Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1861-05-08

&teSS 10 prOnlOt Tue S1Vo uAue SutoIaoI " VoIse
date; and in no clause there be found any dele
CATION Of powe. to the Congress authorizing t'in
any manner to legslate to the prejudice, detriment
or encouragement of the owners Of that species of
property excluding it from thu protection Of the
government
The climate and soil Of the Northern States soon
proved unpropitious to the continuance of slave Ia
bor whilst the reverse was the case at the South
Under the unrestricted free intercourse between the
two sections, the Northern States consulted their
own interest by selling their slaves to the South,
and prohibiting slavery within their limits The
South were willing purchasers of property suita.
BILE to their wants. and paid the price of the acqus-
ton without harborng suspicion that their quiet
possession as to be disturbed BY those who were in
hbited not only by want of constitutional authori.
ty but by good faith as vendors, from dsquieting
title emanating from themselves.
As soon, however, as the Northern States that
prohibited African slavery within their limits had
reached number sufficient to give their represen-
aton controlling voice in the Congress, persist
ent and organized system hostile measures against
the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern
States was inaugurated, and gradually extended
A continuous series of measures was devised and
prosecuted for the purpose or rendering insecure
the tenure of property in slaves fanatical organiza
tons were assiduously engaged in exciting amongst
the slaves spirit of discomfort and revolt; means
were furnished for their escape from their owners
and agents secretly employed to entice them to ab-
scond; the constitutional provision for their rend-
ton to their owners was first evaded, then openly
denounced as a violation of conscientious obligation
and religious duty; men were taught that it was
merit to elude, disobey, and violently oppose the
execution Of the laws enacted to secure the perform
ance of the promise contained in the constitutional
compact; owners of slaves were mobbed and even
murdered in open day, solely for applying to mag
strate for the arrest of fugitive slave the dogmas
of these voluntary organizations soon obtained con-
troll of the legislatures of many of the Northern
States, and laws were passed providing for the pun
ishment by ruinous fines and long continued impri-
sonmen in ails and penitentiaries of citizens Of the
Southern States who should dare to ask aid Of the
officers Of the law for the recovery of their property
Emboldened by success the theatre of agitation and
aggression against the clearly expressed consttu-
tona rights of the Southern States transferred
to the Congress; Senators and Representatives
sent to the common councils Of the nation, whose
chief title to this distinction consisted in the display
Of spirit of ultra fanatcism, and whose business
was, not to promote the general welfare or ensure
domestic tranquility" but to awaken the biterest
hatred against the citizens of sister States by violent
denunciaton of their institutions; the transaction
of public affairs was impeded by repeated efforts TO
usurp powers not delegated by the Constitution for
the purpose of imparng the security Of property in
slaves, and reducing those States which held slaves
to condition of inferiority. Finally, great party
was organized for the purpose of obtaining the ad
ministration Of the government with the avowed
object of using its power for the total exclusion of
the slave States from all participation in the benefits
of the public domain acquired by all the States in
common whether by conquest or purchase; of sur
rounding them entirely by States in which slavery
should be prohibited; Of thus rendering the proper
ty in slaves insecure to be comparatively worth
less, and thereby annihila:ing in effect property
worth thousands of millions of dollars. This party,
thus organized, succeeded in the month of Novem-
Der last in the election Of its candidate for the
| Presidency of the United States.
In the meantime, under the mild and genial eli
mate of the Southern States and the increasing
and attention for the well being and comfort of the
laboring class dictated alike by interest and human
| ity, the African slaves had augmented in number
from about soc, 900 at the date of the adoption of
the constitutional compact to upwards of 4O0O0 900.
In moral and social condition. they had been eleva
ted from brutal savages into docile intelligent and
civilized agricultural aborers and supplied not only
with bodily comforts But with careful religious in
structon. Under the supervision Of superior race,
their labor had been directed not only to allow
| q gradual and marked ameloration of their own
condition, but to convert hundreds Of thousands of
square miles of the wilderness into cultivated lands
covered with prosperous people; towns and cities
had sprung into existence and had rapidly increased
|
the South; the white population of the Southern
slaveholding States had augmented from about l.
$50 900 at the date of the adoption of the Consttu
ton, to more than $500. 900 in 1861 and the pro-
auctions Of the South in cotton, rice sugar, and TO-
bacco, for the full development and continuance of
which, the labor of African slaves was and is in
dispensabe, had swollen to amount which formed
nearly three fourths of the exports Of the whole
United States, and had become absolutely neces-
| sary to the wants of civilized man,
With interests of such overwhelming magnitude
imperilled, the people of the Southern States were
driven by the conduct of the North to adopt some
course of action to avert the danger with which
they were openly menaced. With this view, the
Legislatures of the several States invited the people
to select delegates to Conventions to be hed1or the
purpose of determining for themselves what meas
ures were best adapted to meet so alarming crisis
in their history.
Here it may be proper to observe that from q
period as early as 1885, there had existed in all Of
the States Of the Union party, almost uninterrup.
teddy in the majority, based upon the creed that
each State was in the last resort, the sole judge as
we'll of its wrongs, as Of the mode and measure Of
redress. Indeed, it is obvious that under the law
of nations, this principle is an axiom applied to
the relations of Independent sovereign States such
as those which had united themselves under the
constitutional compact. The Democratic party Of
the United States, repeated in its successful can
vass in 1856, the declaration made in numerous
previous political contests, that it would faithfully
abide by and uphold the principles laid down in thu
Kentucky and Virginia resolutions Of 1898, and ir
the report of Mr.. Madison to the Virginia Legisla
TUE in 1893; and that it adopts those principles as
constituting one Of the main foundations of its po
litcal creed"
The principles thus emphatically announced EN-
brace that to which have already adverted, tn
right of each State to judge Of, and redress thu
wrongs of which it complains These principles
were maintained by overwhelming maiorities of The
people Of all the States Of the Union at dferen
elections, especially in the elections of Mr. Jefferson
in 1906 Mr.. Madison in 1909, and Mr. Pierce il
1852
In the exercise Of right 80 ancient, so we'll cs
tablished and necessary for selpreservation, tn
people of the Confederate States in their Conven
ton, determined that the wrongs which they hat
suffered, and the evils with which they were men
aced, required that they should revoke the delega