| A
few months ago, and Squatter Sovereignity had few or no adherents in
the South. In the Charleston Convention Douglas had not a single
vote from the South. But now everywhere, in the South,
opposition to those who are striving to vindicate the rights of the
South in our Territories , has relapsed into Squatterism and
Douglasism. These men see that they will not be sustained
defending a naked submission to wrong. Hence they must apologise
for and deny the wrong; and, as a necessary consequence, they must
support Douglas, the wrong-doer. It has been their desire to
pursue this policy all along; at least, they have been Presidential
speculators under the auspices of Squatter Sovereignty and
Douglas, but public opinion was too strong in the South to countenance
their betrayal of the rights of the South.
Now, however, that the Southern States have been driven out of
the Charleston Convention, and propose to act separately in the
Presidential election, by nominating candidates to reflect their
rights, the cry of "disunion" is raised; and under the mask of this
diversion they boldly advocate Douglas and Squatter Sovereignty.
This was to have been expected. It was the course pursued
when
California was wrested from the South.
It will always be the course, in every issue which shall ever
arise, in which the South proposes to vindicate her rights from the
aggressions of the North; and if the Southern people have not
intelligence enough to see through this hypocrisy and treachery, and
energy enough to condemn it, their cause is hopeless. They must
continue to be the subjects of Northern aggression and
spoiliation on the one hand, and of Southern treachery on the other.
If they love party more than their rights---the Union, more than
their institutions---it is easy to let them be sacrificed. The
insensate idea that the Democratic Party as now existing (with the
whole Northern wing as completely sectionalized as the Black Republican
party), is essential to the maintenance of the rights and the
intentions of the South, has its precedent only in the worst days of
the Italian Republics, when honor and truth were only acknowledged to
be derided. The Charleston Convention had not one single
principle in
common between the Northern and Southern Democrats. No set of men
ever
got together, of more direct vehement antagonisms. The only hope
of
any coalescence was in the minority, the South, directly or indirectly
surrendering the rights of their section to the Union. A portion
of
the South refused to commit this act of treachery, and now the unjust
pretensions of the North are defended; the great exponent of the
mediated injustice is supported; those who are faithful to the rights
of the South are assaulted and villified; a continued Union, at all hazards,
with our oppressors, is lauded as the dictate of the highest
patriotism;
and surrender and submission everywhere stalks forth, striving to cover
its base cowardice, or venality, with the foul hypocrisy of a useful
expediency. Will such a course prevail at the South? We
trust not. We think not. We still have faith in the great
principles on which all republics are built, and in those virtues
which can alone sustain them. Truth, justice, courage,
intelligence, must predominate in the counsels of a free government, or
it must fall. The Southern States have a higher motive than those
(if any can be higher) to induce them resolutely to vindicate their
rights---the motive of existence! |