Record Data
Transcription
THE SOUTHERN PRESS.
From the South, of April 21.
WHAT NEXT; AND NEXT!
The article in another column, from the Detroit Daily Advertiser, an influential organ of public opinion in the States of the Northwest, is suggestive of reflections which no Southern man can entertain with complacency.
At times, parties in the South are fain to affect a confidence in the “nationality” of their Northern allies. And, in truth, one may find a few individuals in the Free Soil States with just notions upon Slavery; but they are powerless to resist the march of Abolitionism, or even to save themselves from political annihilation. For the most part, they who survive the wreck owe their escape to an incomparable skill in scudding before the gale.
The canvass of 1856 so plainly demonstrated the North to be utterly and irretrievably Anti-Slavery, that no man with the least respect for truth will pretend to dispute the fact. Nor was that the most serious part of the business: The same canvass not only betrayed the essential and entire subjection of the Northern mind to the sway of Abolitionism, but showed, besides, its implacable haired of the South, and its impatient appetite for the spoliation of our rights and property. The election turned up on the distinct point of Slavery or no Slavery; (for that was the issue at the bottom of all the sounding clap-trap about the repeal of the Missouri restriction;) and the result develops the startling fact, that an overwhelming majority of the Northern people are burning to smite the South a crushing blow, in contempt of all the solemn guarantees of law and Constitution. So hardly did Slavery, or the Union, escape annihilation in 1856!
But the struggle is not yet over. Even now the “Republican party” are collecting their forces for another onslaught upon the South. Will Slavery and the Union again survive the contest? Will Abolitionism be once more disappointed of its prey? Allow Mr. Buchanan a triumphant Administration- assume the complete coalition of all the elements of opposition to Black Republicanism; admit that the Democratic party will survive the corrupting influences of the rotation policy, and will take the field in 1860 with no loss of prestige or power; predict, though all experience teach the contrary, that the Anti-Slavery sentiment of the North will make no progress in the next four years; consider that the Abolitionists, like the stupid Bourbons, are not to be instructed by adversity, and that the glorious defeat of 1856 inspires them with no courage to renew the battle- combine all these improbably contingencies, and there results a rational expectation of another respite for the Constitution and the Union. Yet, he must be of a hopeful disposition indeed, who finds anything encouraging in the prospect.
But, concede that Black Republicanism is once more repulsed in the attempt to usurp control of the Government. What next, and next?
In 1860, another enumeration will be made of the population of the country; and its results will determine the Federal representation of States, and the political power of sections. The election of 1864 will occur under that distribution of the Electoral vote; and what will be the issue? Unhappily, we are not allowed to amuse ourselves with deceitful auguries of success. Unfortunately, the Detroit paper is but too well warranted in its shout of anticipated triumph. For years, the political control of the Confederacy has been escaping from the hands of the South, and rapidly accumulating in the States of the North. As the South sinks in the scale of power, Abolitionism is aggrandized at the expense of Slavery, and must soon attain a supreme and irresistible ascendancy. In 1864 the North will elect its own president, in defiance of the united opposition of the slaveholding States. Meanwhile, Minnesota and Oregon will be admitted into the Union, and will reduce the South to a helpless minority in the Senate. There will then be no refuge for Slavery but behind the negative support of the Supreme Court. But that is an insecure reliance; for, though we admit the incorruptible integrity of the tribunal, we know its character is susceptible of radical change; and, from being the bulwark of the Constitution, may become, like the ancient Parliaments of Paris, an obsequious accomplice of wrong and oppression. In the nature of things, the men who now compose it will soon be replaced buy other appointees, and these must be the creatures of the party in power. The re-organization of the Supreme Court is already one of the rallying cries of Black Republicanism; so that, however end the calamity, it is not in the power of the South to postpone the evil day, when Slavery will lose its last buttress and support in the Union.
For, the South can no more recover its ancient ascendancy in the Confederation, than the weak can master and subdue the strong, or power release its grasp from the victim whose oppression feeds its lustful appetite. The unequal and unjust policy on the part of the Federal Government, and the same combination of circumstances, which have reduced the South to its present dependency, and elevated the North from its original inferiority to a triumphant domination, will aggravate the disparity of power between the sections, until one becomes the helpless slave of the other. Indeed, this is something more than a tendency; it is almost an accomplished fact. And yet the South quietly suffers itself to be bound for the sacrifice!
