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April 18.
VOL. I.
SPEECH OF HON. BEVERLY TUCKER,
IN THE SOUTHERN CON VENTION.
Mr. President: It gives me pleasure to
remember that the first time I ventured to ob
| trude myself on the notice of the Convention,
l it was done4ti the hope of allaying excite
i ment. lam happy to believe that my few re
marks contributed to effect that object. I
have now risen, sir, for the like purpose. In
| deed, it is only thus that I can hope to deserve
| the attention of the house. It is certainly not
tor me, in whom time lias quenched the fire of
youth and chilled the fervor of imagination,
with my weak voice and lagging utterance,
to pour forth those tempests of eloquence
which shake the walls of this building, call
down the plaudits of the galleries, and lead
captive the hearts and minds of men. It can
only be by “speaking forth the words of truth
and soberness,” such as become my gray
hairs, that I can hope to secure the respect of
this body to anything that I may say.
My colleague (Mr. Gholson) has asked
whether any gentleman here present is pre
pared to say that the Union should he dissolve
ed in case the compromise hill be passed with
amendments. 1 shall not deny the gentle
man’s right to put such questions, insisting at
the same time that it rests on tiie discretion
and taste of every other gentleman to decide
for himself whether he will answer or no.—
Por my part, sir, I am ready to answer, and
! shall answer, fully and frankly; and yet I ap
prehend that my answer will leave the gentle
man just as wise as lie is now. lie is an
i able lawyer, and would hardly put such an in
terrogatory as that into a hill: “Would I be
| the compromise hill, amended !”
Certainly, sir. I should he more than content.
I should he delighted. lint then 1 must hare
the mending oj it. 1 know nothing that can
not he mended but crushed egg shells and
abused friendship. Give me the mending of
that bill, and i will mend the breach in the
constitution, and cement the Union, and res
tore mutual friendship and confidence, and
brotherly love among all the States of this
great confederacy. Is this answer evasive
because it tells nothing hut what every body
knows? No, sir. The gentleman did not ask
: whether I would go for disunion in case of
! the passage ot that bill without amendment. —
He did not intend to ask this. The form in
which he has presented his interrogatory,
shows that he himself is not prepared to an
swer that question, and lit- is too ungenerous
to press it upon others. But Ido not shrink
from it, though I can say no more than that 1
too am not prepared to answer it. I know
nobody that is, sir, and it is precisely for that
reason that we are here. That there is evil in
the land—that we have been wronged—that
dangers hang over us: all this every body
knows. But the remedy for the evil—the re
dress for the wrong—the security against the
danger: these are the topics which we are
sent here to consider and to discuss, so that
having compared thoughts and obtained light
from each other’s minds, we may shed that
light on the minds of those who sent us. 1
was not sent here to represent any opinion of
others, or to act on any foregone conclusion
ot my own. In such a state of mind, 1 should
have been unworthy to take ni} 7 place among
the able,-experienced, candid and upright gen
tlemen by whom I am surrounded.
In one tiling only do I find myself hound.
Y irginia has said authoritatively and almost
unanimously, that she will resist the Wilmot
proviso, “at all hazards, and to the last ex
tremity,” and what Virginia says, I am ever
ready to vindicate, and what Y irginia does, I,
at all hazards and to the last extremity, will
maintain.
\ irginia never means less than she says ;
and the crafty politicians with whom she had
to do, have sought to evade the point of this
declaration, by offering, instead of the Wilmot
proviso, this California bill, which differs from
it, as he who burns down his neighbor’s house
that he may plunder, differs from the simple
burglar. This assertion 1 shall not discuss
now, I have already discussed it in a paper
which is before the convention, and will be
laid before Virginia. If the Governor of Vir
ginia thinks as 1 do, he will summon a con
vention of the State; and if that convention
thinks so too, it will be for that body to decide
on the mode and form of that resistance to
which the state is pledged. That it will be
“at every hazard and to the last extremity”
uc one can doubt.
II aving answered my colleague’s question,
I beg leave to repeat, that, on the question
actually before the convention, 1 intend to
speak with all moderation. In proof of this
I will say, sir, that had the language of the
add r ess been precisely that of the proposed
amendments, I should have voted for it. Had
any one proposed to amend it, so as to make
it read as it now reads, I should have endeav
ored privately to dissuade him from bringing
forward his amendments, and should have
voted against them if necessary. As the mat
ter stands I am entirely satisfied with the ad
dress as it is; if I had had the ears of the
gentlemen who has brought forward the
amendments,-! should have endeavored to dis
suade him from introducing them, and now
that they are introduced, 1 shall quietly vote
against them. I take to myself neither shame
nor praise for this.
Between the two things there is no essen
tial difference, and I am decided mainly by the
comity, which is due every committee. It is
enough for me that the paper before us clear
ly expresses our sentiments, and those of the
convention, and vindicates them ably, and had
I the vanity to believe that I could make it
ten-fold more eloquent than it is, 1 would not
move to cross a T or dot an I.
But while J am thus zealous for courtesy
and harmony, I am not sorry that this debate
lias sprung,up. I am glad that the trammels
of order haye been go -completely broken to
pieces as to throw open every subject on
which any gentleman mav wish to speak.—
\N e all owe our best thoughts to each other on
every topic which agitates the public mind.—
It is for that, we are here, and every tiling
that coucerns the Rights—the wrongs—the
Remedies —the Resources, and the duties of
the South—their duties to themselves—their
ancestors —their children —and to God —all
is before us.
I beg the convention not to be alarmed at
the thought that I propose to talk about all
these various matters. No, sir, I have noth
ing in view but to apply some sort of a se
dative to that excitement of the public mind
which lias, in some degree, manifested itself in
this debate. Some gentlemen seem to speak
under the influence of a vague and undefina
ble apprehension of some great danger, the
S!)c JSonfljcrn Sentinel.
more appaling because unseen, tho’ not more
real than the fiends with which superstition
peoples the night. Another sees the danger
and defies it—
“ Stiffens the sinews—summons up the blood,”
while every tone and every glance is that of
one who exchanges looks and words of defi
ance with a present enemy. Ido not pre
tend to w ithhold my sympathy from either of
these. Fear is contagious, and men not lia
ble to superstition have become frightened
while playing on the superstitious fears of oth
ers. But he must he thrice a coward who
does not catch infection from the brave man
who “snuffs the battle from afar,” exulting by
anticipation in the certaminis gaudia. But
after all is said on both sides, and calm reflec
tion resumes its functions, 1 see neither gob
lin to fly from nor enemy to fight. On the
contrary, sir, I find myself in a condition
which enables me alike “to put away all wrath
and doubting,” and to say to the one “there is
nothing to fear”—to the other, “there will he
no light.”
W e have a pretty epigrammatic saving a
bout men “who know their rights, and, know
ing, dare maintain them,” hut I am afraid
there are some who would rather not know
their rights, than he obliged to defend them at
all hazards to the last extremity. Nothing so
blinds the mind, disables the faculties and per
verts the judgment as fear, and what fear can
he more appaling than that which threatens
the security of the fire-side, in a country
which no hostile foot has trod for seventy
years. I acknowledge,’ sir, that if 1 saw a
danger of this, I might have some misgivings;
and perhaps decide that, instead of leaving
such an inheritance to the little ones that
must soon he left without a protector, I might
make up my mind to sneak quietly to an ob
scure grave and there hide my gray head and
my dishonor together.
But, sir, I have no such fear, and I do hut
judge others by myself, when 1 say, that
among all the topics which can present them
selves for discussion here, there is none so
important as this. If we w ish the free exer
cise of our own reason, if we wish to act with
effect on the reason of others, we must first
divest our minds and theirs of fear. When
you see a hoy flying from his shadow, and
about to throw himself into the water, if you
w ish *to stop him, don’t tell him of the depth
ot the water. The one thing to be said to him
and the only thing he w ill hear, is that the
pursuer is not the devil, that it is no more than
his own shadow. Make him sensible of this
and he will presently be as much alive to the
evil of being drowned as you can desire.—
Just so, sir,if we can convince our people that
the fierce philanthropy and malignant love of
our northern brethren will never manifest
themselves by carrying fire and sword through
the borders of a Southern confederacy, they
may bring themselves to see that the loss of a
thousand millions of slave property —the des
truction of all value in our lands for w ant of
labor, (he necessity of destroying the negroes
or of amalgamating with them, or of suc
cumbing to them, or of fleeing the country
and giving it up to them, are really very had
things. It is too much to suppose that they
may also begin to suspect that an eternal
separation from those, whose pretended fa
naticism and malignant rapacity would drive
them to this extremity, would be any thing
but an evil? Let us speak to them, then, not
of their wrongs, for these they know, but of
their remedies and their resources; not in the
tone of dismay and despair, but with w ords
of encouragement, in accents of hope full of
joyful expectation.
Let me not be met again, sir, with the still
repeated cuckoo song, “the people are not
prepared for this or that measure.” I know
it, sir. The people are not prepared, and
therefore we are here. They are not prepar
ed to lie down patiently under their wrongs
—they are not prepared to submit to further
aggression, and unfortunately they are still
unprepared to decide how the wrong is to he
redressed, and the aggression repelled. .lust
so, sir, the patient is not prepared to submit
to the amputation of the gangrened limb,
while the surgeons are still consulting in a
hope that the operation may not be necessary.
But still less is he prepared to die, and when
put to choose between the loss of life, we
know what choice he will make. So let the
people of the South once see distinctly that
they must choose between the Union, and all
the rights and interests that the Union was
intended to protect, and they will not hesitate
to renounce it, even though a bloody war
should be the consequence. Still there is e
nough of terrible and fearful in the thought of
such a war, to dispose them to shut their eyes
to other and greater dangers. It is that they
may be thus blinded, that their enemies tell
them that a peaceful separation is impossible,
and it is in the hope of restoring them to the
use of their faculties that I undertake to show,
and will proceed to show, that such an event
cannot be anything but peaceful.
It is Mr. Webster, who, of late, in his ora
cular way, and in his deep cavernous tones,
such as might issue from the cave of Troph
onius, has put forth this raw head and bloody
bones declaration, “that a peaceful severance
of the Union is impossible.” I beseech you
to consider what these words mean, as spoken
by Mr. Webster. He has no right to speak
for the South. We are not his clients. No
part of that liberal fee which Massachusetts
has paid to secure his advocacy of her pecu
liar interests on the floor of the Senate was
contributed by us. She is his country, his
whole country and for her only has he a right
to speak. But when have we said this, and
who has said it for us? And if any amongst
us should say so, what would it be but an ex
pression of his fears? What motive, what
means, what end could a Southern confedera
cy have for making war upon the North ? Sir,
no man among us dreams of such a thing—no
Northern man apprehends it. What, then,
mean these words of Mr. Webster? Are they
any thing but words of menace? When we of
the South do but cry out “don’t tread on us;
we beseech you by the memories of the past
and the hopes of the future, don’t tread on us,’
they call that menace. “Certainly it is me
nace,” say they “for do you not mean to in
timate, that ff we do tread on you, you will
strike ? \ es: and as such we despise it. For
have we not trod on you, and you did not
strike? And are we not treading on you, and
if you attempt to elude us by secession, we
will trample you into the earth:” Sir, I did
not do justice to the strength of Mr. Webster’s
language when I called it the language of
menace. It is much more. It is outrage; it
COLUMBUS, GEORGIA, THURSDAY MORNING, JULY 25, 1850.
is the contemptuous spurn of one who scorns
to strike a coward foe.
But it is not Mr. Webster alone who has
said this. Mr. Clay echoes it, and he is a
Southern man. General Cass, too, echoes it,
and is not he a Northern man with Southern
principles? A marvellous coincidence of
opinion, sir, among men who so rarely think
alike! But is there not something yet more
marvellous in the triple league of amity, be
tween these men heretofore so hostile? An
ominous conjunction, sin Clay, Webster and
Cass—Caesar, Pompey and Crassus—Augus
tus, Antony and Lepidus! Triumvirates all!
Depend upon it, sir, this precise number three
is not fortuitous. It is full of meaning, when
two men of unprincipled ambition are con
tending for supremacy ; when they have put
down all other competitors, and nothing re
mains hut a division of empire, or one great
final struggle for supremacy,- it sometimes
happens that all things are prepared for this
division, or this final struggle. What, then,
so convenient as to call in some kind person,
some “light, unmeritable man, tit to he sent on
errands,” to serve as a stake-holder until the
others should be ready to play out their des
perate game. So, too, in France, where it was
yet doubtful whether the ultimate triumph
would be to the constitutional theories of
Sieves, or to the military despotism of Bona
parte, they set up a temporary consulship.
The idea of consuls was taken” from Rome,
where there were two consuls. Now, we
have two men ol rival parties, and something
like equal consideration. What did they
want with a third ? They wanted him as a
stake-holder—or, as Tally rand then said, as
a sort of wrapping-paper, between the two, to
prevent collisions. Hence the} 7 took a man,
never heard of before, or since, who came in
he knew not how, and w ent out, no one else
knows when.
It is an old saving that “when rogues fall
out, honest men come by their own.” But
what arc we to say, sir, when men long hos
tile to each other, men who, for years, have
spoken all manner of evil against each other,
are seen to coalesce ? What have these men
in common ? They have, indeed, one com
mon object—the Presidency ; and they may
combine to put down every tiling which can
not he made to rally to the support of some
one ot the three: w hen this is done two will
combine to run off the third. Lepidus will
disappear, and then comes the battle of Acti
um. Hence it is, sir, that this Southern par
ty is to be nipped in the bud. Tho nucleus of
such a party is to be broken up, and its mem
bers driven back to their old positions of
whiggery and democracy. Why is this, sir ?
The reason is plain enough to those who will
analyze the question. Will a Southern party
follow Mr. Clay? No, sir. They have fol
lowed him far enough. They followed him
in the Missouri compromise, the root of all
this present evil. They followed him in the
tariff compromise of ’B3, which ended in the
crushing tariff of’42. They can follow him
no longer.
Can they follow Mr. Webster, who says
one thing to day, and takes it back to-mor
row? Great credit „is claimed for Mr.
Webster, because he made a speech some
time ago, a part of which it was thought
might be displeasing to some of his constitu
ents. “Self-sacrificing, magnanimous Mr.
Webster!” Such was the cry. Well, sir,
did he sacrifice himself? Has he lost ground ?
Should Southern Whigs take him as their can
didate for the Presidency, will he lose one
vote in New‘England? The self-sacrifice
ot a man whose life lias been a sacrifice of
every thing else to self !! not to the gratifi
cation of one passion only, hut of all! Does
lie worship at the shrine of ambition only ?
What altar of the deities raised up by the evil
passions of the ancients is not reeking with
the blood of his victims ? Is it Plutus ? Is it
Bacchus ? Is it Y T enus ? We do not, indeed,
find him in the temple of Mars: and that for
the all-sufficient reason, that he who would
find acceptance there, must go prepared, if
need be, to make a sacrifice of himself, and
this Mr. Webster, ever true to himself, will
never do.
Shall we put up with Gen. Cass ? Shall
we look for the defence of our lights to one
whose ideas of right and wrong are so con
fused, that lie prates about natural rights ac
quired by the perpetration of wrong, a shal
low pedant who, affecting to lecture on inter
national law, and the philosophy of govern
ment, would place the lives and property of
conquerors at the mercy of a conquered pro
vince; who can see no distinction between a
chance assemblage of unconnected individu
als and a people; who imagines that a nation
can exist where there is no family; who at
tributes to a multitude of adventurers sover
eignty over a country, in which not one of
them has a home ; who recognizes their right
to shut out all others from a vast region in
which not one of them owns a foot of soil;
and who would place the final destiny of a
country, which is to be the home of millions,
in the hands of a handful of marauders; whose
only aim is to tear open the bowels of the
land, seize upon its hidden treasures, and, like
the eagle returning to his a:ry, laden with his
prey, to bear away their plunder to the distant
lands where lie their families and their hopes.
Sir, I have never much admired General Cass.
I have never looked upon him as muck better
than a clap-trap charlatan. But he never could
have been so silly as to believe himself, while
talking all this nonsense. Why did he say it ?
Was it not to fool vs —to bamboozle vs —to
throw his pinch of dust into the eyes of those
among us who look to him for light, while the
rest are led blindfold by Clay and Webster?
This is General Cass’s allotted function in
the triumvirate. If old party lines can be re
established among us, —if, instead of banding
together in defence of the South, we can be
set to wrangling with each other about party
names—if the Southern Democracy, thus re
organized, will take up General Cass for its
candidate, the Northern Democracy will sup
port him too, and then ! Yes, then he
may at last be President, and somebody else
may be Vice President, and seven more some
bodies may be Cabinet ministers, and a dozen
more foreign ministers, to say nothing of rich
collectorships, fat consulships, and a hundred
other good things, all of which are bespoke
in advance. But look only at those offices i
which are set apart for those who set up for
being party leaders, and whom we, poor fools,
follow and call great. Remember, sir, there
are three sets of them, all duly registered,
each in his order on the several rosters of
Claj’, Webster and Cass, and then wonder, if
you can, that among all these great men i
, there is not one to say a word for the wrong
ed, insulted, down-trodden South!
But Gen. Cass cannot be elected, sir. The
South cannot elect him, and the North will
not. No, sir. Let the present agitation be
allayed; let the South bow the neck to the
Northern yoke, and General Cass will be laid
upon the shelf forever. Like Lepidus, his
name will vanish from the page of history;
and the leaders among us, who have enlisted
under his banner for the campaign, will again,
when it is too late, be clamorous as ever for
the rights of the Southland try to negotiate
terms for us, but most especially for them
selves, in bargaining away the support of the
South for Clay or Webster. The highest
bidder of the two will have them.
But am I not afraid to speak thus lightly of
the great ones of the earth ? Am t not
ashamed to speak evil of dignities? Dignity,
sir l Show me true dignity. Tell me w here
to find the enlightened mind, the elevated sen
timent, the great purpose, the pure, brave,
unselfish heart, and 1 will make a pilgrimage
to worship before it. Yes, sir, when I bow
before that shrine, I shall feel that iny eye is
directed toward God himself, reaching be
yond the mere mental manifestation of the
Godhead, with which he sometimes blesses
the earth. Such an one was vouchsafed to us
in Washington, and to him, to that safe and
healthy condition of the human mind in which
it yields itself up to the influence of true
greatness, w 7 e owe all our institutions, all that
has made us great and happy. lie took no
part, indeed, in the discussions of the conven
tion over which he presided. But he was
there, standing between every man and the
highest object of ambition, himself inaccessi
ble to selfish motives, and inapproachable by
all who were not. The highest post of hon
or and of power was confessedly for him.
The rest were to be in his gift, and in his pre
sence ambition had to restrain its aspirations,
and self-love to forbear its schemes, and all
had to work together as if one common aim,
and that the public good had been the aim of
all.
But every good has its concomitant evil,
and the blessings of God himself are cuises
to those who abuse them. Man ceased to
look from the creature up to the Creator,
whose vicegerent he was. Man-worship be
came the established religion of the country;
not the sentiment which always bows the
knee of man in the presence of one who
bears the impress of the Divinity, but a su
perstitious eagerness to find on some no bet
ter than themselves something to be mistaken
for that divine seal. From that day to this,
sir, we have never been easy without some
divinity of flesh and blood; some Bull Apis,
not distinguishable by common usage from
any other calf, about whom the Priests and
Hieropists pretended to discover the true
marks of divinity. The genius of Jefferson,
the virtue of Madison, the strong will of
Jackson, served the times pretty well. Some
few indeed have been found to set up a claim
on behalf of every successive President, but
they made few converts. The Priests of the
Ttmple had some hopes from the advent of a
second military chieftain. But they soon dis
covered their mistake, and the poor old man
is left to the epitaph which Tacitus propheti
cally wrote for him near two thousand years
ago, “Consensu omnium dignus imperio nisi
imperassit.”
But superstition must have its idols, sir.
Egyptians must have their calf. Americans
must have their human god—and as the spi
rit of party runs too high to permit us to agree
in any thing, we have quite a Pantheon of
gods; so that what we call politics has come
to a sort of religious controversy between
their respective votaries.
For my part, sir, I confess myself, as I
have said, a little prone to this sort of wor
ship, but it has been my misfortune through
life to have met with no God in human shape.
Mr. Clay does, indeed, look something more
like it than the rest. He has genius, elo
quence, a high and gallant bearing, and a
prevailing influence over all that approach
him; but I look in vain for wisdom, states
manship and disinterestedness. In place of
these I find management, artifice and leger
demain—sometimes overreaching himself.
Never falling but to rise, he never rises but
to fall; always making the sacrifice of the
South _ the stepping stone of his elevation—
always, in his reverses catching at the South
in his fall and pulling her down. The author
of the Missouri compromise, and of the pres
ent scheme for robbing the South of all it pro
fessed to secure, the avowed enemy and open
denouncer of J. Q. Adams as a traitor and a
liar, and the worker of the wires which plac
ed him on the throne; the author of the Ta
riff’ compromise of ’33, to the faithful observ
ance of which he personally pledged himself
in my hearing, and the author of the tariff of
’42, in open violation of that pledge, I see
nothing in Mr. Clay but a sort of Jupiter
Scapii, before whom I can never bring my
self to bend the knee.
But Mr. Webster! The master mind of
the age! He whom his admiring country
men have already distinguished as “the God
like Man !” Sir, the most devout pagan that
ever bowed before a shrine, would not recog
nize the Godhead in the statue of Jupiter To
ri aus himself, if seen lying in a kennel—plais
tered over with the mire of profligacy and de
bauchery. There let him lie.
1 will say no more of General Cass. I
have said too much of all these men. But
when I see them, who agree in nothing else,
conspiring to cheat, oppress and trample on
the South; when, in their fiercest strifes, I
see them “hacking each other’s daggers in
the sides” of the constitution, I am tempted
to forget my self-respect, and scourge in hand
descend to the office of public executioner.
But I have a higher and a worthier object.
There are few of those whose minds I desire
to influence, on whom the name of one or the
other of thesemen is not a spell of great
power. To them I say “your gods are no
Gods.” Turn from them to the only living
and true God, the God of the righteous and
oppressed, and put your trust in him. Do
you want leaders ? Seek for them in the true
spirit, and you will find them. Seek for men j
distinguished by virtue as well as talent, men
worthy to minister between God and you in
the great concerns of duty as well as right.
He will not leave himself without a witness,
and even now “there walketh among you one ;
whom you know not, the latehets of whose
shoes these men are not worth}’ to unloose.”
Who is he ? I know him not.
But let your actions show you worthy of
such a leader; let your determined resistance |
to wrong, and devotion to the right, demand j
him, and he will appear. When our fathers
first resolved to resist the stamp act, Wash
ington was a surveyor, Patrick Henry an ob
scure county court lawyer, Greene was at
his forge, and even now, in the depths of your
forests, are other such men, wanting nothing
but a righteous cause, and brave men reso
lute to support it, to secure independence and
freedom to you, and immediate honor to
themselves.
I very much regret, sir, the time I have de
voted to these men. You will remember that
I undertook to show that, should the South
be driven to secession, there is no reason to
apprehend that such a step would lead to war.
To prepare your minds for what I have to
say on this point, it was necessary to put out
of my way the authority of those who have
concurred in declaring a peaceful separation
to be impossible. It is only with this view
that 1 have spoken of them; I know them on
ly as enemies to mv COUNTRY, and I would
warn my countrymen against them.
And now, sir, let us look at the dangers
which are to attend disunion. Let us sup
pose a case, and consider the influence which
will be brought to bear on those on whom the
peace of this continent will depend. Let us
suppose but five States—the States of Flori
da, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and
Mississippi, to withdraw from the Union, and
form a Southern Confederacy. Their policy
would be clearly pacific. What would be
the policy of the rest of the world ? Would
the manufacturing States wish to rush into a
war, which, while it lasted, would shut them
out from the best market in the world ?
Would the shipping and commercial States
wish to rush into a war which would throw
the carriage of our rich and bulky productions
into the hands of Europe, until our own com
mercial marine should have become adequate
to our wants ? I say nothing of the fatal
consequences which would attend the loss of
a supply of cotton to the spindles and looms
of New England, because, although war
should prevail, the laws of trade will be sure
to carry the needed supply to the place of de
mand. This, indeed, must be of a circuitous
route, and at enormous expense. But on this
I lay no stress. It would indeed prevent the
Yankee from hoping to compete with the En
glish manufacturer in markets open to both,
while war would shut him out from this the
chief and best market.
“And how long would such a war last ?”
asks Mr. Webster with a scornful scowl.
“How long would it be before the fleets and
armies of the North would sweep the coasts,
and blockade the ports, and overrun and des
olate the territory of the South, and turn the
knives of the slaves against their masters’
throats ?” How long ? Sir, such a war will
never be waged until Massachusetts shall
have lost her senses, and be prepared to rush
on self-destruction. Whence but from the
Southern States comes the cotton that keeps
in activity the spindles and looms of the
North ? Sir, the North would not dare to
prosecute war with such activity, as-even to
diminish the supply. Obtaining it, as she
must do, from neutral ports, the North could
only get what was left after supplying the de
maud of other countries, and any essential
diminution would leave her nothing. But a
war of desolation! Why, sir, such a war
would re-act upon the North like the burst
ing of a cannon in a crowded ship, working
ten times more mischief there than on the en
emy. Do gentlemen consider the nature of
great manufacturing establishments kept in
operation by what they call free labor : the
labor of those whose daily bread is the psr
chase of daily toil, and who,, left without em
ployment for a week, must starve, or beg, or
rob. The mind of man has not conceived
the wretchedness which the failure of one
cotton crop would produce. Universal bank
ruptcy —universal ruin—the prostration of
the wealthy, and the uprising of the suffer
ing mass violently snatching from their beg
gared employers a portion of the scanty rem
nant of former abundance, to satisfy the
wants of nature. Sir, when the overwhelm
ing force of France threatened to invade and
subjugate Holland, the Dutch cut their dykes
and let in the Ocean—the enemy withdrew,
and all thought of again invading the soil of
a people capable of defending their liberty by
such sacrifices was abandoned forever. Here
w r as a self-inflicted suffering which did but
warn the enemy, without wounding him.
But what if the people of the Southern States,
goaded by insult and wrong, should deter
mine on a much less sacrifice. What if,
w'ith one accord, they should agree to make
no cotton for a single season, except for their
I own factories, and apply all their labor to
laying up a store of grain for another year ?
j Tho South could bear it, sir. It would in
commode many. It w ould enrich some. It
w'ould ruin nobody here. And wdiat would
he the effect elsewhere ? The mind of man
cannot calculate it The imagination of man
cannot conceive it. Horresco referens . An
earthquake shaking the continent from the
Potomac to the Lakes, swallowing up the
British Isles, and overturning all that Revolu
tion has left standing in France and Germa
ny, would be hardly more destructive. Sir,
: the pillars of the w orld would be shaken :
and here stands the South grasping them in
her strong arm. Here she stands, like old
j blind Sampson, to make sport for these Phi
listines who mock her degradation. Will she
not make her praj r er to God, and bow her
self in her might, not, like him, to die with
the Philistines, hut to overwhelm them and
stand unhurt amid the ruins l No, she will
not. But this is always in her power ; and
this she will do, if ever her loathing detesta
tion and scorn of her oppressors equals in
acrimony and malignity their fierce philan
thropy and insiduous friendship.
Something like this would be the conse
quence to the North of any war with the
South. Worse, if possible, than this, would he
the consequence of a war of dissolution and
emancipation. In that case the mischief
would not he confined to the North. It
would overspread the civilized world in ag
gravated horror. In New England we can
calculate it. The seven hundred millions of
which the South has been robbed by the un
equal operation of the federal government,
has been realized, as they call it. It has been
built into ships and factories; it has been paid
out for barren lands at high prices only jus
tified by these establishments; it has been
built into palaces where inerchantprinces and
manufacturers dwell in marble halls. There
are no other objects of investment, and the
boasted heaped up wealth of New England is
just that—no more. Now take away the
cotton and commerce of the South, and what
do you sec ? The ships lie rotting at the
wharves; the factories tumble into ruins ;
and skulking in corners of their marble pala
ces, the merchant princes, like those of Ven
ice, live meagerly on contributions levied on
the curiosity of travellers. As to the labor
ing classes, the far M ost is open to them.
What violence and rapine they may practice
fdi’ a while under the teachings of Commun
ism, Fourierism, Agrarianism, and other isms
of the family of Abolititionism, it is not pos
sible to say. But they will soon see that
Communism is of little worth where there is
nothing to divide, and that what they call the
rights of labour cannot be enforced against
those who have nothing to pay.- They will
be off’ to the West, sir, there to found a ne\V
Ohio on the Banks of Wisconsin and Minnes
ota. And Boston—? Look at Venice, sir.
The history of Boston is so far the history
of Venice. Venice enriched herself by the
oppression and plunder of her subject provin
ces. Boston has done the same. Venice
concentrated her ill-gotten wealth on the
marshes of the Adriatic. Boston has heaped
up hers upon a barren rock. The poisoned
chalice has been commended to the lips of
V enice, and she has in turn become the vic
tim of mis-govemment, while the trade of
the world has found other channels—and be
hold she is a w ilderness of marble in a waste
of waters. Even such would be the mischiefs
which Boston w-ould pull down upon herself,
by the suicidal step of waning against the
South.
NO. 30.
But look across the Atlantic, and suppose
the madness and malignity of the North to
hurry them into a desolating war against the
cotton growing States. Other countries have
more various resources than New England,
and might have something to fall back on.
England, for example, insular as she is, lias
land. But England has a superabundant pop
ulation, and there are there not less than three
millions of laborers whose very existence de
pends on cotton. They have no western
country to fly to, and w hile the land of Eng
land is sufficient to feed them all, they will
not starve whether there be work for them to
do or no. There is something there for com
munism todivide—something of Fourierism to
experiment on. Let but the loom stand still
for one month, and there will not be one stone
left standing on another of the whole politi
cal and social fabric of England.
The statesmen of England know this, sir,
and this it is that governs the foreign policy
of England, and determines her to oppose her
veto to any war that might disturb her com
merce, and, through that, her manufactures,
on w hich her very existence depends. The
play of the shuttle is the pulse of life to
her. Let it once stop and it beats no more.
Nor is this confined to her. The same cause
operates on every powerful nation of Wes
tern Europe, and hence that long, unnatural
peace, which, no more than thirty years, has
covered Europe as with a death pall, and pro
duced and prepared more suffering and more
causes of mischief than half a century of war
had ever done. But the evil is upon them,
and they dare not shake it off. However the ■
angry spirit of rival nations may chafe at the
restraint; however the plethora of redundant
population may call for the letting of blood,
the immense fixed capital invested in manu
facturing establishments, and the multitudi
nous population whose bread depends upon
them, compel the w’orld to peace. It is in
deed but a peace of suppressed hostility, bf
stilled envy, of insidious rivalry, and its con
sequences make us feel the full force of the
woe denounced against those w ho cry “peace,
peace! when there is no peace.” But there
is no escape from it. In the cant of the day,
“the spirit of the age demands it—the spirit of
the age is essentially pacific.”
What then, sir, would all Europe say to
any attempt on the part of the Northern States,
or of every power upon earth, to lift a hand
against the cotton growing region, and inter
rupt the production of that article. The
power of wealth would oppose it—the cry of
famine w r ould forbid it—the universal naked
ness of mankind would forbid it—the united
voice of all the civilized wmrld would com
mand the peace. The Southern States of
this Union are confessedly the only cotton
growing country in the w'orld, and slave la
bor the only means by which it can be pro
duced. Whatever may be their spite against
us, and however they may cant about slave
ry, they will he careful to do nothing to in
terfere W'ith the production of cotton. Had
Orpheus been the only man in the world, sir,
the nymphs, however enraged, would never
have killed him. m
All this time I have spoken as if our dear
sister Massachusetts, and the rest of that sis
terhood, w'ere to have the matter their own
way. I have taken no notice of the fact, that
although North Carolina and Virginia, Ten
nessee and Kentucky, might not be at once
prepared to join the Southern confederacy,
they would feel that their interests were
identified with it, and refuse to join in a cru
sade against the defenders of their rights.—
They would have a voice in the question of
peace or w r ar. They might, indeed, be out
voted, but would a vote retain them, and
would the North press a measure w’hich
would he sure to force them into the Southern
confederacy ? The exemplary patience of
Virginia is a p roof that she fondly recollects,
that to her, more than to any other State,
this Union ow r es its existence. She will he
the last to dissolve it violently, because she
will he the last to forget the proud and pn
doai ing recollections of the past, and to lift
her hand against those she has so long cher
ished as brothers. But let lief he told she
must fight somebody, and she will not be long
in deciding whom she will fight. Tell her to
regard and treat as enemies the Southern
States, peopled mainly by herself—to imbrue
her hands in the blood of her own children,
and her answer is ready, in the words of Har
ry Percy:
“Not speak of Mortimer!
Forbid my tongue to speak of Mortimer!
Yes, I will speak ofhim: and may my soul
Want mercy if I do not join with him !”
Sir, Virginia did not approve the attitude
assumed by South Carolina in 1833. What
then ? Mas she prepared to lift a hand
against her ? On the contrary she remem
bers now with pride, that her Governor then
declared, that before one foot should cross
the Potomac on a hostile errand against
South Carolina, he w’ould lay his bones on
its shores. That w'as old John Floyd, sir, a
man “who never promised, but he meant to
pay;” and, thank God, there stands now an
other John Floyd in his father’s place, to re
peat and make good his father’s words.
But the few remaining Southern
States to be driven to the necessity of choos
ing their enemy. Suppose, as w ould be the
case, that no warlike attempt should be made
—how long would those States be content to
remain under the grinding misgovern men t
which taxes them for the benefit of their mas
ters in the North, while witnessing the pros
perity of their Southern brethren living uuder
a revenue tariff and enjoying the blessings of
free trade ? With a modest, economical
government, such as a mere central agency
for independent States ought to be, a moder
ate revenue would suffice, and nothing would