The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-06-18

licly that he approved this view Of the
subject A new school of Virginia
politicians came into power; Richie
Of the Richmond En- guirer, was It's
Nestor. Dromgoole of the Southside,
Upshur of the Eastern shore and John
Tyler of Charles City, though the last
was nominally a Whig-Were strong
members of the group. They looked up
John G. Calhoun of South Cadolina;
and Calhoun's great co-worker, and
to some extent mentor, was Robert
Barnwell Rhett of Charleston. Rhett
was the one man who took logical
ground. viz: that secession was the
only course for the South if it would
maintain it's peculiar form of civiliza-
ton.
Virginia fell into the hands of the
men whose names are given above and
the counties of southern and east
ern Virginia dictated the policy of the
State on all National questions. State
rights after the Roane doctrine, free
trade according to Calhoun's view
and negro slavery as a positive good
were the slogans of this new Virginia
of the Democracy which supported
Van Buren, and John Tyler and dicta-
ted the platform on which Polk was
elected in 1914.
This position was accepted by the
North Carolina Democracy which had
grown great under the leadership of
Nathaniel Macon and Bartlett Yancey
In South Carolina there was one great
name only-Calhoun, who had now
allied himself with Mississippi and
Alabama under the influence of Quit
man. Robert j. Walker, Jefferson
Davis and the rising William L. YAM
cey-a son of the famous Byrd family
of Virginia.
Quitman and Walker. a native of
PENNSYLVANIA, had decided to expand
the slave territory Of the United
States by fair means or foul. Missis-
sfppi was disposed to follow these able
and daring leaders, but her people
hesitated to involve themselves in a
war with Spain or risk the dangers of
an open defiance of the laws OF the
National government on the subject
of slavery Lower Alabama thought
with Ouitman and Walker and by 1916
this vigorous young commonwealth
had q leader of almost super-numan
mowers of ersuasion-William Lown-
des Yancey, already named. In South
Carolina Calhoun and Rhett We're
ready for SaceSSion-if the Union per-
sisted in its plan of limiting slave ter
ritory. Rhett went SO far as TO demand
the re-opening of the African slave
y
of working out the highest American
civilization; to enact laws against slaV-
cry was to try to prevent the opera
ton of Divine plans. Many Southside
Virginians held the same view, prom
inent among whom was William A.
Smith. president of Randolph Macon
College, then located at Boydton.
Smith was even invited TO debate this
phase of the subject with Garrison and
Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall. Bos-
ton. later in his life, and there is
book now in most good Virginia IL
braries written by Smith proving to
the satisfaction of the author that
slavery was a blessing both to the
slave and his master.
It is a matter of history that Robert
]. Walker of Mississippi, delegate to
the National Convention Of the Dem
ocratic party in 1874, attempted to
solve the perpleXing question of slave
expansion by silently working the de-
feat of the anti-slavery-expa cam
didate-Martin Van Buren, the favor
tie of the Northern Democrats, and by
securing the nomination of the first