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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.