Newspaper Page Text
From the Savannah Newa.
The Senate and the Ladies. — One mark
eJ feature of the present session of Congress
ha# been, and is, the assiduous attendance of
the non.voting poition of the community; the
members of society who are supposed to take
no interest or share in political discussions, be
cause they exercise no direct or ostensible in
fluence on political arrangements. Every nar
rator or describer of eveuis at Washington, the
past winter, has remarked upon the fidelity of
the ladies in resorting to the .Senate Chamber ;
and the fuct # has even elicited remark from dis
tinguisheri Senators, which has figured in the
published reports of the Senate proceedings.
The phenomenon, theiefore, comes legiti
mately within the range of public observation ;
and there is propriety in discussion of its mean
ing and its consequences. \\ e give place, ac
cordingly, to a significant essay on the subject,
from the Richmond Republican :
A Beautiful Spectacle. —The Washington
correspondent of the Boston Courier says that
Mr. Clay, while “being delivered” of his last
great speech, had a ‘‘coronet of laurels over
and around his head,” and that he was “imbed
ded in a nest of the fair sex.” “No Senator
could get across the chamber without thrusting
his head under a bonnet.”
This is really a most captivating picture ;
and one which animates us never to despair of
the Republic. The ladies aro,/o a man, the
enemies of disunion. Wo do not wish to inti
mate that they are more in favor o (union than
the other sex—we do not think they are ; but
when the knot is tied, they are infinitely inure
true and loyal. They are more patient, more
kind, more enduring tnan man. When St.
Paul described charity, he drew the picture of
a good woman yoked to a bad husband.
“Charity suflereth long and is kind; Charity
beareth all things, beiieveth all things, hopeth
all things, endureth all things.” But we are
wandering from our text, which was the Amer
ican Senate, and the dames and damsels con
gregated therein.
Some of our cotemporaries, led on by Sena
tor Pearce of Maryland, are in favor of exclu
ding these fair creatures from the Senate, on
the ground that they divert the attention of Sen
ators from their proper duties, and tempi them
to become too discursive and flighty in their
harangues. Unfortunately, however, most of
our public men speak for Buncombe, at any
rate, so that there is no probability of making
their oratory more diffuse than it is at present,
lu the existing temper of Congress, the pres
ence of the ladies will have a beneficial effect.
It will soothe the irritated nerves of the old gen
tlemen in the Senate, and lead their thoughts
from the contemplation of annoying subjects to
the days of their youth, when they went
courting, ” and rambled along green lanes and
amid beautiful flower gardens, in company with
a neat little cottage bonnet, a pair of very be
witching eyes, and a very small foot encased in
a fascinating gaiter boot, like that which cap
tivated the juvenile Winkle. “Ah,” thinks
some old Senator, as he yields to these reflec
tions and tulis his withered brow, “time lias
made snd changes since that horn. Can yon
der fat woman be the spirit of my youthful
dreams? Can this worm-eaten heart and
shrunken shank belong to the gay stripling who
wooed and won her? Can I be myself?”
This seems a veiy absurd inquiry; yet from
• very deep wrinkle, from every gray hair, from
every trembling nerve, from every feeble pul
sation of the aged bosom, a melancholy voice
answers, NO.
Our Senator has become philosophic, philan
thropic, even romantic. II is icy old soul is
rapidly thawing under the bland and Spring
like rays of youth and beauty. If he rises to
make a few remarks, it is done in the courtly
manner of the be-wigged, be-queued and be
powdered statesman ol two centuries ago. 7/e
cannot be rude, discourteous or vulgar in the
presence of woman. The novels which he
read when he was a boy, represented the brav
est knights as most gentle, most deferential to
the fair sex. What a transformation has been
wrought in this eminent public functionary !
It is like that effected upon Halbert Glendin
ning by the mysterious Lady of Avene!. An
hour since he was turbulent in manner, coarse
in speech, imperious, provoking a personal con
troversy with every word : now lie is a model
of quiet dignity, regarding himself with calm
self-respect, and not to be outdone even by Sir
Piercie Shafton in polished courtesy.
Our Senator, exhausted with his effort, sits
down and wipes his brow. The ladies look
with respect and admiration upon the kind and
intelligent countenance of the good old man.
These reverential glances increase the benig
nity and tenderness of his spirit. Instead of
the fire-eater that he was but a short time ago,
he becomes in his own imagination a sort of
patriarch, with flocks and herds, and quite a
number of wives. He feels softened, benevo
lent, and even loving. He wonders that pco.
pie in this world ever quarrel, and, most of all,
that those bound together in matrimony ever
fall out with each other. H is mind recurs
with great sensibility to the married relation.
A man and his wife are bound together, he ru.
minates, for better—for worse. Destiny has
made them one, and to “bear and forbear” is
their highest wisdom as well as duty. “What
God hath joined together, let not man put asun
der.” Verily the presence of women has
worked a miraeft*. It has struck the rocky
heart of an old politician, and lo ! streams of
penitence, poetry and piety gush forth.
But her influence does not stop here. By no
means. Ihe venerable convert is not only pi.
ous, penitent and poetical, but he turns his new
acquisition to a practical purpose. Women
remind him of marriage—marriage of the Un
ion of those mighty sovereignties, one of which
ho represents in the Senate, and whose slave
controversy now absorbs the attention of all
public men. He thinks of those great states
which pledged their youthful vows lo each oth
er at Bunker Hill and Yorktown ; whose early
affection was purified and made more fervid by
the fires of common sorrows, but the glories ol
whose bright day of wedlock have cast into the
•shade the memories of former sufferings. 7/e
sees them alienated, distrustful, almost prepar
ed to dissolve the matrimonial bonds, and pur
sue each a separate path through life. The
thought is too much for our benevolent Senator.
In the spirit of Uncle Toby, when ho swore
that the poor soldier should not die, the old gen
tleman vows that this Union shall not be dis
solved. He will interpose ; ho will offer a
compromise; he will speak soothingly to every
body around; he will make any sacrifices ;
yea, if there be no one else to play the Curtiu3,
he will throw himself, with his ivory-headed
cane, hi* broad-brimmed hat, his capacious um
brella, into the yawning abyss. He is an old
man. He has given to ambition the kernel.
It is not too much to give his country the shell.
He is the “last leaf upon the tree.” What
matter ihough he yield himself now to the
breeze ? A few more blasts, at any rate, must
snap him from the withered stem, and send him
down that arrowy tide of time which knows no
return.
Admit the women, by all means ! They are
the great civilizers ot the age. They enter the
political arena, and the wild beasts of party
crouch in tenderness and awe at their feet.
They soften and humanize even ferocious fa
natics, making them decent, gentle, accessible
to reason. Admit them, and their very pres
ence will banish harshness, acrimony and es
trangement. Grim old greybeards, who repre
sent inflexible old sovereignties, will learn to
temper their fierce valor with a kindly and for
giving spirit. And states, once joined togeth
er by hooks of steel, but almost parted now, will
return to a sisterly embrace, and clasping hand
in hand, exclaim, in the language of loyalty
and love that once fell Irom the lips of a noble
woman, “Whither thou goest I will go ; and
where thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people
shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Where thou diest will I die, and there will I
be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more al
so, if aught but death part thee and me.”
Another writer attributes to the ladies who
attend the chambers of the Capitol very differ
ent motives from those of humanizing the bear
gardens of Congress. lie says :
The great object to be achieved in Wash
ington, by young ladies, is to get a husband.
They live here, and come here, for no other
purpose. A young lady who has ‘spoons’ can
take her pick among the male sex who are un
married. But a very large portion of the young
ladies one meets with in Washington, are as
poor as church mice. If they have beauty,
they aim high. When they first came out,
they set their caps for a secretary or senator.
The second session, they would take any de
cent member of Congress. The third year,
they are somewhat discouraged, and are wil
ling to throw their charms into the arms of the
army or navy. The fourth year, they will con
sent to marry a twelve hundred, or even a thou
sand dollar clerk. After that, they arc entire
ly dependent, for a matrimonial offer, upon out
side strangers. A visit to the capitol and a
winter in Washington, are of immense service
to many sweet girls from country portions of
the different States. They learn a lesson that
lasts them for life. They find that “all is not
gold that glitters,” and that tnen whose fame
has rung through the section from whence they
came, are but men. They find them, in real
life, a different set of gentlemen from what
their imagination had pictured, when reading
their speeches and praises in the newspapers.
Such sensible girls go home from the capi
tal perfectly disgusted, and satisfied. Secreta
ries, Senators, and members, are of little ac
count in the capital, compared with what they
are at a distance from it. They have seen
these great men, have talked with them, walk
ed with them, and—the romance is over. The
fair visitors go home impressed with the idea
that they are, in general, by no matinner of
means the superiors, or even equals, of some of
the unmarried visitors to their firesides at home.
They save seen quite enough of Washington
and its s iciety. They have found it nothing
more than a big hotel, filled with selfish travel
lers ; the male guests keeping or seeking office
or plunder, and the female occupants dressed
for company or conquest.
THE SOUTHERN SENTINEL.
COLUMBUS, GEORGIA, MARCH 21, 1850.
OCT Being about to remove our office, we
offer for rent, the Room which we have here
tofore occupied. Apply at this Office.
The Remington Bridge.
This is truly one of the most valuable inventions
of the age. The philosophical principle involved is
so simple that it is remarkable that it should have
been so long overlooked, and the mode of its applica
tion to the construction of bridges, is as simple as
the principle itself. Mr. Remington, the inventor of
the bridge, (a native of Va. but now a resident of
Montgomery, Ala.) thus briefly describes it:
“The great principle sought to he proved in this
bridge (says Mr. It.) is that a beam of timber—of
whatever size, shape, or length—lying horizontally
and resting at each extremity on abutments, is as
strong, and will require as much weight on the top
ot it to break it, as it would take to break the same
piece when pulled longitudinally in the direction of
the fibre.”
Mr. Beattie, who is the owner of the monopoly for
the construction of those bridges in this State, is at
present in this city for the purpose of enlisting the
co-operation of practical Bridge builders, that he may
be able to fake the contracts that have already been
offered to the inventor, in Georgia. See his adver
tisement in another column. For the satisfaction of
those who were incredulous of the powers of this
bridge, this gentleman exhibited a model, made of
two stringers, forty feet long, one and a quarter inch
es thick at the abutments, and three-eighths of an
inch thick at the middle. Between four and five
thousand pounds were placed upon this frail struc
ture without the least giving way, but upon adding
to the weight, the iron screws by which the string
ers were fastened to the abutments, gave way. The
test was regarded perfectly satisfactory by those who
bad assembled to witness it, the only regret being
that the insufficient fastenings at the ends, prevented
a complete exhibition of its powers.
There are numerous advantages claimed for bridg
es built on this principle. • The first is its great econ
omy. We are informed by Mr. Beattie, that a bridge
: feet span is now being constructed at Mont*
gomery, Ala., at a cost of .$1,500, while one built on
j the P l **’ would require an expenditure of SB,OOO,
a saving of over four-lifths. Another very great ad
vantage is, that a bridge of this kind can be built,
where or.e supported on piers would be impractica-
I Mr- Remington is also the patentee of a prepa-
I ration which he calls artificial slate, by means of
: which he is able to protect wood entirely from expo
sure to air and moisture, and thus secure very great
durability to the timbers of his bridge. He has also
j applied the principle of the bridge to the construction
;of springs for beds, railroad cars, sofas, chairs,
i&c. & c .
§®IDTGO H® ED §> iOSTT DBO IIL =
The Cass County Meeting.
A meeting was held at Cassvilie on the sth 1
inst., composed of those citizens of that imme
diate neighborhood who are unfriendly to the
proposed Nashville convention, at which cer
tain resolutions were introduced and adopted,
which, in our opinion, are calculated to do im
mense injury to the cause of the South. Among
those resolutions are the following:
6. Resolved , That we are opposed to tlie Southern
Convention proposed to be held at Nashville, cher
ishing as we do a strong attachment to the Union,
and we pledge ourselves to support the President, in
using all constitutional means in his power to protect i
it from violence for any cause now known to ns.
7. Resolved, That vve condemn the action of the
late Legislature of this State, in requiring the Gov- j
ernor to rail a convention of the people of the State
in the event that California is admitted into the Un- i
ion as a State, and hope he will not, for such a cause,
call the people from their homes, and thus burthen ;
them with unnecessary expense, and increase the |
excitement of the public mind.
The first objectionable feature in these res
olutions is that embraced in the attempt to ar
ray the proposed Southern Convention against j
the Union. What else is implied in the senti
ment, opposing that convention, because “they
cherish a strong regard for the Union”? Has
it ever been announced by the friends of that
measure, that its object is to dissolve the Union ‘!
The assumption of such a design is altogether ;
gratuitous, for so far from ever admitting that
the object of the convention was to dissolve the
Union, those who have been instrumental in
getting it up, have all along avowed their pur
pose to be, to devise some plan for securing the
Union.
If this be not the design, then we have most
ignorantly been the advocate of the measure, for
we do not hesitate to declare our most emphatic
and unqualified opposition to it,* if its object is
that charged in these resolutions. It is, there- j
fore, unjust to the authors of this movement, nay, j
it is almost treachery to the South itself, thus to
denounce without a reason, the efforts of South- j
ern men to secure for their own section the hon- j
or, the equality, and the rights guarantied to it
by the constitution. That our rights have been
invaded, and that their very existence is seri
ously threatened, no Southern man doubts, and
that, being thus threatened, it is the duty of the
South to vindicate herself, is a proposition about j
which Southern minds can not disagree ; as so
the most effectual method, of vindication, even
Southern men may differ. Some have believed
that a convention of Delegates from ail the
Southern States, was the surest and speediest
resort for effecting that object ; others have i
thought that a State convention was the wisest
policy, and others again have doubled the pro
priety of all conventions. Now the advocates!
of each policy may be, and probably are sincere 1
in their conclusions, and it is therefore unwise
and unjust in either to ascribe to the other, trea- j
sonable motives. The South must harmonize
if she would prevail, and if differences of opinion
exist among her friends as to the best policy in
securing her rights, those differences should be j
confined to opinion, and not be allowed to en
gender fierce and bitter factional animosities.
We think, therefore, that this feature of those
resolutions is to be deeply lamented.
The next objection to these resolutions, is the
voluntary “pledge of support to the President in
using all constitutional means in his power to
protect the Union from violence for any cause
now known to them.” We almost shrink from
the interpretation of this passage. If it means
anything, it is that the Resolvers pledge them
selves to enrol under the banner of the Execu-
tive, in suppressing at the point of the bayonet,
any attempt on the part of the South, to resist
what she should conclude was unjust and tyran
nical legislation by Congress. We shall con
tent ourselves with a bare interpretation of this
threat, and leave it to our readers without a word
of comment.
The 7th Resolution entire, is objectionable.
The Legislature ot Georgia has instructed the
Governor of the State to call a convention be
fore the happening of certain contingencies.
When those contingencies or any one of them
shall transpire, it is made the duty of the Gover
nor to call the convention, and that body may, in
its discretion, determine whether the event fur
nishes a sufficient cause of action. Any con
demnation of this act of the Legislature, coming
from such a source as this, can not lessen the
obligation thereby imposed upon the Governor.
Its only effect, therefore, can be mischief, by en
couraging the North to hasten the very event
against which the Legislature intended to pro
vide.
But we have probably attached undue impor
tance to this Cassville meeting, for it appears
that after all, the assemblage was neither so
large nor so influential as it has been represented-
A counter meeting of the citizens of Cass county
took place at Cartersville on the 9th
at which the following resolutions were adopted :
Resolved, Ist. That the meeting at Cassville had
no authority to speak or act for us, or, in our opin
ion, for any considerable number of the people of this
county ; and that we repudiate and condemn the ac
tion of that assemblage in several important particu
lars.
Resolved, 2d. That we warmly approve the South
ern Convention, and indignantly repel the insinua
tion against its projectors and advocates as unfoun
ded.
Resolved, 6th. That the action of the late Legisla
ture on the subject of our federal relations, and in
reference to the proposed Southern Convention, sus
tained as it was by a large majority of both parties,
meets our decided approoation.
Speaking of those who had participated in the
Cassville meeting, the Rome Southerner says:
“The truth is, they bad met in caucus at Cassville
without notice to us—without our knowledge, and
there condemned our principles—the principles of a
decided majority of both parties in our late Legisla
ture, and having done this, and insinuated that the
purpose of the friends of a Southern Convention,
was, not to deliberate for the preservation of South
ern rights and constitutional Union, as everywhere
avowed by them—but to devise some treasonable
plan of separation, which called upon them to pro
mise their aid to the President in putting it down
by “constitutional means.” They had denounced us,
and our principles and objects, as well as those of
our friends of both parties, in their meeting held
without our knowledge, and had even usurped the
important political right of selecting delegates to rep
resent us in an important Convention without giving
ns any voice in tiie selection !"*
All Agricultural Society.
We were pleased with the suggestion of the
Enquirer’s correspondent, proposing the forma
tion of an agricultural society at this place. It
is by the influence of such popular associations as
this, and not by the uncertain and improper aid of
governmental protection, that all the great inter
ests of the land are to bo effectually encouraged
and fostered. Ot the utility of such associations,
no one can have any question who is at all famil
iar with their history and operations even in
this State. The old and exhausted lands of mid
dle Georgia are being renovated and made pro
ductive ; the population is becoming fixed ; hand
some country residences are being erected ; first
rate barns and farm houses are built; in short,
a country that seemed inovital/y doomed to abso
lute depopulation and desolation has been sudden
ly rescued from its downward tendency, and con
verted into a land of bountiful harvests and hap
py people. This result is to be mainly attributed
to the influence ot agricultural societies in the
different counties. In no other part of Georgia
has agriculture been so much improved, (and
not more in its operations than in its results,)
as in Hancock county. There, we think, the
first agricultural society in the State was estab
lished, and its influences are every where
visible, in the fields, in the houses, and even in
the faces of the thriving population. We need
not undertake now to explain hoic all these bles
sings are attributable to the operations of such
associations. Let every body who is skeptical,
attend at the organization of this society, and if
they are not then satisfied, we know they will be
after one year’s membership. The invitation is
extended to the farmers ofali the adjoining coun
ties. If the agricultural population of Western
Georgia and Eastern Alabama will move in this
matter, they may form the best society in the land.
I’he time suggested by the Enquirer’s corres
pondent, is the first Monday in May. We move
to amend the suggestion by changing it to the
2J. Wednesday in that month.
Speech of Hon. 11. A. Toombs.
We have read tins speech with very great pleasure.
I hat pleasure lias proceeded not so much from any coin
cidence of opinion on all the points of discussion, as from
an admiration of its lofty bearing, its devotion to the
South, its determined opposition to wrong, and its stirring
eloquence. Mr. Toombs deservedly ranks among the
very first debaters of the House; indeed, the South has
not a more effective champion upon the floor of Congress.
H e still adheres to the fallacy of Congressional protection
of our rights in the Territories, and contends that the
Mexican laws prohibiting slavery arc still of force in
Mexico, and demands that Congress shall legislate for
the removal of those disabilities. On this point, we re
gard the argument of Mr. Berrien in the Senate, as per
fectly unanswerable. We should like to spread both of
these speeches upon our columns, but we could not pub
lish them entire without excluding every thing else, and
our readers would hardly be obliged to us for administer
ing them in broken doses, at weekly intervals.
O’ We copy the following interesting letter from the
Washington correspondence of the Baltimore Sun. We
will not be understood, however, to endorse the senti
ments expressed by the writer with respect to Mr. Cal
houn. The supposition which attributes to Messrs. Clay,
Cass, Benton and Douglass patriotic motives, as distin
guished from a spirit of faction in Calhoun unfriendly to a
peaceable and amicable adjustment of the great question
of the day, is alike undue eulogy of the former gentlemen
and injustice to the latter. Mr. Calhoun’s position re
sults from the consciousness that “might,” if it do not
“give,” too often usurps “right”—that “lawless might,”
however obnoxious in principle to common justice, is
alike exercised by individuals and nations—that the
North is aggressive, no less in the usurpations of doubtful
powers than in palpable and admitted violation of one of
the provisions of our federal compact. Mr. Calhoun
wishes no more wind to be sown, as enough is already in
embryo to produce the whirlwind.
Washington, March 11, 1850.
We really begin to see daylight. The speech of Mr.
’ Webster, in conjunction with the noble attitude assumed
by Mr. Clay, has evinced a disposition on the part of the
leading men of the nation, except Mr. Calhoun, to settle
j the great question of the day peaceably, amicably and
without delay. I have no doubt but that Cass, Benton
’ and Douglass will be ready to join the issue thus nobly
presented between prosperity, happiness, grandeur and
union, and anarchy, civil war, the contempt of the world,
and disunion. The terms of compromise will be these :
1. California to come in as a State.
2. The territorial governments established by the will
of the people in Deseret and New Mexico to be legalized ;
judges and other officers to be appointed by the President.
3. The boundary of Texas to be definitely settled, and
I Texas to be paid a reasonable indemnity for all the territo
! ry east of the Rio Grande to be ceded by her to the Uni
ted States.
4. New slave States to come in out of Texas as fast as
that. State consents to the division, and the parts thus sep
! arated have the requisite population.
This will settle the question, especially if, as Mr. Web
ster hinted, an annual appropriation be made in aid of
the colonization of free negroes. This is a very impor
tant consideration, and one which I find southern gentle
men have not yet fully reflected upon. It is a special
boon to the State of Virginia, as a faint token of national
acknowledgment for her generosity in yielding up the
north western territory.
As to Mr. Calhoun's idea of making California a test
question, it will not obtain half a dozen votes in either
House, and justly so. Mr. Calhoun's proposition of com
promise is little better than a demand with a revolver
pointed at your breast.
I doubt whether the Nashville convention, after the
speech of Mr. Webster and the action that will follow it,
will be much more than a ratification meeting. There is
a vast deal of common sense in the people of this country,
incompatible with the purpose of individualizing ideas, or
leading any portion of the country, north or south, blind
folded.
As to the free soilers, I am not joking when I state it
as my opinion that they have grown thinner—l mean
corporeally so. I hey have lost flesh from some cause,
and seem to be in a much better condition to swallow pills
than “a W ilmot.” Mr. Wilmot is the honest man amonrr
them.
Difficulties are no doubt brewing in Cuba, and a fresh
revolution is expected. It is to be hoped that our govern
ment will have better and nobler things to do than to act the
public agent for the Spanish government a second time. !
If Spain would prevent revolutions, in part excited by the
example of our own government, let her not treat the Isl
and of Cuba as a milch cow for the benefit of her starving
children. I Ins will do more for putting down revolutions
in Cuba than all the friendly, neighborly acts of Mr. \
C layton, acknowledged with so much pomp by the Span- 1
ish Cortes.
V ou will yet see that I have been fight from the com- J
mencement, when I stated it as my opinion, that the
whole object of Great Britain in treating with Mr. Law
rence about a canal across the Isthmus of Nicaragua, 1
was to defeat the very object our government had in com- |
mencing negotiations. Thus far the bargaining was all
on one side, and the terms proposed by Mr. Clayton (neg
atively Mr. Lawrence) the same that Sir Henry Lyttou
Bulwer himself had the adroitness to palm off on Mr.
Lawrence. x. |
1 C” he St. Louis Republican states that from present [
indications the emigration to California, across the Plains,
will be equally as large, if not greater, than the emigra
tion by the same route last spring. 1
Mr. Denning's Letter.
To the Editor of the Southern Sentinel:
Sir—ln your last paper, a communication signed
“Muscogee,” closes with the lollovving sentence :
“If harmony ami union are to prevail, let the opin
ions and policy of those who are selected as candid
ates be fully and freely expressed, and let the selec
tion fall on no ultraist.”
I know not whether this was meant for me or not.
Indeed I have not been directly notified of my nomi
nation as a candidate to represent the 2d district, in
the Nashville Convention. All that I know, cn that
subject, is what I have seen in the newspapers, and
wlmt 1 have heard from unofficial persons. But as
I think there can be but little doubt of my having in
fact received such nomination from the Democratic
party by its representatives at Milledgeville, and also
to some extent bv its own primary action in some
parts of the District, and as I am willing to serve if
elected, and as this is not a time to stand upon forms,
I will with your permission seize the opportunity
which the communication of “Muscogee” presents to
express, through your columns, the opinions which I
entertain on tiie subjects in question.
I think, then, the following propositions are true:
1. That the North has already the will to abolish
slavery everywhere in the United States as soon as
she can do it safely to herself.
2. That she is rapidly acquiring the power to car
ry out this will.
3. That of all the calamities which ever afflicted
a nation, there have been none which would equal
those which abolition would visit upon the South
ern States.
A few words upon each of these. The first you.
will observe, Mr. Editor, is only what you yoiin-.el!
assert in more energetic and unlimited language in
the same paper, when you say, “it is the solemn and
fixed determination of the Northern St ates to extir
pate slavery from the confines of the American l /non.'’
Surely elaborate argument and citation o! proofs are
not required to establish this proposition. We can j
almost see its truth with our eyes. Wherever the
North has hitherto been able to abolish slavery with
impunity, she has invariably abolished it. The old
Northern States were all, at one time, slave States.
Each lias abolished slavery within its own limits by
law. The constitution to which the North gave her
solemn assent requires her to surrender fugitive
slaves who are foetid in her midst, to their owners, on
being claimed. Instead of observing this obligation,
she knowingly and deliberately violates if. as lar as
she can do so, without incurring physical penalty.—
In place of surrendering such fugitives, she throws
around them a barrier of legal enactment, judicial
interpretation and public opinion,which to the master
is impassable or passable only at the risk of his life.
Every Northern State, with perhaps one or two
exceptions, confined to those lately admit.ed into the
Union, has passed laws, the whole aim of which is
to render the constitution in this particular, a nullity
—that is to say, as much as in her lies, the North
has already applied the principle of abolition to the
slavery of the Southern Slates. She has done this
not only at the expense of her faith most solemnly
[.lighted to the South, but in contravention of a most
darling domestic policy of her own - that which seeks
to exclude free negroes from her bounds—lor what
can she make of a re-cued slave bill a free negro ?
Randolph’s emancipated slaves to the number of
near three hundred, were driven out of Ohio as a
curse—had they been slaves unemancipated and flee
ing from him, their legal owner, every door would
have flown open at their approach for welcome ami
concealment. Year alter year her intrepidity in this
sort of treachery becomes mere and more atrocious.
About two years ago the pursuer of a fugitive slave
was mobbed and murdered in Pennsylvania. Nothing
has been done with the murderers ; they have not
even been placed under the ban of public opinion.
The mob was not made up of rifl-raffand scum either.
Professors in Colleges, ministers of the Gospel, fig
ured conspicuously. Even nmv, Pennsylvania has
a Alary lander in jail whom she found on her tree soil
seeking for his runaway slave—put there on some
other miserable pretext. The case is so glaring,
that Maryland in her sovereign capacity has had to
take notice of it, and send thither her own counsel to
try to have justice done the man. Yet Pennsylvania
is claimed to be the Northern State which is infected
with abolition in its mildest form. At the late great
abolition convention in Massachusetts it was made a
boast that no fugitive slave had teen recovered from
that State (or tiie last seven years. Indeed the ca.-e
there, and in all New England, and the greater part
of N. York and Ohio, now is, that a fugitive slave
from the South is not only protected, but he is in
stantly made a lion of. Thousands assemble to hear
him tell his “experience,” to sympathize with him,
to curse the slaveocracy. Such conduct is gloried
in by “a moral and religious people.” It was but the
other day that a whole steamboat load of slaves was
stolen from the city of Washington, during the sit
ting ot Congress, almost in the face of the sun, and in
open defiance of law. Having extirpated slavery
from her own soil, the North is now ready to go be
yond it. She is now ripe to abolish slavery, in the
District of Columbia, in all the U. S forts, arsenals,
dockyards, ships, &c. She can hardly be restrained
from instantly pouncing, at every hazard, upon the
District of Columbia. The app ehension of deter
mined resistance on the part of the whole South, is
barely sufficient to rein lier in. Tiie Union is a part
nership, in which all the members are equals and en
titled to share profits and divide losses. This part
nership since it has been in operation has acquired
nearly 2,500,000 square miles of territory of land.
But such has been the hatred of the North to slave
ry, that trampling under foot this characteristic and
essential quality of every partnership—this first, dic
tate of the sentiment of justice even in its rudest state
of developement, she has appropriated, or is appropria
ting to herself three-fourths of all of this rich acquisi
tion, and is prosecuting a fierce claim to a third of |
the residue—half of Texas. Almost every Northern j
State has, in some form, announced the principle j
that slavery must be abolished by the general govern- j
roent in all places in which it has jurisdiction over
the subject, and that it must be excluded from all I
places in which it does not now at present exist. !
Yet awhile, she would be understood by this to point j
at the District of Columbia and the territories only. ;
But the general welfare clause in the constitution
is her pet clause. Rapidly becoming a majority
large enough to command every branch of the gov-;
eminent, it needs but her favorite interpretation of |
that clause—that is a liberal one, to give her juris
diction over slavery in the Stales as well as in the
District of Columbia and the territories. Wm. 11.
Seward, “the rising star of the North,” thus deliver
ed himself little more than a year ago, in a studied 1
address to the people of Cleaveland, Ohio: “Slavery 1
can be limited to its present bounds—it can be ame
liorated—it can be ami it must be abolished, and you
and I can and must do it. ,, When did he ever mis
take the heat of the public pulse ? The tone of j
Horace JVlann.Thad. Stevens, Col. Bissell, each rep-1
resenting a distinct section of the North—New
England—the middle States—the North West, in
their late speeches, what does it proclaim hm war
to the knife, unending war upon slavery ? Will these
different sections repudiate these men? It were
fatuity to believe it, Are not the voices of the whole
one hundred and forty members of the House from
the North timed in unison ? and what are they hut
the taint echoes of the ceaseless howls of their
mighty constituency ? The sentiment of abolition,
universal abolition, pervades the Northern mass like
gravity does matter.
2. The North is rapidly acquiring the power to
carry this sentiment into effect. She is doing this,
by seizing to herself all of the public territory, by
frightening slavery out of the border slave States, by
the well founded expectancy of the early annexation
of Canada; by absorbing into her bosotn the whole
tide of foreign emigration, amounting to from 250,000
to 300,000 per.-ons a year—by establishing a system
of laws—tariff and others, which pours into her lap
annually millions of the substance ol the South—by
growing into a size which according to the law es
our present organization, will soon give her the legal
control of the purse and sword of the whole nation,
and which in short, will enable her to wield all her
strength of whatever kind or however acquired,
against the South, to the very best advantage—whilst
this is going on at the North, the South moulders
away—a black population flows in upon the South
Atlantic and the Gulf States, and by and by. under a
sense of the coming catastrophe, a white one in con
stantly increasing volume flows out. The decreas
ing remnant of whiles, growing more and more
dispirited, will in the end be easily crushed under the
united mass of the negroes and the North. The
North is rapidly acquiring the power to abolish slave
ry at her mere pleasure — Abolition therefore is only a
i question of time. Some thirty or fifty years off.
3. Wlmt is abolition ? It is certainly universal
bankruptcy to all those States in which slavery may
be found existing when it is proclaimed—it is almost
as certainly the extirpation of the whole white race.
The 3,000,000 slaves now in the South are worth
$1,200,000,000. By the time abolition comes, they
will probably have doubled their number and their
value. The loss of 2,000,000,000 of dollars, whether
it comes in the twinkling of an eye, or is spread over
i half a dozen years, cannot but result in indiscrimi
| nate bankruptcy. The incomes of the Cotton, Sugar
i and Rice planters will be cut down to nothing—still
they will be better off than any other class of the com
munity save the hoarders of gold—they will 6till
! have their lands—being all the lands which are choice.
From these they may draw a precarious support,
i such as are out of debt—but they will have little or
; nothing to buy with from the merchant—to pay the
mechanic—to supply to labor its wages. The occn
i pafions of these latter classes will be utterly gone
until anew system, anew order of things can be
slowly and gradually, if at all, constructed out of the
old disrupted fragments. This is the most favorable,
the mildest effect which can be anticipated from ab
olition.
But, in addition to this-, we may look for horrors
, such as have not been seen since the sacking of Je
rusalem by Titus—and were not then. A war will
; break out between the white race and the black,
! w hich, from its nature, must be a war without quarter,
without mercy without any civilized usages ; a war
; which shall spare neither age nor sex, nor condition ;
a war in which women shall pray lor unpolluted death,
as a deliverance beyond price. The North having de
creed abolition, will, of course, assist in executing
her ow n decree. She will not take the side of thef
whites who will be heaping upon tier curses and art
atiiemas as the author ol the evil. Joining the ne
groes, the united forces overwhelm the whites— all
the latter are killed, except, perhaps, some miserable
remnant which may, like the outcast Seminoles, find
a temporary refuge in the everglades of Florida, or
like the aboriginal Britons escape intosoine inacces
sible Wale--. In the end, the allies fall out, too. The
North begins to covet the rich lands and the happy
climate which have talien to tiie lot of the negroes.
C?he picks a quarrel with them. Then com®s a war.
Then peace, on condition of a large slice of territory
to the stronger power. This process being repeater!
a few times, the black race will be driven into the
Atlantic, as the red is being driven into the Pacific.
This, I take it. is the kind ot thing abolition will be.
If I am right in these positions, it is plain whait
should be the object and the 4 duty of the Nashville
Convention. It should be to provide a remedy for (be
coming evil, that is to sav, tc devise some means by
which the fixed determination of the North toabolislr
slavery shall be abandoned, or if that is impossible, by
which her acquisition of the power to abolish it may
be arrested. The remedy must be adequate to the
accomplishment of one of these two things, or mani
festly it will prove a mere delusion and a snare.
Now, I have no doubt the Convention will
have in it wisdom enough and patriotism enough
to hit upon and to recommend for adoption such
a remedy. Should the one selected be found
within the Union, it will afford me so far as [
am individually concerned, high gratification—
should it not, still 1 will accept it, even at the ex
pense ot the Union. I consider escape from tho
evils to which I have alluded, a matter to bo
weighed, even against all the honor and all the
profit of an alliance with Mr. Webster and Se
ward, Mr. Cass and Mr. Bissell, Mr. Corwin
and Mr. Mann,* Mr. Buchana'n and Mr. Wilmot,
Messrs. Vail Ruren, Thad. Stevens, Root,
Alien, ‘lnk, (biddings, Gates, and their respec
tive associates and followers. Most assuredly (
will not support any remedial measure which
looks to a dissolution of the Union, except in tho
language of “Muscogee,” “that shall he the
last and only honorable alternative.” This, I
believe, to be what, not only the 21 district, butt
the whole South, would have me do. And tho
will of that district I would hold to be a law to
me whether it agreed with my own or not—any
thing else would be a misrepresentation instead
of a representation of the district.
Thus, sir, you have my opinions upon smo
leading points in the slavery question—upon tho
objects and duty of the Nashville Convention,
and ;:pon the course which I should put sue if
honored with a seat in that Convention. Other
kindred topics invite to discussion, and thesu
might, no doubt, be expanded to advantage, l>ut
engagements, which will not be put off, restrain
me from the undertaking.
The papers of the district will much oblige
me, by laying this communication before their
readers.
HENRY L. BENNIXG.
j Mr. Foote's Committee. —The proposition
! of Senator Foote to appoint a committee of thir
teen, to whom to refer all the compromise prop
ositions, will, it is supposed, pass the Senate to
day. A correspondent of the Philadelphia
North American, in alluding to it, says :
“Various conferences have recently been held
j in regard to the organization of the proposed
committee, which have resulted in an under
standing that the following gentlemen shall com
pose it, and be elected, whenever the resolution
j>s carried : Northern whigs—Mr, Webster,
Mr. Phelps, and Mr. Cooper. Northern demo
j crats—Mr. Cass, Mr. Dodge of lowa, and Mr.
Dickinson. Southern whigs—Mr. Bell, Mr.
j Berrien, and Mr. Manguin. Southern demo.
: crats—Mr. Mason, Mr. Soule, and Mr. Foote.
There was a general concurrence of opinion on
ail sides that the influence and position of Mr.
Clay peculiarly pointed him out as the most
proper person to preside over this committee.
W lien it was signified to him that such was the
; desire of a majority of the Senate, ho readily
acquiesced.
“It will be seen that the name of Mr. Cal.
. houn is excluded from the committee.. Tbe
views which he expressed on two recent oeca
-1 sions forbade the hope of any conciliatory dfepo..
sition on his part, and it was, therefore, con*id
ered more prudent to encounter his opposition
in the Senate, than to embarrass the delibera.
tions of the committee by unprofitable and exci
ting discussions.
“Whatever measure they may recommend, ft
is thought, will pass the Senate by a large, if
not an overwhelming vote, and will meet with,
the same success in the House.”
Congress. —The history of the first, wouftU
have been almost a history of every subsequent
week of the session. But one subject engages
the attention of Congress, and that, although it
is of vast import, does not furnish material
j enough for a dozen different speeches ever
week. The consequence is, that while th*
may be some novelty in the mode of presefg!
the same points, the discussion is becoming**!
ren ot interest even to those who are deeply 9
(crested in its results. Os course we except tl
great speeches, and perhaps there never was
session of our National Legislature, more prr
lific in them, nor has there ever convened
Congress at Washington composed, of more able
men.