Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1861-03-07
DR.. BrecktnrIdge on the Crisis.

The Cincinnati Gazette is publishing series of ar
tcles on the condition of the country by Rev. DIR.
ROBERT J. BRECKENRIDGE.
The name of Dr. BRECKENRIDGE is Familiarity con-
nected with the Emancipation movement in Ken
lucky, he having been an ardent advocate of that
measure. Although not now insisting upon such a
policy lis evident that he is sorey afflicted with
'-chronic hatred" of South Carolina to wisely COM
prehend properly prescribe for the existing ills
of the country. He says:
More recently the coEmotion about Slavery in the
Territories has been struggle for political power,
aggravated the side of the North by the urgency
of its numerous emigrant population for cheap homes
in fertile region.
1t is the idea of power-power to be diminished by
remaining in the Union and to be incidentally aug
mented by leaving IT. the idea of wealth, of con-
quest, of adVancement-sl of them, we are tho
roughly col WINGED, in the highest degree Elusive
and fatal; but il is these ideas-far more than any
disgust that the North condemns Slavery immoral
or any apprehension that Slavery will be disturbed
or slaves stolen, the South annoyed in the UuiOn
that pervades the present dominant patty in the
Cotton States and enabled TO precptate them into
revolution.
We undertake 10 maintain that "the commotion
about slavery in the Territories" has not been "a
struggle for political power" either by the North
or by the South. There is not a newspaper reader
in the United States who has not known for years
that although every foot of Territory South of 36
deg. 80 min. should be forever slaFehoding, the
political power of the saveholding States would,
after the census of 1860 be overwhelmingly prepon-
derant in the Federel Government, aud yetevery
knows, that nOtwiths standing this universal knowi
edge North and South Of where the political power
would le if protection had been forever guaranteed
to slavery South Of &c deg. 30 min. Then it was not
"a struggle for political power" The North would
have enough after the Of $780, to satisfy its
greed without the Territory South of the line. The
South with all the Territory which it was willing
TO accept would still have been in hopeless minor
ity and that they knew. We repeat then, 1.-THE com
motion about slavery in the Territories has not
been 3 struggle for political power. That commo-
ton has been produced upon the had by that rel
gious fanatcism in the North which holds slavery as
sin as one OF twin relics ofbarbarism as 'the sum
of all the rillGnes and whichafrms fundamental
doctrine of political policy to crafty the prOmptngs
of diseased conscience, that slavery should be
forever prohibited in all the territory, and thus
"put it ia q course of ultimate extinction" Upon
the other hand that Convention has been produced
by that feeling in the South which is the first law
of nature-self preservation. The hemming in of
slavery its confinement to its present State limits,
it is well known, both at the North and the South
would, by the natural, bat rapid increase of the
slave population render slave labor yaiueless, and
lead to emancipation 1t is further well known at
the South, that emancipation would force white
tenants and white labor to compete with free negro
tenants and free negro laborers where the black
would far exceed the white population and thus by
driving out the whites, Africanize the South and
reduce il to the condition of St. Domingo 1t is not
/" the idea Of power" to be diminished or augment
ed either at the North the South, it is not the
idea of wealth, of conquest Of advancement either
at the North or South, it Is religious fanaticism at
the North and selfpreservaton at the South, which
has produced that Convention winch has resulted |
In the permanent dissolution OF the Union and the |
of the Southern Confederacy