Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1861-04-03
READ AND REFLECT.

Extract from Speech Of MT ouItt"e, .o'SDe, -
Tiroinia State Convention March 2, 1851. e
ooh hut" our friends say, 3 if you don't unite
in a Cotton Government, they viii not buy our
negroes. say they cannot get them anywhere
else have no fear of their reopenng the African
slave trade No, sir no slaveholding Jsepublic VIII
ever be permitted to do it. England Will not allow
it France will not allow it, Spain Will not allow II,
nor would Northern Confederacy allow IT, Even
now great and powerful as we are with large Por-
tion Of our territory dedcated-as the Black Re-
publicans call ito freedom; even now, great as
we are. debating upon almost every other subject
our treaties with other nations uTJon our own terms
we are compelled to keep up force, at an exPendl-
ture of millions of dollars, to prevent this African
slave trade They are bonDtI to buy our negroes.
They could never coerce me j nto any act which my
Judgment disapproved of by threatening that they
would not buy my negroes
Sir. is not language like this, employed by these
secessionists with the d esign of influencing the
minds of the people of Virginia, an insult to the
honor and the intelligence and the patriotism OF our
people? But OH our honor Is at stake, our rights
are denied" we are told by some. Pray gentlemen
wherein has your ho Tor suffered or is likely to sui
fer? Tell me, if you please, wherein anything IN
fringng upon Vire mia's honor has been attempted,
much less execute d. What right has ever been oe
MED? Haven't on equal rights in the territories!
Has not this very Government that you are gong
to overthrow declared that you have? Haven't you
Has not the little State of Florida, with Its forty
seven thouss md white inhabitants and its twenty
three millions of property, an equal voice IN TINS
Governme at with the great State OF New york; with
its three millions of white inhabitants and Its thou
sand millions of property? Has not the State OF
South Carolina with a white population not halt as
large us the single city Of Philadelphia, an equal
voice in the control of this Government with the
whole great State of Pennsylvania, with her two
million five hundred thousand inhabitants? Then
wh at has been denied you? Put your finger upon
the right that has been taken away from you. What
right has been denied in this Government? Where
in does this inequality consist? May it not be, gen.
tlemen-and ask it with all kindness-may 1t not
be that you have mistaken party platforms for the
Constitution of the United States and the action OF
individual parties for the action of the Federal Gov
ernment2
Mr.. President, with our extended frontier with
our defenceless seacoast tell me the amount OF mon
ev that would be required to fortfy the State, in
case of separation, to afford the slightest protec
ton not only to our slave property but against those
John Brown forays upon larger scale? And by
the way, let me here call your attention to single
fact namely that it fourteen of the marines OF
this very Federal Government which you want to
destroy that took John Brown and his men out OF
the engine house. 1t was not all this army that you
raised in Richmond and that we sent down from the
border 1t was fourteen marines belonging to the
Federal Government which took that inSurrectionary
party out of the engine house, delivered them over
to your civil authorities who justly tried and hung
them; and it the Governor of our sister State
of Pennsylvania-for, denounce me as submssioniSt
if you please, apply whatever epithets you will,
Pennsylvania is sister State-and it was the Gov
ernor of Pennsylvania who delivered up to us Has
lett and Cook, and, in doing so, he behaved as the
| Chief Executive of sister State should behave.
Sir can any man believe that in case of dissou-
ton of the Union, would enjoy anything like the
| freedom, the liberty and equality which we now
| enjoy under this General Government of CURSE
| Could we maintain ourselves without strong mill
tary force kept up at enormous and exhausting
| expense? We are now, under the Constitution and
in the Union the freest, the most independent and
the happiest people on Garth Dissolve the Union,
and military despotism the Righteousness of the
camp anG ragged poverty will be substituted in its
| place.
And now Mr.. President in the name Of our own
ilustrous dead in the of all the living in the
name of millions yet unborn, protest against this
wicked effort to destroy the fairest and reeSt Gov
eminent on the earth And denounce all attempts
to involve Viriginia-to commit her to selfmurder,
as an insult to all reasonable living humanity. and
crime against God. With the dissolution of this
Union hesitate not to say, the sun of our liberties
| will have set forever"