The Southern tribune. (Macon, Ga.) 1850-1851, January 26, 1850, Image 2

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The Southern tribune., January 26, 1850, Image 2

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Newspaper Page TextSOUTHERN T RIB UN E : eoiteu asu rcm.UHi.l) weekly, h* u n . b . is aisis is o\ . Lvlnicls from Ilic Spccrli ol' Jir. CLEMENS of Dr'i erred in the Senate of the United Staffs January 10, ISSO, on the motion to jo int the Verment Resolutions : Mr. Clf.mkns sai«l : I agree with tho .Senator from South Carolina [Mr. ButlerJ that the people of llie South ought to be acquainted with northern feeling. I de sire these resolutions printed for another reason: l wish to show my constituents that the declarations so often and so earn estly made that the North does not intend to interfere with slavery where it exists is entirely false, and intended only to de ceive. * * * It is true, we still have the declaration of Senators that all inter ference with slavery in the States is foreign to their put poses, but it is asking too much of our credulity to expect us to believe such statements when they are accompa nied l»y the introduction of resolutions di rectly contradicting their assertions. These sesolutions do not stop at the same point with the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Chase.J They go far beyond the ground he has ta ken. They assert that the so-called com promises of the Constitution restrict in terference with slavery only in the States in which it existed at the time of the adop tion of that instrument. And, according to the doctrine here avowed, Congress has the power to abolish slavely in Alabama, or in any other State admitted since the adoption of the Constitution. * * * We have never asked anything at your hands beyond a strict adherence to the Constitution. We have never proposed any interference with your domestic rela tions. We have not assumed a censorship ovet your morals. We have asked from you no boon, and desired nothing but non intervention with the rights secured to us by the Constitution, and for the mainten mice of which your fathers solemnly and deliberately pledged their faith. Surely these :ue not hard condi ions. Nothing but the most determined spirit of inter meddling—nothing hut the most reckless disregard of consequences, or the most profound contempt for all the warnings we have given, could induce the northern people to persist in the mad career they have been running for the last iif eon years. The value of the slave property in the Southern States exceeds nine hundred millions of dollars. No people ever ex isted, or ever will exist, who could consent to the destruction of this vast wealth with out a long and desperate struggle; and can it be possible that you dream of effect ing its destruction by peaceful means, when you have to deal with a race con stitutionally brave, even to rashness, and as prone to resentment as “ the sparks to tly upwards I” Or do you indulge that other delusion, that it is in your power to compel submission ? If either of these fancies have taken possession of the north ern mind, take my advice, and he in some haste to expel it. The most dangerous ingusfatuus that ever lured a wanderer by night into a deadly quagmire is harm less when compared with such a guide. The Senator from Ohio says that he is not to he deterred by menaces of disun ion, from pursuingthecourse he has mark ed out for himself. 1 have no wish to de ter him. 1 want him and other northern men to come up boldly, and do what they tell us their constituencies have demanded. I make no menaces, but I insist that the Senators from Vermont obey the instruc tions of their Legislature, and introduce the bills they are there required to intro duce. I borrow the language of a mem ber in the other end of the Capitol, and tell them to “come up and face the mu sic.” Do not dodge the question. * - i: We have a lesson in store for you which may be severe, but will certainly be useful. Tbe South, Mr. President, disclaims tbe language of menace, but it is nevertheless due to all parties that her deliberate pur poses should be plainly announced. We do not intend to stand still and have out throats cut because tbe butcher chooses to soothe us under tbe operation with lioneyed words. You can deceive us no longer by tbe catchwords “ conciliation and harmony.” Nor can our voices be stilled l>y the fear of incurring the re proach of imprudence. I said the other day, and I repeat now, that the time for prudential action has gone by. It is this prudence, of which vve have heard so much, that has brought us to the situation in which we now are. It is this constant talking about prudential action which lias induced the people of the North to be lieve that we do not intend to resist. There is a line beyond which you must not pass. You have marched up to it, and now cross if you dare. Ido not say this to intimidate. Ido not believe it will have that effect. On the contrary, I believe with the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. C alhoun,] that this movement will inn its course, and end, as all similar things have ended, in blood and tears. The demagogues of the North have raised a tempest they cannot control. It is impel ling them onwards with an irresistible force—they can neither recede nor stand still; and, however fearful may be the liatli before them, it is one they mustt read, for a miserable partisan purpose they have excited and kept alive bitter section al jealousies, and burning hatreds, which ato now bunging forth deadly fruits. They have sown the wind,and must reap the whirlwind.” * * * 'p|, e North will not save the Union, und the South cannot, unless indeed we submit to indig nities and wrongs of so degrading a char acter as would almost make our fathers “buist the cere menu of the tomb,” and come among us once more to denounce and disown the degenerate descendants who had disgraced a glorious ancestry. We know well what we have to expect. Northern demands have assumed a form which it is impossible fur us to misunder stand. First comes our exclusion from the territories. Next abolition in the Dis trict of Columbia—in the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, Nrc. Then the prohibition of the slave Undo between the States; and, finally, total abolition. These results are just as certain, unless the first step is firm ly resisted, as that the sun will rise to morrow, and the night will follow his go ing down. Heretofore it has been pre tended that it was not the purpose of any considerable body at the North to inter fere with slavery in the States; hut this is an illusion which these resolutions have come in good time to dispel. * * * But even if it. were true, 1 would still say 1 do not choose to place myself at your incrcy. 1 "ill not exchange the fortifica tions which the Constitution has thrown around my rights for a frail reliance on your generosity or your forbearance. Concession never yet satisfied fanaticism, nor has the march ol the wrong-doer ever been stayed by the sujqdication of the suf t’ ior. .Situated as we are, the impulse of manliness is the dictate of prudence. Our duty and our obvious policy alike de mand that we should meet the danger on the threshold, and fall or conquer there. It is of no consequence by what name you choose to designate your aggressions. When a principle is established which must bring not only poverty hut desolation and death to the South, it is immaterial whetner you call it abolition, free soil, or, to use the phrase of the Senator from Ohio, free democracy; the end is the same, and so should bo the resistance also. * * * It is so with us; we cannot yield an inch of the ground we now oc cupy without compromising our safety, and, what is worse, incurring the reproach of eternal infamy. * * * 1 under stand the policy of the North, as avowed in the other end of the Capitol, is to urge but one measure at a time; to proceed step by step, and to hide as much as pos sible from the public eye all future results. But a few years since we were told that tbe right of petition was all tlicy designed to secure. Success has added bold.iess to their demands, and even those who claim to he moderate and conservative men talk with uplifted hands of the horrors of slave ry, and expect us to be very grateful when they promise to postpone the work of rob bery and murder yet a little longer. The Senator from Ohio, before taking his seal in this body,addressed a remukublc letter to one of his constituents, and he lias to-day reiterated the sentiments it con tained. He claims to he a Democrat, and avers that abolition constitutes a portion of the creed. iSir, the Senator fiom Ohio, and myself have studied it in different shools. I think 1 know something of the faith which Jefferson taught, and Madi son and Jackson illustrated. I undertand it to inculcate a strict construction of the Constitution, and a total abstinence from the exercise of any doubtful power. This is the whole creed, summed up in a sin gle sentence, and it needs no elaboration. Let us try the doctrine of free democracy by this simple test. Where is the Con stitutional provision which gives to Con gress the power to legislate upon the sub ject of slavery in the Territories or else where? I maintain that it is not to be found in that instrument, and that there is no granted power from which it can be implied. It follows, then, that the exer cise, of the power must be anti democratic, and free democracy degenerates into the purest federalism. But I do not choose to base my argument upon this ground alone. If Congress possesesed the power, its ex ercise would be unjust and iniquitous— so unjust as to call fur resistance “at every hazard and to the last extremity.” The Senate must pardon me for asking, upon what principle of natural equity, aside from any question of constitutional right, the northern States rest their claim to ex clusive possession of the Teritories? Did their treasure purchase the national do- main? Was their blood alone poured out to acquire it? Or did it come down as an exclusive inheritance to them? I appeal to tbe history of the country, from the earliest dawn of Revolution to the close of our latest struggle, for an answer. The money which has been paid for the Territories was raised by duties upon imports, levied notoriously and designedly for the protection of the North, and paid almost entirely by tbe South. Instead of a burden to you, it has been a bonus. It was a southern man who pointed out the road from bondage to indepcdence ; who led you trumphantly through the perils of a seven years’ war, and then refused the diadem with which a grateful soldiery would have crowned him. Jt wasa south ern general and southern soldiers who breasted tire British bayonets at Now Oi ler, ns, and added one of its brightest chap ters to the history of the Republic.— Southern blood has watered every plain front the St. Lawrance to the capital of tbe Aztecs. The memorable fields of Pa lo Alto and Resaca de la Palma were won by tbe southern general. It was before the genius of a southern leader that the walls and towers of Monterey crumbled into dust, and two southern regiments, strug lingeideby side iuaglorious rivalry,snatch ed from the cannon’s mouth the palm of vic tory. In the narrow gorge of Angostura, southern valor again stemmed tho tide of war,and rolled back the murder ius charges of the foe. On the sands of Vera Cruz an other great name which the South has giv en to histoiy and renown, added to a fame already imperishable, and wrung from the reluctant nations of the Old World tdau dits which they could not withhold. At (’erro Gordo the story ol -m i.them achieve ments was re-written in blood, and among the rocks and \alca'ioes of Contreras the glorious old Palmetto Sta'e vindicated her right to the tide of chivalrous, and silen ced forever the tongues of her detractors. Sir, I mean to indulge in no disparagement of the North. She has furnished gallant men who have done their duty nobly upon the field. 1 would not, if 1 could, tear a single laurel from her brow. But 1 claim that the record gives to us at least auequal ity of the common dangers, the common sufferings, and the common triumphs, and 1 demand an equal participation in the rights they have established. The Sena tor from Ohio considers this an enormous pretension. Why is it enormous ? It can only he because, in his view, repeated sub mission has sanctified aggression, and the successful preparation of one wrong fully I justifies another. Sir, however enormous it may he, 1 can tell the Senator it is a pretension we do not mean to abandon. We have yielded timo after time to north ern encroachment. We have suffered one violation of the Constitution to follow an other, until we began to lose our own self respect. But, thank (lod, a different spirit is now aboard in the land; and the descen dants of those wlm fought at Futaw, at Guilford, at the Cowpcns, and at King’s Mountain, are beginning to manifest some thing of the old revolutionary blood. 11c peated aggressions have forced us to re call many things we would willingly have frogotten, and new demands cannot fail to remind us of vvliat has already been gran ted. Perhaps it may not be altogether without its uses to recall some striking events iu the history of the past. I sup pose it has not escaped the memory of the Senator from Ohm, that the whole north western territory, now constituting the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi gan, and Wisconsin, was originally slave territory. It was ceded to the Confede racy l>y the magnanimity of Virginia, and you have manifested your gratitude by fostering upon its bosom a population who are now ready tostingto death their bene factors. In 1S();J we acquired Lousiana, and of all that vast region you excuhlcd us by the Missouri comprise from something like four-fifths of the whole, and apprprie ted it exclusively to yourselves. And this, he it remembered, was slave territory ; not an acre ofit came into the Confede racy lice. In ]Bl ft we acquired Florida and Oregon, and of this the Sou'll got 59,- 000 square miles, and tbe North 341,000 ; making in all something like 1,000,000 of square miles which the North has seized more than the South. We have submit ted to this wholesale robbery with a pa tience that Job might have envied. Ac tuated by an anxious desire to preserve every bond of the Union unbroken, and eveiy memory of the Revelu ion unembit tered, we have pocketed the wrong, and taken the wrong-doers to our bosom. But this manifestation ofChristian forbearance on our part lias not purchased the exemp tion it was intended to secure. You now claim the whole territory acquired in tbe war with Mexico, and not only this,but the half of Texas besides. Ilistoiy, sir, has but one parallel case. It is that of Bren nus casting his word and belt into tlie scale, and 1, for one, am leadyto reply in the language of Camillus, “it is the custom with us Romans to ransom our country not with gold, but with iron,” It has become tbe fashion to answer ev ery compliant made by the South with ap peals in favor of tho l uion, and there are not wanting rend; tongues and readier pens to denounce hose who dare to calculate its v !ue. \\ it. >ut professing to be any bolder than .flaw men, I have yet enough of moral nisi physical courage to defy all such calumnies. The Union is valuable only for the privileges it con fers and the rights it secures. When the government is so administeted as to op press and grind one portion of the Confed eracy, it ceases to be an object of venera tion tome, and I am ready to rend asun der its firmest bonds. If you desire us to stay iu tbe Inion, deal with us justly and fairly. If you wish to preserve a commu nity of interest, act in such a manner as to win back that kindly confidence you have done so much to forfeit. Until this is done, it is worse than idle to talk to me of the glories of the Union. That glory which is purchased by tho degradation of theSouth,and enjoyed only amid insult and oppression, lias no charms for me. Yet 1 would not have the Senate to understand that I am insensible to all tho advantages which we have derived, and might still de rive, from such a Union as our fathers contemplated. Give me that Union.— Restore that constitution which has been so inournful|y disfigured, and I will follow its banner through every peril humanity can face. But what reverence can you ex pect a southern man to entertain for the Union which is known to him chiefly th rough the insults it lias sanctioned und the wrongs it lias legalized. Tho Senator from Ohio asks vvliat grounds we have of complaint. The list of grievances is a long one, and the pa tience of the Senate would be exhausted •f I attempted to recount them all. I will, however, remind him of some of the manv claims the people of the North have estab lished to our gratitude. They have estab lished clubs throughout the North for the dissemination of pamphlets and other in cendiary publications among our slaves, in which the foulest libels among our citi zens are mingled with most terrible ap peals to all tho worst passions of the slave. Murder is boldly advocated, and the burn ing of our dwellings held up as a venial offence. 1 hey have funned com binations to steal and run away our proper ty. 1 hey haved hired lecturers whose sole business is to inflame the public mind at the north against us. Enactment after enactment is crowded into your satatute books to hinder, delay, and defraud the southern man in the prosecution of his constitutional l ights. Your courts of jus tice have been converted into the vilest in struments of oppression, and, when other means have failed to accomplish a robbe ry,riot and murder have been freely resor ted to. Even your pulpiis have become the sanctuaries of slander, and the temples dedicated to the worship of the living God have echoed and reechoed to vile and base denunciations of our people andtheir institutions. Will you tell me that me is the work of a few mad-brained fanatics?— I answer that a few fanatics could not have given color to the legislation of thirteen States, and perverted the justice of their courts. No, sir, no. It is general, nay, almost universal, and, whatever magic there may he iu that word ‘Union,” it has no halm for wounds like these. The Senator from Ohio says that lie only designs to prohibit the slave trade between the States, and abolish slavery in this Distrct, and other places where Con gress has exclusive powers to legislation. He may well afford to pause at the point in his labors, for all beyoud that will follow without any effort. Your forts, arsenals, and dock yards, would at once become cities of refuge for the slave, and the recov ery of a fugitive would he utterly impracti cable. But tbe resolutions now under consideration go very far beyond this, and there are not wanting other evidences of more determined purposes. I have here a speech delivered not very long since by the Senator from New York, [Mr. Sew ard,] and I propose to trouble the Senate with some extracts from it. “Slavery was once the sin of not some of the States only, but of them all; of not our nation only, hut of all nations. It per verted and corrupted the moral sense of mankind deeply, universally; and this cor ruption became a universal habit. * * * * It is written in the constitution of the Uni ted States that five slaves shall count equal to three freemen as a basis of representa tion ; and it is written, also, in violation of the Divine law, that wo shall surrender the fugitive slave who takes a refuge at our firesides from his relentless pursuer. You blush not at these things, because they have become as familiar as household words. * * * # What, then, you say ; can nothing he done for freedom because the public concience is inert ? Yes, much can be done—everything can be done— slavery can bo limited to its present bounds —it can be ameliorated— it can he and it must he abolished, and you and 1 can and must do it.” There is no evasion here. All is open, hold, and undisguised. We cannot mis understand this language, and I trust that no one hereafter will ask us to believe that anything short oftotal abolition will satisfy northern agitators. “But we must begin deeper and lower than in the composition and combination of factions and parties, wherein the strength and security of slavery lie You answer that it lies in the Constitution of the Uni ted States and the constitutions and laws of the slaveholding States. Not at all.’ “Not at all.” And yet the. Senator has come into this Chamber and taken an oath to support and defend that very Constitu tion which he had deliberately declared to ho in violation of the Divine law, and which he had openly avowed his purpose to trample under fjot. “It is in the erroneous sentiment of the American people. Constitutions and laws can no more rise above the virtue of the people than the limped stream cun climb above its native spring. Inculcate the love of freedom and the equal rights of man under the paternal roof. See to it that they are taught in the schools and the churches. Reform your own code. Extend, a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his n cary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your paternal gods. Cor reel your own errors that slavery has any constitutional guarantees which may not be released, and ought not to be relinquished. Say to slavery, when it shows its bond and demands its pound of flesh, ifit draws one drop of blood its life shall pay the forfeit.” If, with speeches like these before us, and a knowledge of the rewards which have followed them, we had not been awa kened to the magnitude of the coming dan ger, we should have deserved to hear the chains you have been forging for our arms. I have no threats to make—they are out of time and place ; hut I tel) you, more in sorrow than in anger, not only that you must pause, but that you must retrace your steps. The guarantees of the con stitution must he respected, and its prom ises held sacred, or the most weak and timid man in the State 1 in part represent your Confederacy. Indeed, I donotknow hut what it is now too late, and that this Union, over which you have preached so much, and about which so many eloquent sentences have been framed, is already at an end. Certainly you have severed many of its strongest ties, and hut little more remains besides that formal separation which embittered feeling must soon render a necessity. You did enough to dissolve it when you commenced organized rob beries of our property—when you mur dered our citizens—when you violated every constitutional obligation, and forgot every tie which bound us together as a people. Reserve, then, your denuncia tions of disunion for yourselves. It is your act, and you can say nothing of each other so harsh as to be unjust. * * Am 1 lulled into a fatal security by siren songs in favor of the Union l However much 1 may have loved that Union, I love the liberties of my native land far more, and you have taught me that they might be come antagonists ; that the existence of the one might he incompatible with the other. The conviction came but slowly for itwas not without its bitterness. As a hoy I looked upon the Union as a holy thing, and worshipped it. Asa man I have gone through t hat in its defence which would have shrivelled thousands of the wretched silk-worms who, in peaceful times, earn a cheap reputation for patriot ism by professing unbounded love for the Union. Even now lam not unmindful of a ll the glorious memories that wo have in ommon ; I do not forget that there has orne down to us a rich inheritance of glory which is incapable of division. I know that side by side the North and South struggled through the Revolution ; that side by side their bloody foot prints tracked the snows of Yalley-Forge ; that side by side they crossed the icy billows of the Delaware, snatched from fate the victory at Trenton. 1 remember all the story of the times that tried men’s souls, and feel the full strength of all the bonds it has woven around us. If they have been fear fully weakened, if they are now about to snap asunder, the sin and the folly belongs not to us, but to those who have forced us to choose bet ween chains and infamy on the one hand, or equality and indepen dence on the other. We are not the as sailants, but the assailed ; and it does not become him who mantains a just cause to calculate the consequences. * * * 1 hope I have satisfied the Senator from Ohio that our complainants are not alto gether causeless. I have hut little more to add. There are two classes of men who have brought this Government to the point at which we now stand actuated by very different motives and principles, but equally culpable, and equally chargea ble with the crime of treason to the land. Ihe first is that hand of northern fanatics who, regardless of right, regardless of the Constitution, forgetful of all past obliga tions, and of all moral and social ties, have excited and continued a wild and reckless warfare upon an institution of which they know nothing, and whose blessings or curses should have been alike indifferent to them. The second class is one for whom I have less respect, and of whom I always speak with less patience. It is that timid, hesitating, shrinking portion in our own section of the Union who are afraid to march up to the line—to meet the oppressor on the coniines, an.l hurl him back the very moment his footstep presses forbidden ground. A great poet, in the story of his visit to the infernal re gions, gives a description of certain souls which aptly applies to them. He found them outside the gates of Hell, and says : “Here, with those caitiff angels, thev abide \\ ho stood aloof in Heaven—to God untrue, Vet wanting courage with his, foes to side. Heaven cast them forth its beauty not to stain, And Hell refuses to receive them too; From them noglory could the damned obtain.” MACON, G A . SATURDAY MORNING, JAN. 2fi, ISSO. OTiiouxs L. Ross, Esq., having become joint proprietor of the Georgia Telegraph, that paper will hereafter be conducted under the firm of Ray & Ross. The Hughes Family. —This Family enter tained a respectable portion of our citizens on Wednesday and Thursday evening last, with a variety of performances on the harp, violin, &c. Notwithstanding the inappropriateness of the room, Napoleon’s Grand March when crossing the Alps, was admirably well executed. An Elegant Daguerreotype May be found at Mr. Hart’s Daguerrcan Rooms on Mulberry street. There is something peculiarly gratifying in looking at the transcript of one’s features, recorded to a fault, on a beau tiful plate, and we think the good taste of our citizens will require their family portraits in this cheap and convenient form fur the parlor. Parents may secure a faithful likeness of their children by culling on Mr. Hart, und the beaus and belles may see each other in a souvenir just as often as they please, ty procuring these keep sakes. The Court of Cupid is very much in debted to this new system ofobtaining likenesses inasmuch as the old adage that “ absence con quers love,” lias been proven false; for a gallant lover may be many miles away from his adora ble, and yet have the pleasure of gazing upon her expressive eyes, and charming countenance —thus keeping a vivid memory of the fair original and a heart secured in constancy by the remem brance of her gracefulness. Call and patronize Mr. llart, and we are confident you will not regret the time nor expense. EpCorn meal has advanced recently in this market, and is now retailing at $1 per bushel. Corn is worth from 75 to 80 cents, and scarce at that. Our country friends having provisions to spare would do Well to bring their produce to Macon. Bibb Superior Court.— This Court com menced its winter session in this city on Mon day last, Judge Starke, presiding. As there arc several old cases on the docket, the Court will not probably adjourn before next Saturday. There aro several criminal cases on the docket yetto bo tried. On Thursday last Perry Die laud was tried for the murder Samuel Payne in this city some time since, and the jury re turned a verdict of “Not Guilty.” Small Pox. —'ihc Columbus Enquirer of the 22d inst. says : “A negro hoy arrived hereon Sunday morning, on board tbe steamer Mary •Moore, who is supposed to have the small pox. He has been promptly placed iu the hospital, and the boat ordered to leave tlm city. There is but one case, and from the prompt and effi cient measures of the City Council, them is no reasonable chance for the disease to spread.— There is no alarm in the city, and nono need be apprehended by our friends in tbe country. The Nashville Convention. We publish this morning a preamble an j Bcsolulions introduced into the House of ft,, resentatives of Georgia on Monday last \e have heard, and greatly gratified are we to heft tbe fact, that Mr. Jenkins, of Richmond, i, jy author of this paper. We should feel, 'that ' were good cause to felicitate the whole* Soutj could ivc be assured there would be a unanimou* vote by the Georgia Legislature upon these y e " Resolutions. For we may depend upon it j ’ sent and division mean something now ',, ! something portentous. If the North, now f,| tering ill our attitude, could only be reassured by the smallest diversion of our forces in o .. r '* ‘heir favor, our (ate on pending questions, i 3 gea | (| j The question though, is, Shall we go into C„, vention with the rest of ihc Southern States and with them elect a common fate. Shall ... a,i "o so harmonize our councils against aggressions t| lat what is the doom of one is to be the doom ofall > We confess there is something consoling j n i| le idea that if we are to be downtrodden, a disgrace shared by other States is to keep us in counte nance, and no galling contrast with noble hearted resistance is to add poignancy to the positive wrongs we must suffer. To bring about tins state of things, let us by all means have a g c „. era! convocation of the Southern States. Ever consideration urges this course. A common dan ger—common defence—a general desire t»^ TO feet our rights—at the same time guard the Union from desecration, should all urge us to adopt this course. If we are to be taken inde tail what practical good can result from any separate State action ? ’Tis true each and every State may act for herself, she may resist or she may submit, but we do not believe thewitof man can devise a plan, under our peculiar or ganization, that can redress our wrongs and at the same time sure this Union. Look at the ac cessible points of attack if we are to act singly Influenced by leading minds as our Stales are individually, who could undertake to answer for the fealty and incorruptibility of any man when visions of advancement and high fame arc opened up to him by those in the ascendant, who find their thrift in oppressing us ? We could not do it, for if we mistake not in our un. charitableness, more than one compromise has had its origin in the motive of self-.iggrandise ment, and a lachrymal love of Union has been moved to utter its jeremiads, more by the fear of brilliant prizes eiudinglhe grasp than by any pity at the decay of liberty. We should call the Convention, and right early. If we delay this meeting till California lias been admitted into the Union, smuggled in under the cloak of General Taylor, then never let us say Wilinot Proviso while lime lasts. The game will be up and wc be losers of every tiling. If the South are prepared to give up this point, any mail who can work out a common sum in Rule of Three, may calculate to a fraction, the existence of slavery in the South. With but fourteen States now at all reliable to stand with us, what are we to hope for when eighteen now States are to ho carved out of the vast empire now claimed for the whiteslave owners? How long will the Northern Aigocra cy, be adjusting out of this territory, a two-thirds vote by \\ bieli the Constitution may be twisted as it is now broken, to suit them. Can any Southern patriot who has raised his voice against that shame of a violated pledge, such as waslhe Missouri Compromise, prate any more of shive ry restrictions, when at one swoop ten thousand mongrl tattei demalians, reprobates, disowned of earth and heaven, with a few only of the “ better sort” are permitted to clutch for all lime the splendid prize of such an empire as Califor »ia? Never, for decency sake. Wegiveuptlie question when we yield the right to this rabble to bring into the Lnion one thousand miles of sea coast and land enough to make a dozen no ble States, nearly all South of the fighting Un, anti bring it in under such conditions thatss may never enjoy it. Leave out the galling re membrance that twas our blood, our treasure that secured it. We must never, never stand still and see this fire slowly yet surely track its course down South to surround us. Andif our lovo of this Union bo not tiio veriest cant,if " c have any just or manly appreciation of its worth, let us, by a united front, show to those who weigh it against thirty pieces of silver, that ia its destruction they too are undone. O’We learn that a large meeting of the citi zens of Dooly county, of both parties, tookpk« at \ iennn, on the Btli inst. when a resolution was adopted approving of the Report and R*®' lutions introduced into the Georgia Legislature by tbe Committee on the State of the Republic, and pledging themselves to support and main tain the objects and principles embraced in Resolutions, &c. \Y 7 e also perceive by the Dec, that a public meeting will be held at Forsyth to-day,toa^P 1 some plan fora general meeting of the citiw M of Monroe county, to express their sentimen' 8 on the slavery question. As our Superior Court is now in session would it not be well for our fellow-citizens of county, of both parties, to hold a meeting B ° nlt day next week, or at some other time, in order to express their sentiments in relation to 111,1 subject? We think they should do so, deci dedly, and that without delay. Mississippi, — We have read the Message - ex Gov. Matthews and the Inaugural of l, o'- Quitman, to the Mississippi Legislature, 81,1 in session. They take the true position on slavery question. Wc regret our limits any extracts from them at present. Decision.— The Charleston Mercury °U^ C ”2d instant, says .- “We understand that in 1 ; case of Johnston vs. The Southwestern Rail r<ial Bank, which has excited consi and era tile int* 1 ** 1 ; I the Decree of the Court of Errors was vested read by Chancellor Dunkin. We are inform' I that it modifies, in some essential points, I Decree of the Chancellor on the Circuit, rej" ing the claim of Joiihston as a holder of ll hills of the Ocmulgcc Hank, but makes the road Bank responsible for the assets of the inulgec Bank which it had in its possession, the same time allowing tho former prove its claim against the latter, and reCt ‘ payment as a general creditor.”