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BQPTHERN TR IBUNK•
EDITED I.ID PUBLISHED WEEKLY, BY
W M. B . II A It li IsO A' .
From the Southern Christian .Idrocote.
Letter from Bishop Andrew.
SOUTHERN' INDEPENDENCE.
You need not be alarmed, Mr. Rilitor;
I am not going to preach tieason or rebel
lion, or any thing of that sort; nor am 1
going to enlist under the whig or demo
cratic banner. Nor indeed would that be
an easy task, for it would be somewhat
puzzling in the present state of parties, to
define with any very great precision, the
confession of fai It which either would
adopt. My creed is simple and short. I
go for my country, my whole country, as
represented by the indissoluble Union of
all the States of our great Confederacy ;
and I go for the maintainance of the rights
and immunities of each separate Slate and
territory. I repudiate war at any time
if it can be avoided and especially all
civil war between brethren of the same
political household. It is ari ea«y matter
to talk of it, and there may be no shud
dering when we hear of it; hut the real
ization will bring blood and ruin and heart
breaking and agony, widowhood and or
phanage, such as neither we nor our fa
thers have ever heard or dreamed of.—
Ruthless demagogues, either North or
South, may talk of it in strains of flaming
eloquence, because they hope by this
means to mount into power or to maintain
power already acquired; but it becomes
the substantial yeomanry of the country
upon whom the burdens of such a tiling
must fall, the people from whose hearts
anJ purses, the blood and treasure must
flow by which such a contest is to be up
held, it becomes them to ponder this
matter seriously; to look well to the cost
of such a struggle, and to its issues and
gains. At any rate, let us resolve as
Southern rnen, to proceed calmly, deliber
ately, justly and patiently in our resistance
to what we deem unjust aggressions of our
Northern brethren. Let us exhaust every
other argument and try every other means
of redress before we indulge for a moment
the idea of dissolving the Union of these
States; and when this catastrophe comes,
if come it must, let it find us at the last
ditch, having tried every peaceably reme-
dy, with arm and heart to defend ourselves.
Well, hear is my creed ; and perhaps I
owe to you and your readers an apology
for obtruding upon you or them, any thing
which might seem to savour of politics. In
deed, I have during a ministry of nearly
forty years, carefully abstained from nted
dling with political strifes; but I am not
sure but the present crisis in our national
affaits demands that the ministers of Clod
depart a little from their usual cautious
policy; and while it is true that as messen
gers of peace, they should avoid as far as
jossible, all intermeddling with mere par
ty strife, yet, in a momentious crisis like
that which is now upon us, I know not why
the ministers of God who have as deep
an interest in the weal of the nation as
any other class of citizens, should not be
at liberty to give utterance fully and free
ly to their convictions and feelings. By
reference to the papers west and east, we
find the Methodist preachers exerting
themselves might and main, to prevent
any compromise with tl>« South ; and not
content with passing resolutions in their
ecclesiastical assemblages, they have been
recomtneded to address personal commu
nications to members of Congressdemand
ing that no compromise be made by Con
gtess with “the slaveocracyand the ad
vice has been followed, and no doubt with
success. Perhaps it was at least consis
tent that the men who have been so great
ly instrumental in producing the popular
excitement arid-fanaticism which scoffs
alike at the teachings of tire Bible and the
Constitution, and who in their chief eccle
sias'ical assemblages have sanctioned a
stupendous schemer of repudiation, should,
irue to their native instincts, move heaven
and earth against any action of the nation
al legislature which might even remotely
contemplate the peace and prosper ity of
the Southern portion of she Republic.
But enough of this. What about South
ern Independence ? Very well, we slialj
get to it quickly. In the first place then,
we desire to see the South independent,
on the subject of education. Time was
in the memory cf even young men, when
our wealthy Southern men sent their sons
and daughters to Northern schools and
colleges; and even now when there is no
longer any excuse for it, many southern
aristocrats send their sons and especially
their daughters northward, to be polished;
and a man who, perhaps, think you mad if
urged him to subscribe SSOO to a Southern
institution, setuls his daughter to a fashion
ble boarding school in some Northern Ci-
ty to spend some SI2OO per annum, when
tor one half the sum he could have obtain
ed a more solid education at home. And
yet j. ssibly this same man would rise up
in Congress and thunder most vehemently
against the Northern notion of Southern
inferiority. A few years ago, if a profes
sorship in an academy was to be filled, a
graduate from a Northern college was al
most uniformly preferred ; and in the an
nual announcement of the literary institu
-1 tions of the country, it was uniformly her
[ aided as the highest recommendation that
it was to be under the charge of A. 8., a
graduate of a Northern College. It is a
notorious fact, that in many instances,
Southern men greatly superior, morally
and mentally, were defeated befnreSnuth
ern boards of trustees, wholly beacause
their opponents graduated North. And
then when we got them, how many lectures
were we doomed to hear on the subject of
“thorough education” which means only,
that education which was obtained at
Northern institutions or imparted hv
Northern teachers; all besides, was mere
child’s play ; to be sure, after hearing at
the commencement the most profound
hints and the loftiest sort of promises, their
employers were frequently fain to get rid
of them, and often applied to the same
source for a fresh supply, very frequently
to run the same career of hope and disop
pbintmen.
We are not to he understood a9 making
a sweeping censure of all Northern teach
ers. Such is not by no means our inten
tion. We gladly admit many honorable
exceptions. There have been not a few
excellent teachers from the Northern
Staes who have detneafted themselves
modestly, and have made permanent and
valuable citizens of the country hut with
out doubt, we have been favored with a
large supply of an opposite description.—
But we rejoice to witness in this respect, a
very great change for the better. It is not
regaided as a very desirable recommen
da ion to say of a teacher, he is a graduate
of a Northern College. The thing is
reversed, and to have a diploma from a
Southern College is beginning to lie looked
on as a much higher recommendation for
public favor; so that the academies and
colleges of the country are fast passing
into the hands of Southern teachers, and
the people are at last beginingto make the
astonishing discovery that Gteek and Latin
and science in all its branches, can be just
as well taught by Southern men on South
ern soil, as any how or any where else.—
l hail this as an auspicious change. And
permit me to say, that we are mainly in
debted for it to the influence of the de
nominational schools and colleges of the
South. But we have only faiily en'ered
into this work. The Southern people
will not have met their entire responsibil
ity till all the children of the country are
brought within the reach and influence of
schools, academies and colleges. Our doc
trine is, bring the facilities and education
within the reach of all the people. The
State Legislature ought to do this, but as
there are generally so many political
schemes to further and feed out of the
public treasury, and the represents:ives
are not always as wise as King Solomon,
we think that this important work must be
mainly performed by tbe friends of the
different denominational institutions of the
South. They must not think of resting
on their arms; father they must push an
the glorious work which they have so au
spiciously commenced. Your influence,
your patronage, your money must not be
withheld till your institutions are amply
furnished and endowed. The truth is, if
we love Southern Independence, our sons
and daughters must be educated at home.
We have been if possible, still more
suberviant and dependent on the north for
our reading. Northern brains and northern
hands, have provided us with books, from
the printer to books on the loftiest subjec t
of intellectual effort. How few books have
been written by Southern authors! No!
that the sons of the Southern are a race of
intellectual pigmies; their contributions to
the periodical literature disprove this sup
position. W hat then is the cause—are we
too indolent, or have the educated men of
the coutry who haveheretofore been found
mostly among the wealthy, regarded book
making as too great a drudgery? And as
they had not the stimulus of w anting bread
to urge them forward in the career of au
thorship they have ingloriously permitted
talents of the highest order to be burred.
Alas that it should have been so. But
whatever may have been the cause, the
state of things indicated above exist almost
universally throughout the Southern coun
try: and if we would compel our Northern
friends to respect us we must change our
habits. Our men of mind who can wield
the pen of ready writers must lay them
selves out to advance the interests of south
ern literature,whether necessity cnfnpels or
not. In the periodical literaturj of the
country, we have indeed been a lijtlemore
zealous; hut even in this respect bur sup
port of some half a dozen quarterlies is the
amount of proof we give of our xpprecia
tion of that higher and more permanent
class of our periodical literature. Our
weekly newspapers indeed are namerous,
and many ofthem conducted witl decided
ability; yet it is true in this resjiect as in
others, that Northern influence h*s comp i
led to a great extent the weekly issues of
the press throughout the Union. It may
he true that in this particular matters are
greatly changed for the better; l^utstill our
newspaper press is very far from being de
cidedly southern in its character; nor will
it be so till our men of talent become
more industrious with their pens. If our
newspaper press must necessarily exert en
untold amount of influence in fashioning
the political and moral sentiment of the
country, is not every genuine Southern
patriot sacredly bouud to contribute talent
and inflence to make this instrumentally
what it ought to be ? But our people are
so devoted to money that with many of
them tbe price is a much more important
consideration than the intellectual chatacter
of the paper. They regard any paper as
cheap at a dollar a year, no matter whether
it be infidel or Christian, decent or vulgar.
The price of the sheet and its size are the
only important points of inquiry.
Now,it is notorious,that from NewYork
Philadephia, and other Northern cities,
newspaper are sent out all over the land,
all of them at a low price, and many of
them openly and covertly infidel in their
character and demoralizing in theirtenden.
cy. And these have a large circulation at
the South, and exert a very pernicious in
fluence. This evil tendency must he cor
rected and these publications supplanted by
Southern publications of a better character.
We hail with pleasure every indication of
awakened Southern energy and well direc
ted enterprise; and we especially give a
warm greeting to every enteiprise. indica
tive of awakeuad zeal in he Sorthein
church: Every missionary or Sunday
school association, every ne.v book, the
product of Southern mind at and heart, in
terests us. Every ably conducted and well
sustained weekly, monthly, and quarterly,
encourages our hope of a bright future for
the South, And permit me to say in this
connexion that I look forward with the
most cheering confidence to a bright, a
glorious—because a useful—career to the
forthcoming Sunday School Journal, to be
issued from your office, under the care of
our church. It will have a glorious field
in which to operate. The seed will be good
and with the descending dews of God’s
blessing it can not fail to do a great of deal
good. Let the church South, pursuetheii
onward course and God will make her a
blessing and a praise in the earth.
But if we have been dependent on the
North in the foregoing respects, has our
condition been less hurniliatuing in refer
ence to matters of a different sort? Were
we not in the habit of sending to the north
for flour? dwelling as \ve do, in a country
where a great abumdance <f wheat can he
raised, wiih the first water power f r nulls?
Living in a country abounding in iron ore
and wood or coal, as we might prefer, the
north furnished us with most of our tools
and castings. Dwelling in a country pro
ducing wool to any extent, the north fur
nished us with our summer and winter
clothing. In a country where is no lack of
hides or of any facitlity for tanning leather,
and with a market at the door, we have per
mitted the east to supply us with shoes ;
and in almost every thing even down to
brooms and axe helves we have formerly
been wont to look to yankee land for sup
plies. I can well recollect the time not
twenty years since, when any proposition
for the application of Southern enterprise
to tbe important schemes for the improve
ment of the country, was met by the craven
declaration from southern lips, “O the
South can do neither; the Yankees can do
these things.” But thank heaven, tilings
ate changed, and still changing with as'
tonishing rapidity. The fanaticism of
Northern men is fast drawing us to ask
why should we any longer he tributary to
meu who fatten on our tradeand ilien insult
us. We have ample materials at home to
furnish almost every thing we need; let us
apply ourselves to the developeraent and
improvement of our abundant resourcesof
wealth and prosperity; and thestern resolve
of the Southern people to improve these
resources cannot be mistaken. We intend
to make our own bread, and meat, and
clothes; already we compete succesfully
with nothern factoiiesin all the coarse cot
ton fabrics. Our machines ofevery descrip
tion may be manufactured at the South*
Our railroads are traversing our country
in all directions, filling up valleys, piercing
mountain barriers, and bringing into con
nection widely separate points. Prosper
ous villages and citties are growing up alJ
along these lines of communication. Ag
ricuhure is improving and we can secure
all the necessaries, and mostofthe luxuries
oflife. Within oursnlves we have the
finest watering places and magnificent
mountain scenery for those who travel for
pleasure, and why not our Southern sea.
ports import for us all we want from
foreign shores? More hereafter.
JAMES O. ANDREW.
gouthci'ii Bights .Heeling in Ogle
thorpe.
A large and respectable number of the
citizens of Oglethorpe convened this day
in the Court House at Lexington, for the
purpose of taking some action upon the
late acts of Congress—upon the contin
ued aggressions of the North—the uncon
stitutional admission ofCalifornia.the State
convention, &c., &c. Upon motion of
J. W. Moody, Esq., Dr. W. W. Daven
port, was called to the chair, and upon mo'
tion of T. E. R. Harris, Esq., Dr. F. J
Robinson and John A. Bell were requested
to act as Secretaries.
The chairman having briefly stated the
object ofthe meeting, Dr. James W. Price
moved the appoinment of a committee of
five to prepare resolutions for the action
of the meeting : whereupon, the chairman
appointed Dr. James W. Price, Dr. J. S.
Sims, J. H. Mc.Whorter, Esq., R. M.
Fleming, Esq., and Charles S. Meriwethet.
The committee having retired, upon mo
tion of D. C. Barrow, Esq., the following
letter from lion. Charles Dougherty, of
Athens, Ga., was then read, and the senti
ments uttered in it, highly applauded.
Ct.ARKESVII.LE, Oct. 13, 1850.
My Dear Doctor — * * I hare only
time to say, that in my humble opinion, if
the South note submits calmly to the late
policy of the General Government, touching
the question of slavery, it will be but an in
vitation to the North to commitfur her ag
grisstnns on our rights. 1 trust in God 1
may be mistaken in this opinion, if the South
should tamely s limit, which J far she witl.
In my judgment the South should do some
thing by way of resistance. The hind, and
mode of resistance is she question in wyj ,Jg
ment. lam no disunionist. That must
be the last and desperate ran dy, if r< me y
it can be called.
All remedies, in my opinion, will prove
fruitless, unless the South can be united and
induced to join in their application. 1 hare
not time to speak of the remedies which have
or may be suggested for our wrongs. In my
judgment, any remedy would be effectual if
the whole South was united in its enforce
ment.. The policy of the Government has
resulted in the exclusion of Southern slave
holders from the newly acquired Territories
and it is useless to discuss the question of
constitu'ionali'y. The practical result is
and will be the same as the po it ire enact
ment of the I Til mot Proviso—and yet it is
said we should not resist. The next step
will be the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia, and then it will he said, that
the interest we have i the Ten Miles Squa e
is too small to just fy resistance ; and ccr
t inly it is true that we hare a greater in
terest in the new Territories than in the
Ten Mi'es Square. Then the slave trade
between the S a'cs will be. attached,, and if
abolished or prohibited, it will be said that
such a measure would render the slaves in
s he planting States more valuab’c, and we
will be railed upon to submit again ; and so
on until our strength is frittered away. —
The North will never do but one thing at a
time. They will do nothing which of itself
would be. so destructive of our rights, bu t
that some would say it was not sufficient fo }
resistance.
If the North will give any assurances
that they now will stop their aggressions, I
might consent to let them take the Territo
ries and appropriate them to themselves. —
But they will give none. So far from it,
they trill continue, if not enlarge their de
mands. Is it possib’e that Georgia will do
less than invite the siavcholding States to
meet them in Convention, to unite with them
on submission and silence, or on some mode
of resistance ?
I have time to say no more, and repeat
my regret, that I cannot be with you. —
Hoping that Oglethorpe may prove herself
worthy of the crisis, 1 am, sir, your most
obedient servant,
CHARLES DOUGHERTY.
Dr. James S. Sims.
The committee of five having now re
turned, reported through their Chairman
Dr. J. W. P rice, the following preamble
and resolutions, which were read and laid
on the table until after the speaking was
concluded :
Whereas, a period has arrived in the
political history ofour Government, which
demands from the whole South a position
at once firm and unyiel®ng. We ask not
the dissolution of this- once glorious and
happy Union, nor to burst asunder the
chords which now together; but to
continue connection with it, we must re.
ceive assurances that our future rights will
be respected, and our just and constitu
tional claims guaranteed to us and our pos
terity. ‘‘Sixty years have passed since
the Northern and Southern States entered
into a treaty for the common defence and
general welfare. We joined that league
with them as equals: its strictly defined
powers were to he exercised for the equal
good of all parties, and its benefits and
burdens were to be equaly shared. But
our allies at the North have grown strong
under the fostering protection of this great
treaty, and are no longer content with the
equal conditions upon which it was form
ed,” and gone on making many exactions,
and having advanced far in a series of mea
sures which if unresisted, must eventuate
in the overthrow of our slave institutions.
Ihe history of the causes of the present
crisis is in the history of ever growing de.
mands on the part of the North, and of as
constant concessions from the South. Vir
ginia owned an immense Territory to the
North west of the Ohio river, but for the
“sake of the Union, she gave up this fine
country, larger than all the Southern
States of the old 13, and thus suffered her
own ci izetis to be excluded from its bene
fit—for it was then a slaveholding Terri
tory,and the act of 1787 abolishing slave
ry there was passed chiefly by Northern
votes, and as Mr. Madison said, ‘without
ihe shadow of Constitutional authority.’—
Although Virginia, for the sake of the
“general welfare,” submitted to an ag
gression so great, she, looking to the bal
anceol p over in the Union, annexed one
condition, that not more than 5 States
should be firmed out of this Territory.”
let, even this has been violated by the
North, and “22,336 Square milles of its
area, more than the average size of all the
free States east ofthe Ohio, lia\e gone to
constitute the future State, of Minne
so a. M
“In 1790, the South had as many votes
in the Senate, and only eight less in the
House. In 1817. that North had a majority
of iwo in the former body, and twenty-five
in the laiter. If was accordingly, on the
application of Missouri in 18i9-20 for ad
miss in into the Union that the pretension
was first set up that no new slave S ate
should enter the confederacy. A clause
prohibiting slavery was inseited in the hill
for the admission of Missouri,” and her
people determined to reamain without the
Union with a regularly organized govern*
metit as a separate, independent State, un
less the Federal Government undertook to
subdue her and convulse the country by
civil war. In this State of ihe question,
the South had only rti remain firm, and the
N nth would he forced to yield, but as
usual the South was weak enough to re
treat from her ground, and in her love for
the Union, she submitted to a provision
forever prohibiting slavery in all that part
of the Territory of Louisiana (except iMis
s uri itself,) which lies Nor h of 36° 30'—
the Southern boundary of Virginia and
Kentucky.
The South thus lost without an equivalent,five
sixths of what was already a slave territory,pur*
chased by thecommon treasure.Sheretained only
110,000 square miles for the emigration of her
own citizens, and surrendered 065,000 to the
North, yet, even this so called compromise, for
ced upon us by Northern votes, is now spurned
by tlie free States. They have derived all the
possible benefit from it on this side of the Rocky
Mountains,and they refuse us the poor advantage
which it would secure, of 204,383 square miles
out of 867,541 on the other side.”
Here the battle for power and aggres
sive measures against the South com
menced ; arid viewing as we do the past
and the present wrongs which have been
sustained by tbe South, in relation to your
peculiar domestic institutions, we claim
as your right to be heard in your defence,
trusting the merits of your cause to an en
lightened and patriotic people. Soon af
ter the adoption of the Missouri Compro
mise line, by the act of Congress, petition
after petitions poured in upon that body
from abolition associations and petticoat
politicians,praying the abolishment of slave
ry within the District of Columbia; many
firm nnd noble spirits were found, who
pronounced their reception violative of the
constitution, and much more their reading,
while the warm and entliusinstic debates
which thrilled the Hulls of Congress, was
the s longest evidences of the danger of
tampering wiih the subject. The advo
cates for abolition cause continued to in
crease, and p:essing their claims every
session, until the most daring opponent to
their nefarious schemes, shrunk from the
contest, and the Halls of Congres were
literally flooded with their detestable doc
uraents. The next step in the political
drama was the prohibition, of tl'io clave
trade in the District of Columbia—
bill to abolish slavery there and the C o n
tinual flooding of the South with i ncen .
diafy pamphlets, through the mail, anim.
portant part of the machinery ofthe Gov
ernment, for the purpose of exciting to
insurrection the slaves of our country
which would have been considered a ju S t
cause of war. And last of all, and which
the South has just ground for complain,
was the admission of Calfi.rnia as a State
and granting to Utah and New Mexico, territo
rial form, of Government, containing the „
sential principle, of the Wilmot Provi.o, by
leaving the Mexican law in lull force,*by which
the South is forever excluded from equal parti,
cipation in a territory of 446,638 square mile,
large enough to make eleven Slates equal to
Ohio. The South paid her .hare, and, a. we
shall see, far more than her full share of the ex
pensc of the Mexican war. Os the gallant vol
untcers who fought her battles, she furnished
45,640, and the North 23,084—but little more
than half as many. The South sent one man
out of every 26 of miliiary age—the Northonly
one out of every 124. Then, why is it that this
newly acquired Territory is to be alone appro
prirted to the use of Northern adventurers’—
We ask, if the blood and treasuje of the South
was not expended in obtaining this golden tre»
sure—to which every part of God’s creation is
admitted and welcomed, except the poor spurned
and down-trodden South—to whom it most
rightfully belongs,while upon the plains of Mex
ico, the bnnes of many of her noblest sons are
now bleaching. Then, again, we ask, why are
we not entitled to an equal apportionment of
her soil, and the golden treasures buried be.
neath her sands—except upon the principle, that
might gives right ’ Not one foot of the land do
we possess in that widely exetended territory,
upon which we dare place our peculiar species
of property. And still we are told the South
has all she desires—the Wilmot Proviso is no,
in existence—“go up and possess the land
while the Mexican Provso exertsa more dreaded
influence, than Pharaoh’s host of frogs and lice.
But the storm is still gathering, anil the
muttering of the distant thunders portend
the approach of greater evils: and where
slavery is thus hemmed in—“localized and
discouraged,” Senator Chase, proposes,
‘that ariti slavery sentiments are to bemade
the indisoensihle condition of appointment
to the Federal offices; and by thus bribin'*
Southern men to the treachery, the war is
to he carried on to the last fell deed of all
theaholition of slavery within the States.
“ I lie slave States have hut 30 votes in
the Senate, and two of these (Delaware)
can hardly be counted upon in theirdefence
Nor is it possible to increase her strength
by new Slates.
Rufus King, long since avowed that the
object of the North, was political power;
arid this has been already obtained in the
immense territorial acquisition of which
the North has come in possession. The
Northwestern Territory, lying east of the
Rocky mountain to over 700,000 square
miles, added to this Minesota, 22,000
square miles,all of Oregon containing 300,-
000 square miles, making a grand total of
territory appropriated by the North to
herself, of over one million square miles.
and now having appropriated all of Cali
fornia, Utah and New Mexico, and cut
uff from 1 exas 80,000 square miles, she
will have one million six hundred and fifty
thousand square miles of the publiedomain
for her own peculiar use: while the South
can alone claim the paltry amount of 600,-
000 square miles of all the territory ob
tained since the formation of the Govern
ment, with no prospect of ever extending
her territorial limits or increasing her Ic
gislative strength; and in this alarming sit
uation, the South has no hope but her own
firmness. She wishes to preserve the
Union as it was, and she must therefore,
insist upon sufficient guaranties for tbe ob.
servance of her rights and her future po
litical equality in it. The additions which
have already been made to the North,
through territorial strength.would give her
the three-fourths required to amend the
constitution, and abolish slavery at her
pleasure, if we can suppose that she would
take the trouble to enact an amendment to
do that which Mr. Adams declared could
he done without it, under a half dozen
clauses in the constitution as it now stands.
We call upon the whole Southern people
to look this subject full in theface. Weigh
it if ell—and decide upon it calmly and dis
passionately. Suffer not the intrigue of de
signing politicians, who value the interest of
the South in proportion as it can confer of
fice upon them, to delude you away four the
support of principles essential to the protec
tion of your homes andfiresides, and the fu.
lure perpetuity of our Government and the
prosper ity of the people.
The cry of Union, Union is already made
to ring from the mountains to the seaboard,
which is, says Mr. Toombs, “ the masked
battery from behind which the Constitution
and the rights of the South are to be assailed
—and let the South mark the man, who is
for thcUnion at every hazard and to the last
extremity—he will be the imitator of the base
Judean, who for thirty piecesof silver, thretv
away a pearl richer than all his tribe. —~
But no longer do fed by such appeals to your
