The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1861-10-18
The Issue Described.
From the National Intaliigencer.

1t is well, amid the aglt-itions of the present
time, 10 keep our eye steadily fixed on the
moral and legal aspect of the present great in
surrecton against the Union, as that aspect
was discerned and described in advance
by one who, perhaps as much rs any other,
contributed to ''precip pit"te' the Cotton
States into revolution against the National
Government ,avowedly because of the election
of an Unacceptable man to the Presidency.
When in the Sou bern Commercial Con
vention,'' sitting at Montgomery, Ala, in the
month of M Y, lSJ>, q debate was had upon
the proprety of agitating for the repeal OF ali
the Federal statutes prohibiting the slave
trade, it Will be remembered that the Hon.
VIM. L. Iancey advocated the Affirmative OF
that proposition, and hvowei a Willingness to
make a cGsRs tHdcris OF the refusal of Congress
TO comply with such demand. In opposi-
tion to this view the Hon. Henry w. Hilliard,
of Alabama, who deprecated any agitation
looking TO u renewal of the slave trade, pro
posed that the election of " Republican
President should be made the occasion of
withdrawing from the Union.
What flr. Yancey thought of such pro-
ceediug, III its legal and moral relations, was
frankly stated at the time and as in doing
he has defined the character of the present
rebellion in terms which Were once prophetic
and are now historical, we cite them rs the
verdict which the impartial narrator will be
compelled to employ i'll portraying this revo-
luton, conceived by its very authors. 1t
was in reply to Mr.. Hillard that Mr.. Yancey
held the following language:
81 say, with all Difference to my colleague,
(Mr Hilliard,) that more inferior issue
could be rendered to the South, upon which
we should dissolve the Union, thar the loss
of an elec tion. If in the contest of 1860 for
the Presidency, Seward should receive the
legal number of votes necessary to elect him,
according to the forms of the Constitu ton
and the law, gentlemen say that then Will be
the time to dissolve the Union. If that is
made the cause of disunion, / say to them l
will go with them bat l will feel that
am going in the wake of an inferior issue,
that there was Il banner over me that is not
of the kind l would wish. When / am
asked to raise the flag of revolution against
the Constitution, l am asked to do an
unconstitutional thing, according to the
Constitution rs it now exists. / am asked to
put myself in the position of rebel, of a
traitor. in posi- ition where, if the Govern
ment should succeed and put me down iii the
rev volution, and my friends can be ragned
before the Supreme Court of the United
States, and there sentenced TO be hanged for
violating The Constitution and laws of my
country. And if should be asked why sen
tence should not be passed on me, could no |
then, as can now, in reference to past issues,
l could not say then, even to the bloody
judges who sit upon the bench, my hands are
guiltless OF wrong against the Constitution
of my country, andI appeal to an enlightened
posterity to the Judgment of the world, TO
yindiCate my name and memory, when, as
Emmett said, my country shall have taken
her place once more an equal among the ma
tons of the earth.