
IT, The Constitution cannot be changed
without it. II is doubtful II another Increment
.ciH Be so peaceful but no matter no power but
the Convention can avert the necessity" To
similar purport Mr.. Spratt proclaims in
another part of his letter " that slavery. as
sent forth by the Southern Congress, like the
Thracian horse returning from the field of
victory, still bears master on his back, and,
having achieved one revolution to escape de-
mocracy at the North, II must sill ochiers
another to Escape IL at the South" And it will
be seen that more than once he very signifi-
cantly intimates a doubt whether this latter
victory, if contest is made necessary by
prohibition laid On the slave trade, will be as
peaceful as that which has been only partial
ly won over the remoter enemy at the North.
In a word, if the revival of the slave trade
be not now peacefully conceded, the members
of the Southern Confederacy have in reserve
for their people another revolution in which
the cOmbatants on both sides shall be of their
own household And the man who prefgures
this conflict is one whose warning should net
pass UNDECIDED, because he is one who knows
how revolutions are made, because knowing
from what source the pending revolution has
derived its motive power, and the attainment
of what ends it has sought under the conduct
of it's originators. These, if baked of their
purpose for the present, will, he assures US,
only have to begin at once new agitation,
destined to endure until at last slavery shall
:. stand serene. erect, aloft, unquestioned as
TO its rights or its integrity, at some point
within the present limits of the Southern
States" and such being the case" adds
Mr.. Spratt, it is only for the present actors
to determine whether they will contribute or
je crushed to that result"
Who can wonder that the people of the
Border Slaveholding States, with their we'll
known repugnance to the revival of the slave
trade, should look with other than feelings of
iistrust and misgiving on movement which,
IN its rudiments, was known to have been so
largely controlled by men of like ideas with
Mr. Spratt. and whose ultimate, inevitable
tendencies are now only the more clearly ex-
pressed because of. a temporary check which
{ is feared that movement has received with
IN its own cirele of revolution