The Nevada journal., 1861-02-01
The London Times ON Secession.

the accomplishment ofItalian unity under a
constitutional monarchy, and the disruption
of far mightier union under the disloca-
ting agency of federal republicanism.--
Washington, like Alexander, was troubled
in his last days by misgivings as to the So
lidity of his own workmanship. He had
found American patriotism strong enough
to brave in q good cause the armies of
George III, but would it be proof against
the selfshuess of prosperity, the meanness
of party and personal interests, the fierce
ness of provincial jealousies? Could the
dignifed and statesmanlike moderation of
the founders of liberty be transmitted to
their successors, or would later growth de-
velope those harsher and vulgar qualities
which too often appear in the Anglo-Saxon
character? We dare not say that the ex-
pertinent is yet complete. Two generations
have amply sufficed to confirm and trans
cend the experience of antiquity as to the
expansive energies of democracy, but its
capability of cohesion still remains open to
question. At crisis like the pre- sent the
centrifugal seems more than counterpoise
TO the centripetal force, if we are to take
the southerners at their word. The proud
traditions of the great western republic, the
ties of laws, language, religion, and ma
tional character, the dictates of higher
and more comprehensive self-interest, and
the respect of European powers, are to be
cast to the winds when they conflict with
local prejudices and the salaries of class
of gentlemen who took their appointments
subject to this uncertainty. The enemies
of democracy have always asserted that it
cannot rise to the conception of great ma
tional idea, and that for want of this vivi-
fying principle it carries in itself the germ
of its own decay. The opponents of cotton
have even denied the assumed liberality of
the commercial spirit, and retorted that, if
circumstances were changed, merchants and
manufacturers would not show less blind
ness or seiishness than farmers and land
| lords. 1t has been reserved for the L" fire.
eating" slave-owers of South Carolina and
Georgia to verify this taunt, and to seek for
precedents of party warfare, not in the his
tory of the United States, but in the conti-
mental system of Napoleon, in the Berlin
decree, and the English orders in council.
| We are far from considering the proceed
ings adopted in South Carolina and Georgia
as irreversible, or taking it for granted that
they will be initiated by other cotton-pro
duc;ng states, much less by those which,
though nominally southern, have natural
affinitieS with the North. Even the Cover
nor of Georgia, though he recommends the
imposition of prohibitory duties on imports
| from the North, the repeal of all parts OF
the penal and civil code protecting the
lives, liberties, and properties of the citi
zens of the states where unfriendly laws
exist" and other mad and revolutionary
measures, shrinks from the responsibility
of sending delegates to a southern conven
ton. The resignation of their Offices by
the federal employees of Charleston has not
vet been accepted at Washington, and the
sanguinary rhodomontade of Gov. Brown
probably sounds less formidable to those
| who hear it than to US who read it. We
Englishmen are sparing Of our words, and
little know how far bluster may be carried
before barking passes into biting. The
threat of secession is the standard resource
of a mob and the Roman ple5e often started
for the Mons Sacer, and actually encamped
there more than once, without permanently
separating from the republic. There, how
ever, the malcontents had vantage ground
which here belongs to the established gov
ernment. The security of the city and the
lives of their patrician oppressors depended
on their cooperation against foreign enc
mics, whereas, here it is the personal safety
of the Southern planters that is guaranteed
by the North. That great social question,
which inspires an interest immeasurably
more intense and absorbing than all the
political watchwords of Europe, has two
fold bearing on the present crisis, and if it
furnishes motive in favor of secession it
furnishes more overpowing motive against
it. ait is singular fact" says one of our
American contemporaries, that states in
position secure against injury from the
non-execution of the fugitive slave law are
the only states making the nonexecution of
this law pretext for secession But are
these refractory citizens prepared to be
closeted beyond the reach of call with their
own domestic institutions ?" Is it GER
tain that in such States as South Carolina
and Mississippi, where the slaves outpum-
Der the white population, the masters could
dispense with the aid Of their northern
brethren in a servile war? Or turning to
another item in the same calculation of ex-
pediency, would South Carolina, whose ex-
ports exceed in value her imports in the
proportion of seven TO one, be the gamer
by system of mercantile exclusion? Can
any sane man believe that England and
France will consent, as is now suggested,
to stultify the policy of half century for
the sake of an extended cotton trade, and
to purchase the favor of Charleston and
Midledgeville by recognizing what has been
called "the isothermal law, which impels