The Oxford intelligencer. (Oxford, Miss.) 1860-18??, 1861-01-30

stitutions Of such Government be laid down
in the, ,Constitntion--its success mast at
least depend upon the good faith Of the par
ties to the Constitutional compact, in enforc-
ing them. Ii is not in the power of human
language to exclude false infcrences, con-
structions and perversions, in any Constitu-
ton; and when vast sectional interests are
10 be subserved, involving the appropriation
Of countless millions of money, it has not
been the usual experience of mankind that
no words on parchments can arrest power.
The Constitution Of the United States, irres-
pective of the interposition Of the States,
rested on the assumption that power would
yield to faith that integrity would be
stronger than interest-and that thus the
limitations Of the Constitution would be OBJ
served. The experiment has been fairly
made. The Southern States, from the com
mencement of the Government, have striven
to keep it within the orbit prescribed by the
Constitution. The experiment has failed.
The whole Constitution, by the constructions
of the Northern people, has been absorbed
by the preamble. In their reckless lust for
power, they seem unable to comprehend that
seeming paradox-that the more power is
given TO the General Government, the weaker
it becomes. Its strength consists in the
limitation Of its agency to objects of common
interest to all the sections. To extend the
scope of its power over sections or local in
terests, is to raise up against 1t opposition
and resistance In all such matters, the Gen
cral Government must necessarily be a des-
potism, because all sectional or local interest
must ever be represented by minority in
the councils Of the General Government
having no power to protect itself against the
rule of the majority. The majority. consti-
tuted from those who do not represent these
sectional or local interests, will control and
govern them. A free people cannot submit
to such government. And the more it en-
larges the sphere of its power, the greater
must be the dissatisfaction it must produce,
and the weaker it must become. On the
contrary, the more it abstains from usurpcd
powers, and the more faithfully it adhcres
to the limitations of the Constitution, the
stronger it is made. The Northern people
have had neither the wisdom nor the faith to
perceive, that 20 observe the limitations of
the Constitution was the only way TO its per-
petuity.
Under such government, there must, of
course, be many and endless " irrepressible
conflicts" between the two great sections of
the Union. The same fathlcssness which
has abolished the Constitution Of the United
States, will not fail to carry out the sectional
purposes for which it has been abolished.
There must be conflict; and the weaker sec
ton of the Union can only find peace and
liberty in an independence of the North.
The repeated efforts made by South Caroli-
ma, in wise conservatism, to arrest the pro-
gress of the General Government in its fatal
progress to consolidation, have been unsup-
ported, and she has been denounced as faith
less to the obligations of the Constitution,
by the very men and States who were
destroying it by their usurpations. 1t is now
too late to reform or restore the Government
of the United States. All confidence in the
North is lost by the South. The faithless:
ness of the North for a half century, has
opened gulf of separation between the
North and the South which no promises mol
engagements can fill.
1t cannot be believed that cur ancestors
would have assentcd to any Union whatever
with the people Of the North if the feelings
and opinions now existing amongst them hac
not existed when the Constitution was
framed. There was then no tariff-no faaat
icism concerning negroes. 1t was the dele
gates from New England who proposed i
the Convention which framed the Constith
tion, to the delegates from South Carolin'
and Georgia, that If they would agree to give
Congress the power of regulating commerce
BY a majority, that they would support thu
extension of the African slave trade fo
twenty years. African slavery existed in al
the States but one. The idea that the South
: em States would be made to pay that tribut
to their Northern confederates, which the.
: had refused to pay Great Britain, or that tn
institution of African slavery would be mad
the grand basis Of a sectional organization 9
} the North to rule the South, never crosse
the imaginations Of our ancestors Tn
: Union Of the Constitution was a Union c
slaveholding States. 1t rests on slavery, b
prescribing a representation in Congress, 70
! three fifths of our slaves. There is nOthin
! in the proceedings of the Convention whic
; framed the Constitution to show that tn
! Southern States would have formed any othC
Union; and still less that they wOuld hay
e formed Union with more powerful nor
slaveholding States, having a majority
: both branches Of the Legislature OF th
, Government. They were guilty Of no sue
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