Newbern weekly progress., 1861-01-01
THE SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

THE SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
The solemn act of the secession of sever.
eign State from the AmmerIcan Union has been
accomplished. With unuterable sadness we
are compelled to speak of the American Union
of its brghtest stars has disappeared from that
resplendent galaxy which has SO long lighted
up the Western heavens, and to which the op-
pressed of all nations looked for hope and de-
liverance.
1t is but one star, and yet how soon others
may follow none can tell. The golden chord
is broken. The falling of a single pearl from
that silken thread gives reason to fear that the
rest are not secure-that soon the ground may
be rewn with the scattered gems. She is but
asingle Commonwealth and new States may
be added to the Union, but they will not be of
the old thirteen One of our old Revolutionary
comrades. and one of the bravest and the best,
who never in those days of trial and of peril,
deserted friend nor turned his back upon
foe, has gone out from among US, and stands
alone Where shall we supply the vacant
place? Will Kansas be subtitute for South
Carolina?
Deeply as we feel this humiliating disap-
pontment of the hopes and expectations of all
patriotic hearts, profoundly as we may regret
that South Carolina could not await the coop
Grafton of Virginia and other Southern States
We have no reproacheS to utter against that
heroic aud generous Commonwealth Virgin
ia feels as deeply as Carolina the long career
of injustice and wrong of spoliation and ag-
gression, of rapine and blood, which has COM
PEELED the South to make final stand for self
preservation, and irritated a proud and high
toned people beyond the capacity of farther en-
durance. We have believed, and often ex
pressed the belief, that, by general and uni
ted demand of the Southern States, every right
which they possess and every guarantee which
they require would be conceded by the North
ern States. Halfway measures are worse
than none, and divided counsels more danger
Gus than no counsels at all. Our Northern
friends themselves earnestly call upon as to
unite among ourselves, and, for HedcenS sake
not to be satisfied s0ith temporary erpedients
and absurd emolljents for q disease achich lies
deep IN the blood. Let US hear this voice. Let
the slave States stand together, and all.
Duty to themselves, to their Northern friends,
to the Union demands that we keep together,
front and rear, and advance in solid column.
We regl ct that South Carolina has felt it her
duty, SOLITARY and alone" to precipitate
events. but we have no jealousy of her or any
other State. Virginia is too proud to be jeal-
Her past IS too glorious her Future, in
any event, too grandly foreshadowed in her
geographical position, her inexhaustible min
eral resources, her magnificent harbors and
rivers and in the character ofa people who,
in the harmonious combination of all the vir-
tues that adorn humanity, have equals on
the face Of the earth, to permit her for one mo-
ment to covet the blessings or envy the lau-
rHls of any sister state If fVirginia does not
follow close the heels Of South Carolina, it
will he because, in the exercise of her free
and independent judgement, she chooses to de-
lberate, to be circumspect, to leok around to
look ahead to look above. But, in no event,
will she CT any State of the South, permit CO.
ercion to be employed against South Carolina.
The first Federal gun fired upon that State,
will sound the knelll of the American Union~-
Rich Dispatch.