Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN TRIBUNE^
PUBLISHED WEEKLY, BY
WSI. B . HARRISON'.
WM. B HARRISON, i
a»d > Editors.
WM. S. LAWTON, )
Interesting Correspondence.
We copy the following correspondence
between some gentlemen of Bujke county
and the Hon. John Macphehson Berrien,
from the Augusta Republic :
Alexander, 6a., Aug. 10, 1850.
Sta—Fully impressed with the belief
that your deliberately expressed opinions,
upon the principles involved in this crisis
of our public affairs, would exercise a most
momentous influence upon the distracted
counsels of the State, we have taken the
liberty of intruding upon your leisure mo-1
ments. In propounding the following
questions fur your consideration, we pro
pose to make such a disposition of your re
piy.( should you deem them worty of one)
as you, in your mature judgment, may can.
aider most conducive to the public inter
ests. We feel no hesitation in expressing
our decided conviction, that a public ex
pression of opinion, on your part, would
be directly instrumental in harmonizing
the conflicting views prevailing to so great
an extent in the State of Georgia. This
conviction thus forced upon our minds,
must be our apology for the liberty we
have taken. Allow us to express our
highest approbation of the stand you have
taken in our behalf.
1. If the bill reported to the Senate by
the Committee of Thirteen, known as the
Compromise Bill, had become a law of
the land, could sZareryhave been extended
to the Territories acquired from Mexico?
2. Will the claim “that Congress has
the right, and it is its duty to legislate to
protect slavery in the Territories,” yield
by implication the power to legislate a
gainst it ?
3. If the Constitution confers "the right
of slavery to enter and occupy the Tertr
lories of the United States,” will the de"
mand upon Congress to recognize that
right in any and every Territorial bill, be
inconsistent with the doctrine of non-inter
vention ?
In submitting these questions to your
consideration, to be decided upon, in the
premises, according to your discre ion, we
have the honor to be, very respectfully,
JAMES H. ROYAL,
JOS. A. SHEUMAKE,
RICH’D S. SCRUGGS.
Hon. John Macphehson Berrien,
United States Senate.
Washington, Aug. 31, 1850.
Gentlemen —Laboring under indispo
sition, and pressed by engagements, l have
not until now been able to answer your
letter. Presuming you have kept a copy
of it, I do not restate your questions—ac
cept the following answers :
1. If the Compromise bill should pass,
slavery will be excluded from California,
to the provision in her Constitution, by
which Congress will have given validity—
as to Now Mexico, and Utah, it will de
pend upon the question whether the Mex
ican laws are in force. I hold that they
are not. They are superseded by our
own, as soon as a Territorial Government
is organized —but others entertain or pro
pose to entertain a different opinion—and
the doubt thus evincqpl will prevent slave
holders from carrying their property there
to encounter law suits. Congress ought
therefore to insert in any act which they
pass on this subject, a clause stating that
the laws of Mexico are not in force in those
Territories. We have hitherto sought to
obtain this in vain— a declaratory clause;
2. I could answer this question gene
rally in the negative—Congress has au
thority in various cases, to pass laws in
affirmance, and forthe protection of existing
rights —while it has no power to annul
them. Freedom ofthe press, trial byjury,
ihe right to be exempt from unreasonable
seizures and searches, with others, are
constitutional rights. Congress may pass
laws to facilitate the enjoyment of these
rights, while they have no authority to an
nul or abridge them. So if the right to
hold slaves is a constitutional right, the
power to remove any obstructions to its
enjoyment in the common Territories of
the Union, would not draw after it the
power to prevent its enjoyment there. In a
word, Congress may legislate for the pro
tectionof aright guarantied by the Constitu
tion, but they cannot legislate to destroy it
3. The doctrine of non-intervention, is
not applicable to the present state of things.
Clayton’s Compromise Bill proposed to es
tablish Territorial Governments for all the
Territory acquired from Mexico. The rs
feet oj it would have been to have opened the
whole to the owners of slaves, subject to the
decision of the Supreme Court . It was to
*%'h a case only that ncn-intcrv'nficn could 1
apply- But if Mr. Clay's Compromise
Bill should pass, Congress would intervene
by that very act, to prohibit slavery, in the
most important and valuable part of the
Common Territory—for all agree that the
people who chanced to he in California, had
no right lo declare this prohibition and that
\ their act is entirely null and void, un'il
Congress shall give it life and validity. It
is the same thing as if Congress hod impos
ed the Proviso themselves. If California
is admitted with her present Constitution,
Congress will have intervened against the
Sou’h, and caanot therefore, with any show
of justice, plead non-intervention, as an ex
cuse for withho'ding from the South, any
act which may he necessary to protect her in
the enjoyment of her Constitutional rights.
I hope these answers will be sufficiently
explicit to put you in possession of my
opinions—and while I believe you attach
too much importance to them I have not
felt myself at liberty to withhold them.—
In the present posture of our affairs, I am
very anxious that my fellow citizens of
Georgia should thoroughly understand
their position, and mingling an ardent love
of the Union, with an unalterable deter
mination to assert their equal rights under
the Constiution,should calmly and steadily
contemplate the consequences which may
result from the decision which they may
adopt. I shall begladto learn that this let.
ter has reached you. Respectfully yours,
J. MACPHERSON BERRIEN.
Messrs. James H. Royal, Joseph A.
Shkumake and Richard S. Scruggs.
From the Southern Press.
Ult raisin— D isuniou—Treason.
We have arrived at events and opinions
in the short period of sixty years, since this
Union was formed, that mark a great rev
olution in government and people. The
Federal Constitution encountered much
opposition, because of the new distribution
of power it made. The whole plan at one
time was about to fail, from the unwilling
ness of the smaller Stales to have less
weight than the larger. Yet at that time
there was no difference of opinion, and in
terest between the States comparable in
magnitude to what prevails now. Mary
land was averse to the exercise of greater
power by Virginia than herself in thecoun
cils of the Union, although they were co
terminous in location, institutions and in
terests. So Connecticut resisted the claim
of the superior vote by Massachusetts, and
New Jersey the same demand by Penn
sylvania. The small States acceded with
reluctance to the compromise, by which,
in one branch of the. Legislative depart
ment, they were to have each an equal vote
with the larger ones, and in the election of
President,when the popular vote failed,the
States were to elect, each having one vote.
There were fears of discordant interests
and unequal legislation between the plant
ing and maritime States—there were fears
of Executive power, of the taxing, the
treaty-making and the war-making power
—there was fear that the navigation of the
Mississippi would be surrendered by the
North. What has been the result ? A
large part of the country, now the majority
was and is in favor of such a tariff as the
present, and thereby asserts that the taxing
power of the Federal Government was
prostituted fur twenty-two years, from
1824 to 1846, to the promotion and capital
of one class and one section of the country
to the injury of tho other. And now the
North complains that the present exercise
of the taxing power is oppressive and un
just towards her. It is now attempted to
use tho war arid treaty-making powers to
acquire territory for the aggrandizement
of one section, to the exclusion and at the
expense of another. And there is immi
nent danger of the success of the attempt.
Now, any man who will read the debates
of the Federal and State Conventions tha 1
formed and ratified the Federal Constitu
tion, cannot fail to be satisfied, that if the
same men who then deliberated on this
scheme of government were now in being,
and were called on to decide the question,
they would reject such a compact of Union.
Nay, if we were not now united, and a pro
posal were made to unite, the North itself,
if sincere and consistent in its professions
ts hostility to slavery, would decline the
offer; and it is certain that not one single
Southern State wuuld agree to it, without
provisions for equality and selfdefence that
do not exist in the present system.
Such were the misgivings as to the re
sult of this Union, that two of the large
States, Virginia and New York, and one
ofthe small, Rhode Island, would not ac
cede to it, except on the express condition
set forth in their acts of ratification, that
the powers thereby delegated by them to
the Federal Government might be resumed
at pleasure by their people. And as they
were received into the Union with this te
servatioti or condition, it at once inured
ts ) all tiie Slates since they united as equals
\et for asserting the tight, secured by !
this solemn compact, as a final remedy fur
abuses beyond the worst apprehensions of
those who formed the Union, we hear de
nuciations of treason now flippantly made
by traitors to liberty, who have become
at once mininions and aspirants of power.
The Federal Government had been in
operation rather more than thirty years
when the Missouri compromise arose.—
There weie then still many of the sages in
public life who had formed the Federal
Constitution. The question of the ex
tension of slavery wasthen distinctly made
by the North as now. The North resisted
the admission of Missouri, becuase she
was slaveholoding, and attempted then as
now to prevent the future multiplication
of slaveholding States by excludin slavery
from the territories.
How was the question met by the South,
ern people of that day? Why they made
it a question of Union or dissolution. No
namby-parnby exhortations of Union, for
the sake of the Union—no impudent im
putations of treason, no insolent menaces
of power, deterred the Southern patriots
of that day from a determination to assert
their rights at all hazards, and to the last
extremity. And the Union was shaken to
its centie, and it might have been shivered
to fragments, if the tights of the South had
not been acknowledged. And what was
the Bettement? The territory in dispute,
was the entire Mississippi valley west of
that river, except a part of Texas in the
southwest corner. The region extended
from the twenty-ninth to the forty-ninth
degree of north latitude. And the con
troversy was settled by admitting Missouri
as a slaveholding State, and establishing
the line ol 36° 30' westward of her to the
Rocky Mountains. The impression pre
vails,but is a great mistake, that the line
adopted for that adjustment,was the line of
36° 30'. The State of Missouri lies alto
gether north of that line, and extends to
about 40° 30' from the Mississippi river
westward of Missouri and beyond that of
30° 30'. So that the average of the line
would be about 3S° 30' almost an exactly
equal division of the territory between 29
and 49 degrees, which would have been 39.
And to compensate her fur this half degree
which the South obtained less 39° she bad
an excess up to 40° 30' -of tlie Mississippi
I shore, and she had an equivalent of what
she lost by the protrusion of Texas into the
Misssippi valley, in ihe State of Louisiana
east of the river, which had been acquired
by the treaty of ISO3, and the territory of
Florida acquired by the treaty of ISI9,
and in the superior climate, productions
and settlement of her portion, command
ing also the mouth of the Mississippi. And
yet such was the spirit and character of
Southern men in 1820-’2l, that on the
question of 3G° 30’ they voted almost
unanimously in the negative, as Mr. Yulee
lias shown in his recent powerful speech,
which we shall publish to-morrow. The
lien of 36° 30' was carried almost exclu
sively by Northern votes—opposed almost
unanimously by Southern. The Southern
men of that day were unwilling to concede
a prohibition of slavery North of that line,
and leave the territory South of it open to
Northern immigration although they se
cured the admission of Missouri up to 40°
30' which was carrying slavery further
North than it existed elsewhere in the
Union, and although in Missouri,owing to
its vicinity to the Rocky Mountains and
exposure to the frosty winds from their
summit, the isothermal line deflects to
the Soutlr more than anywhere else on
this continent, and although the South had
a guarantee for the exclusive occupation
of all the Territories South of 36 degrees
30 minutes, in the proximity of Missouri,
Kentucky and other slaveholding States,
which rendered it almost morally certain.
And the doctrine of political equilibri
um now so much scouted by the North,
was then steadfastly asserted by the South.
Even Mr. Clay, as Mr. Yulee has also 1
shown, then declared his determination
not to vote for the admission of a North
ern State witbiout the coeval admission of
a Southern one. And this doctrine is es
sential and vital in the South. The natu
ral increase of her people, white as well
as black, is greater than in the North—so
much so that, but for the monopoly of Eu
ropean emigration by the North, the South,
although orignally behind the North in re
presentation and population, would now
be equal in both. But with all the advan
tages of that emigration to the North, the
Southern being a rural and not an urban
people, multiplies in States more rapidly !
than the North. Whilst the North therefore, ‘
will continue to preponderate in the House
the South.it she asserts her territorial rights
will predominate in the Senate. And this ’
would be thesortofeqilibrium she ought to
assert, and she ought never to submit to an v
violation of her rights,that would prevent it
But now what do we behold ? Alihough
we have seen that this Union never could
have been formed if such an abuse of its
powers had been foreseen, as have actual,
ly occurred—although we know that such
a Union could not now be formed without
guarantees of Southern right and safety
that do not exist—although we know that
our Southern fathers of the last generation
only, did not hesitate to renounce it rather
thtn submit to territorial spoliation, we
of the present day, who dare to assert that
we have any territorial rights,aie denounc
ed as ultraists and traitors, by the North,
ir. whose vulgar and assinine chorus there
aie even Southern men so recreaut and
si amelcss as to join !
It is in vain to deny the fact, or to evade
it by all the prevarications of non-inter
vention, or the still more hollow and hy
pocritical pretence of the obligation to ad.
mit new States; it is in vain to deny that
Congress has assumed jurisdiction over
the question <>f'slavery in the Territories.
And what is the power of the South to pro
tect herself in Congress on that question
now ? Why in the House she is in a de
cided minority, which however powerful
in argument, is impotent in the vote. And
there is about as much effect in arguing
against the wintery blasts of Boreas as
against the Northern majority. And
what is the Southern representation in the
Senate ? It is rendered powerless by the
defection of Mr. Clay, a recently, avowed
emancipationist, and Mr. Benton, a fiee
soiler—neither of whom could have been
elected if his sentiments had been previ
ously known. And there is the defection
nf the Representatives from Delaware be
sides. Why this is a Revolution !
And what are the consequences? A per
petual barrier to Southern progress in fu
ture —and thedoorn of perpetual imbecility.
The vast, wilderness of the West and
the uninhabited shores of the Pacific, won
by a disproportionate expenditure ofSouth
ern treasure and blood, are to remain des
olate until in the lapse of time they shall
bo occupied by Northern and European
emigration—or still worse, open to that
portion of Southern people only, which
shall be actuated by enterprize so much,
as to renounce the institutions they pre
fer and go to swell the power, population
and wealth of a hostile section. And
when the South is thus doomed to miuori
ty and proscription, when she is refused a
right the most clear and the most impor
tant, the occupation of the soil herself has
won, when she is depopulated by the de
teition of her adventurous children, she is
cut off by her numerical weakness, from
all hope of those public honors that de
pend on a popular vote. Let this terito
rial spoliation be perpetrated, and hence
forih all her sons of talent and ambition
will be proscribed from the honors of their
common country, unless they forsake their
native States for Northern soil or unless
they do what is now the most disastrous
omen to the South—unless they come here
lu offer her rights as a bid for Northern
popularity.
But the evil does not stop here. It
does not stop with tho expatriation of
Southern enterprise and capital; it does not
slop with desertion or treachery of South
ern aspirants, who, like the Irish, find that
“Undistinguished they live, if they shame not
their sires,
And the torch that must light them to dignity’s
way,
Must be caught from the pile where their coun
try'expires.”
The evil does not stop even there. The
South is slaveholding, and the subordina
tion of the slavo depends on the moral
prestige of the master. Let it be known,
as it must be known, to the slave, that in
a great struggle for their rights, the mas
ter race of the .South has surrendered, or
been overcome by a large section of peo
ple, and on acc unt of their hostility to
slavery, and the safety of Southern fito
sides can no longer be relied on. Nay,
more than that; the sense of equality and
of power to maintain it, is inaispensibie,
even to tho manners of a peopler. Let
Southern men surrender now to power,
and the consciousness of their degradation
will make them hang their heads in each
other’s presence, and even in the presence
of their wives. Southern honor and cour
age will become by-words of reproach ,and
tho resolutions of Southern States will be a
mockery,or at best,the last and most striking
illustiation of that human infirmity, that
Resolvesand re-resolves,and yetdies the same.'
The hour of Southern destiny has come.
Occupying the finest and most productive
country under the sun, with a people su
perior in wealth to any other, with a char
acter for courage as yet unquestioned ; it
is for the seven millions of white people
to say with the Pacific on one side, and
it aif a continent, with the West Indies be
fire them, whether they will submit to be
at rested in the greatest career of pt ogicss
the world has yet witnessed.
From the Southern Press.
Letter of Cora Moatgomery.
On the loss of the W’.st Indies to
the White Race.
Is the black race to haw the entire do
minion of the, West Indiesl —This ominous
question of empire now sleeps a dim un
heeded speck in the chambers of the fu
ture, but it is at this moment ready to
awake and spring to a sudden decision.—
We should not shut our eyes to this near
and inevitable fact, as if it was in no wise
of our concern for the total loss to the
white race of these vast realms trade
and production, is an affuir of real mo
ment. Not only will the Uuion feel the
pressure of three millions of blacks upon
her border, but civilization and commerce
must sensibly feel the depression if the
whole magnificent family of islands embo
somed it the heart of our double continent,
passes under the exclusive dominion of
the inert, unproducing negro race. Eve
ry statesman who glances, no matter how
lightly, at the peculiar situation of our
American islands, their proximity, their
special and bounteous products, of which
all our citizens make daily use; the com
modities which our industry furnishes them;
the profitable employment of our shipping
interests, must admit, and should be pre
pared io meet, the necessity of choice be
tween the free and energetic rule of white
civilization, and the indolent retrograde of
negro supremacy.
Let it not be said that it is a dream of
fancy, this necessity of choice between
the supremacy of the negro race in this
whole splended circle of islands that spar
kle like so many precions gems in our
Southern seas, or the vigorous redemption
ol those islands to the influence of white
energy. It does exiist, and ihat, too, in
imminent nearness, and it rests with the
people of this country to decide this ques
tion of empire. If they decide, to sus
tain the negro power, they will never be
entirely able to compute their loss, as in
the flowing abundance of their prosperity,
millions can be wasted without precepti
ble inconvenience; but if on the other
hand, they lend the support of a kindly
sympathy to the whites, the gain will be
obvious, magnificent, arid complete; for it
would turn into our fields and factories,
millions of annual profit. This, every in'
telligent merchant, conversant with the
character of the products and purchases
of those islands, knows without argument,
and we will confine ourselves, for the mo
ment, to the certainty that an unkind
anti white policy on the part of our
Government, will consign the entire white
race of West Indies to vassalage to the
negroes, and to abject ruin. The changes
of a few years have converted nearly ev
ery one of this splendid family of islands
into a helpless political blot on the fair
map of American progress.
St. Domingo—scarcely inferior to Cu
ba herself in magnitude and rich capabili
ties, was the first fall under negro domin
ion, anu her decreased production, her
barbarous and blood-thirsty government,
and her backward steps in every good and
useful point, attest the present and proba
ble value of this change to us and to civiliza
tion. Jamaica the next in rank, with a
beautiful train of smaller islands was
placed more gently under negro sway.—
Under the fosterage of England, who is
emphatically the nursing mother of the
African race —whatever she may be to Ire
land and India—the local laws and local
legislature is systematically fostered in no
gro hand. In church and court, at every
public resort and in every private circle,
the blacks are studiously urged in the
foremost place. The white man, even to
the American consuls and merchants
who would be daring enough to associate
exclusively with whites, or who might be
so fastidious as to object.to his wife or
daughter taking the arm of a negro gentle
man in the dance or promenade, would
be ostracised. The colored gentry of the
B. itish West Indies use their power gia. I
ciously, but even their good natured con
descension will not tolerate airs of exclu
siveness in any white man whatever. Yet
with all these social and political advanta
ges, the colored pits of Groat Brittain are
making a miserable cypher of the lovely
realms thus bestowed on them by Euro
pean power.
Martinique and Guadaloupe have fared
even worse, for France, in "fraternizing''
with the colored inhabitants of her West
India Islands, omitted to guard against the
frantic outburst of sudden emancipation
Not at all content with being set free, and
invested w'ilh the power of legislating for
their late masters, the emancipated slaves
manfested their delight and this capacity
for self-government at the same time, by a
joymfs carnival of conflagration ami rapine.
Wherever their numbers and the unpre
pared condition of the whites enable them
to so do, they burned the houses and mur
died the families of the white planters with
out discrimination. The young and ac
complished wife and sister of Mr. Lebei,
who was what we would term an aboli!
tionist, were spiked to the floor and burned
alive in their home, after enduring insults
a thousand times worse than death
from the negro rioters. Order, industry
and prosperity are deserting the French
West Indies with their white citizens, and
at this moment those islands must be
counted as under negro control. The law
and perhaps the policy, of France, keeps
step with the law and policy of England
—to transfer their American islands to the
negroes and render them profitless neigh
bors to the whites of the Untied States?
A corner of St. Domingo—which is threa
tened day by day with rum—remain under
its ichite owners; but the black emperor
Faustinuho threaten them with annihilaton
is graced by the protection of England and
France; so it can hardly be termed a poli
tical existence. Cuba alone remains, and
ifa free and stable gouernment is allotted
her white citizens, she may be a leader and
sign of redemption to the others, or at least
to the whites of San Domingo and to Porto
Rico;but if that fair queen of the Antilles is
given over to the blacks, as England advises
and Spain threatens, the question is settled.
The whole I Vest Indian empire is lost to
cifilizafion and the white race; lost through
the careless indifference of the American
people, whose every interest is against this
catastrophe lost by the consent and counte
nance of an American Cabinet, who were
bound by every oath of duty to guard a
gainst such a detriment to the Union.
MACON, G A
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, SEPT 14. ~
ORGANIZE ! ORGANIZE ! !
The Friends of Sou'hern Rights arc
invited to assemmble at Messrs. N. Ousley
4r Son's Warehouse, on Cotton Avenue
I HIS E I ENIN G, at 8 o'clock, for the
purpose of forming a Central Svu'hern
Rights Association in this city.
A general attendance is respec'fully soli,
cited by MANY FRIENDS.
Macon, Sept, 14, 1850.
MASS MEETING IN CHEROKEE.
We copy the following notice from the last
Cherokee Advocate, and heartily concur in the
propriety of holding the meeting at the time and
place specified. We should be zealous in our
efforts to maintain our rights, as our opponents*
who “operate privately,” are ever on the alert.
“ The Friends of Southern Rights are
invited to meet at K IN G S 'TO N, on
THURSDAY, the 26th of September, to
take counsel on the important issues which
are now disturbing the peace and harmony
of the country. Eet us show that Cherokee
knows her rights, and knowing dares main
tain them. It. is all important that, the
People speak out, that the position of
Georgia and the South may not be misun
derstood.
Addresses may be expected from the
ablest men from various parts of this and
the adjoining States.
A FREE TAUPE CUE will be pro
vided, sufficient for all who may come."
O’We are indebted to tho Hon. J. L Orr
for a copy of an interesting pamphlet, entitled
“The Union, Present and Future.”
[fjpWe regret to learn that a difficulty occur
red at Forsyth yesterday, between Jos. Cohros
Editor of the “Dee,” and Rufus J. Pinkard,
Clerk of the Superior Court of Monroe county,
which resulted in the immediate death of tho
latter, from the discharge of a pistol in the hand
of tho former.
Spirit of the Prf.ss— We publish the arti
cles from the Federal Union and ColumhusTinies
and want of room compels 11s to omit those of
tho Augusta Constitutionalist and Republic,
Savannah Georgian, Griffin Jeffersonian, Colum
bus Sentinel and Dalton Times, all of which
insist upon maintaining the Rights of the South.
(ETAt a large meeting in Atnericus, Sumter
county, on Saturday last, the proposition to se
cede from the Union in the event of the passage
by Congress ofthe California bill, was put and
carried by a large majority.
O’We learn by Telegraphic dispatches in the
Charleston Mercury and Courier, the following
items of intelligence .-
The California bill ha* become a law and the
Senators and Representatives from that State
took their seats on Tuesday last.
The President of the United States has affixed
his signature to the California, Texas Bonndary,
New Mexico and Utah Territorial bills. Mr.
YV'erstf.r immediately despatched a copy of the
Texas act to Gov. Bell.
Bishop Bascomb, of the M. E. Church, died
at Louisville, Ky., on Saturday last.
Both Houses of Congress have agreed to ad
journ on the 30th inst.
The latest dates from Texas say that bills have
passed both Houses of the Legislature, directing
the Governor to submit the proposition to pur
chase the Territory to the popular vote,and do
niand of the General Government the removal
of all the Indians from Texas.
Latest from Eurote. —The Asia has arrived
bringing Liverpool dates to the 31st ult. Cotton
had declined Jd. to Fair Orleans quoted at
B.Jd ; Fair Upland 7J ; Mobile Bd. Middling
qualities 7}d. a 7}d. The sales of the week a
mounted to 23,100 bales, of which speculator
took 5,920, and exporters 1 ,680. The stock o<*
hand was 505,000.
This news has caused a decline of} to } cent
in the New York market.
Business in the manufacturing districts was
brisk.
Louis Phillippe died on the 26th of August-
A great storm has prevailed at Halifax* doing
immense injury to life and property.
