2., I 6/. 03 OF JOHN M. 01 THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF LINCOLN COUNTY, 3DEC33MBEH. G, 186ol CORRESPONDENCE. Fayetteville, Tenn., Dec. 4, i860. John M. Bright, Fsq: ting at au earlier day. The position of affairs have somewhat changed since then, but I hope the reflections Dear Sir —Having listened with in the speech will not be without in- p^asure to your able and eloquent terest to the public, as in those re- speech on yesterday, and believing flections, I endeavored to foreshadow its dissemination would be beneficial a line of actions and events for years to our country in its present iroub- to come. les, we respectfully request that it be edueed to writing, and a copy fur¬ nished us for publication. Your friends and fellow-citizens, m. D. Hampton, S. M. McElroy, W. C. Diemer, Jno. M. Smith, Wm. C. Solomon, Jake Anthony, M. D, Moores, W. J. Miller, W. H. Moore, J. F. Gregory, J. S. Gibson, W. A. Miles, J. i. Alexander, H. C. Cowan, Z. McCartney, D. W. Holman, M. Y. McLaughlin, Levi Trantham, John C. Goodrich, C. A. Diemer, Very respectfully yours, &c. Jno. M. Bright. To S. M. McElroy and others. W. M. Todd, Geo. B. Boyles, L L. Stone, Jacob Vance, Tiios, J, Massey, John II. Massey, C. C. McIvinney, S. H. McCord. Fayetteville, Dec. 31st, 18GO. I herewith transmit a manuscript of the substance of the speech which T delivered before our citizens, on the 3rd inst. Other engagements pre¬ vented me from reducing it to wri- THE ADDRESS. Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens: In responding to your call for the expression of my opinions upou the state of the country, I will not take advantage of the occasion to obtrude matters of a party complexion. This would be an abuse of your audience and the object of your meeting.—- Forgetting our party prejudices on the one side, and our prepossessions on the other, let us come up with a calm, earnest and patriotic purpose to investigate the nature, exten% and tendency of the alarming maladies which afflict our distressed country. Our nation is sick. We must make a careful diagnosis of the disease be¬ fore we can with safety venture upon* a remedy. It has been intimated, in the remarks of our chairman, that the seat of the disease is in the South. I differ in opinion. It is in the North. In the South we see the effect, in the North we see the cause. While the Federal Ship is groaning and plungiDg in crazy agony amidst the wild waves of political commo¬ tion in the Soufh, these waves have not been upheaved by an inherent, self-impelling force, but by the ter¬ rific storm which has been loosened upon us by the abolition fanaticism of the North, Fetter the storm and the waves will subside; hat never un¬ til that is done, Heal the spreading cancer of abolitionism on the body politic, and its paroxysms will cease, and the country will smile again in health. While I have been oppressed for years with a sense of the accumula¬ ting dangers of Northern fanaticism; while its potent vigor has fought its way into the highest branch of our government; while the South has been driven to the utmoBt verge of the promontory of hope; and while we have had each ether by the ears, wasting our moral and political strength; yet we may cease our inter¬ necine strife about the policy of the country, and unite in one grand,bold, and patriotic effort and turn the bat¬ tle at the gate. We must distinctly comprehend the issue. Shall the institution of slavery stand or fall in this govern¬ ment? The issue is upon us. It must be settled. There is no play¬ ing with the danger. There is no blinking it It cannot be headed with party platforms. We must look it boldly in the face. We must b® for it, or against it. For the consti¬ tution as it is, or against it.* The constitution was bora with slavery in it. Without it, it could not have existed, and without it, I verily belreye, it cannot survive.— Slavery received the impress of con¬ stitutional importance in representa¬ tion, reclamation, and taxation. We all have a unity of interest, in kind, if not in degree, in the institution. It matters not whether you own a slave or not, you have an interest in the representation based ,6n the slave population, of twenty-five members in Congress, who represent you in common with the slaveholder. You have the same representation in the College of Electors who choose your President. Besides, our slave popula- . lion constitutes an important part of the wealth of our country, and con¬ tributes largely to the support of our State government directly, and our' Federal government indirectly, and thus lightens the burden of taxation on the non-slaveholder; But to say notLing of your honor, and the recip¬ rocal obligations of all our citizens to stand by and protect each other in their reciprocal rights, if I am forced to appeal to your lowest—the sordid passion—I can convince you that the overthrow of slavery would in¬ volve you in the common calamity with the slaveholder. Imagine slavery abolished. You say, well we can live without if.— Very good; but let us see how it will work. You raise hogs, cattle, mules* and grain. Heretofore you teok 3 them to the cot to a States, found a (ready market, and for them received the gold^iq exchange; but now you would see the desolation of the wil¬ derness around you. Offer your pork to the former slaveholder, and he tells you that he has no persons to consume it. Offer your mules, and he tells y eu he has no persons to work them—perhaps he may offer to sell you some, at $25 dollars each, which are starving on the commons. Offer him" your grain, and he will tell you that he has no commodity that brings him money, and be must be content to live upon his own produc¬ tions. Then what becomes of your productions? Where will you find a .market? The North Western States can supply themselves, also the Northern States. Then you are with¬ out a market. Your surplus pro¬ ductions would be a cumbrance rath¬ er than a profit. Thus the non- slaveholder's prosperity would be dried up in the fountain. But perhaps you are ready to re¬ ply that the white man would 'ake th * piace of the slave. For the sake of argument, suppose that he could.— We have about four millions and a half slaves in the South; abont two millions of whom are able to perform labor. From whence, and how long woiild it take to supply the substitu¬ ted number? Think you that it can be done in a year, or even in a half century? I tell you no. Our slave population is the growth of centuries, and numerically is equal to the pop¬ ulation of four or five cf our largest States. But what is to become of you during this process of the resto¬ ration of labor? You will never live to see its conummation.— But, that the white man will ever take the place of the negro in the cultivation of rice, sugar, and cotton, is an abandoned and untenable hy¬ pothesis. To present the question in anoth¬ er aspect. Suppose the Federal Government should emancipate our slaves, and agree to pay a fair con¬ sideration for them (as some of the leading abolitionists have indicated as a pa'rt of their liberal policy!) In what relation would the non- slaveholder stand to such a project? It would take forty hundred millions to pay for them. How is the debt to be paid, and how long will it take to pay it? In the first place our slave productions form the grand basis of commercial intercourse with other nations, and our Federal Gov¬ ernment derives its principal revenue from foreign importations. The ex¬ ports of our slave products being suspended, thfc imports would be greatly curtailed, and tho result would be corresponding diminution of our revenue duties. This would inaugurate a system of enormous direct taxation to defray the ordinary expenses of the government, as well as the assumed debt for the emanci¬ pated slaves. Should the govern¬ ment levy an annual tax of 50,000,- 000 for its own support, and 50,000,- 000 to pay the slave debt, it would take eighty yean to extinguish it without interest. But who and what would be taxed? The present noo- slaveholder and the former slavehol¬ der alike—their lands and their heads. Thus it is plain, that the in¬ terests of the nqn-slavoholder and slaveholder are warped and webbed together, and form the great robe of a common prosperity. Therefore let none say he has no interest in the institution of slavery. The hand of God was in its estab¬ lishment. He was a pillar of fire before our Revolutionary Fathers in their struggle for independence.— He was with the sages who. cement¬ ed the bonds of our Federal Con¬ stitution, ''Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." Slavery was placed under law, and the slave is protected by law in his parson. If we might venture "to vindicate the ways of God to man," we may see him educing good out of a seem¬ ing evil. The negro is an inferior type of our race. He bears the in¬ delible, inheritable mark of his Ma¬ ker's curse. In his native propen¬ sities he is indolent* degraded, and improvident. In his physical en¬ dowments he is robust, and able to endure great labor under a tropical sun. Abandoned to himself semi- barbarism is the climax of his im¬ provement. Suppose that God should punish him for his moral de¬ linquencies and the abuse of his physi¬ cal gifts, and by compulsion draw the labor from his limbs, which no other type of the race can perform, and make it a blessing to the world? Suppose that God, for the unnatural and bestial irreverance of Ham (showing the prophetic degredatioo of his race) in exposing ihe nakedness of his father, -should fore# bis de¬ scendants by unwilling labor to clothe the nakedness of the descend¬ ants of his brethren, who performed the proper filial duty (showing the prophetic elevation and merit of their races) who can quarrel with Him for it, and who can blame the agents whom He employs to execute His will? But let us see bow it will work. There are four and half mil¬ lions of slaves in the United States. If transported to the land of their fathers, they would imitate their pa¬ rental vices of indolence and barba¬ rism, and accomplish no good for themselves or the wo.rld. But here two millions out of the four and a half, by compulsory labor, support their own children, which is but a natural duty; in addition they clothe and feed themselves, while they are comfortably lodged and cared for in sickness; and in their consumptions they stimulate the grain-growing and stoJs-raising districts, and let in a stream of prosperity upon them, the poor and the rich alike.— The production of their labor also furnishes the means of subsistence for 1,000,000 of our Northern pop¬ ulation in the manufacture of cotton, shoes, and blankets—making the New England hills echo with the rum¬ bling of machinery. Themanufac* tures then, rushing from the mills and shops, swell the tide of our com¬ mercial and mercantile prosperity; and at the same time paekiDg large con¬ tributions to build up our Schools, Colleges, Universities, and Chris¬ tian Missions throughout the world. The result of#our slave labor does not stop here, it furnishes the means of subsistence to 4,000,000 in Great Britain, and to as many more in other European nations. Thus our 2,000,000 of slave la¬ borers are not only blessing our own country, but the world. And in addition to all they have the Gospel preached to them, and stand as good a chance for Heaven, as any of their brethren in their native country. Therefore, I take it we all feel a deep and vital interest in the result of the question. Our more South¬ ern States are more deeply and vital¬ ly impressed with its importance than we are. Having four or five slaves to our one their stake is so much the greater. Their fattfers before them were vexed and annoyed in the enjoyment of their property by North¬ ern fanatics. The same vexation has pursued them with increasing aggravation and virulence. They have been roweled with the infernal probe of fanaticism—fretted with the plots, insubordination, and insur¬ rection o f their slaves—and re¬ proached, insulted, and slandered, until every ribald epithet now falls upon their lacerated sensibilities "like drops of fire." They are be¬ ginning to conclude that theirs is but a purgatqrial existence in the Union. They are beginning to des¬ pair of the constitutional guaranty of "domestic tranquility." They believe that the government, which ,was designed to protect their lives and property, is about to fall into the hands of traitors to their consti¬ tutional rights. They believe that the imminent perilof their rights jus¬ tifies any extremity of self defence. And their unsubmissive chivalry is towering, like a pyramid of granite, before the approaching tide of the "irrepressible conflict." Now that I have stated the issue, its magnitude, and our common in¬ terest in it, and also glanced at the cloud which is rolling up in the Southern sky, let ua not forget that there is a more portentous one roll¬ ing up in the Northern sky. And now that we stand upon the middle ground, and before our composure has lost its balance; with a clearer eye we may watch the progress of the meeting clouds, and exert our wisdom to avert the disaster of the threatened collision. Let us turn to the North. It was there that the agitation of the slave¬ ry question commenced. It was in¬ augurated in 1790, by the introduc¬ tion of an abolition petition into Congress, invoking all its Constitu¬ tional powers for the emancipation of the slaves. Congress, promptly and with remarkable unanimity, ignored its right to interfere with the subject. The original idea was emancipation, and, at first, perhaps, was founded in a motive of philanthrophy. But philanthropy soon became affected with fanaticism. Fanaticism has nursed the original idea with careful Husbandry. It soon became epi¬ demic, and the leprosy has spread it¬ self into all the social, religious, and political relations of the North. This fanaticism now labors under the self-inspired conviotion,tbat it is God- commissioned to overthrow the in¬ stitution of slavery. We have been told at times by hopeful politicians that it was dead. Little did they understand its nature, and nearsighted was their view. It only slept, at times, to arise refresh¬ ed and urmed with greater vigor.— It has never halted in its progress. Our wisest Statesmen, North andj South, have predicted the appalling here to it, reality which now frowns upon our hurt. They will not shake off alls- distracted country. Henry Clay, giance to it unless'convinced by the doned to the desperate malignity o John Brown. But we have assu¬ rance that many of them have fee upon the same meat, ami would have rejoiced at the complete success of his diabolical machinations. As proof, I will read you an extract from the communication of "A Northern Man," in the Philadelphia Christian Observer, Nov. 22, 18GO: "If the North will abide by it (the constitution) iD good faith, the South as in honor bound will ad.- even though to their own in 1838, with a patriot's warning and a prophet's voice, foretold its bloody stages in the road to the dis¬ solution of the Union, without a timely check. We were told, and many cherished the illusion, that we .would see the end, in the settlement, of the Kansas troubles. I never be- Jieved it, and have frequently warn¬ ed my countrymen of the delusion. The Kansas struggle was only a man¬ ifestation of abolitionism. The whole history of our government shows, that, whenever occasion offered, the abolition element quickened into vi¬ tality, and begen to move off in that direction. Hence after we have trailed John Brown, by bis tracks of .blood, through Kansas, we see him, emboldened by success and impu¬ nity, strike .at the heart of slavery in Virginia—hoping to ignite a train of combustion which would wrap the South in the blaze of servile insur- rectim. We know that all wbo are |"n afcolj|ioa affiliation, are not aban- speeches of ultra Black Republicans, seemingly endorsed by the popular vote of the North, that in the con¬ stitution of their country there shall be to them no protection from an "irrepressible conflict," which would not only exclude them from territo¬ ries which their own arms helped to conquer and their treasure to buy, but will be driven onward for the destruction of four thousand millions of property which they hold in their slaves, a conflict which will end in nothing short of setting loose upon them four millions of semi-barbari¬ ans to pillage and plunder, and de¬ vastate their .estates, to outrage and kill their wives and daughters, and finally to wash out the stain o their barbarity in the blood of Sons, fathers, and husbands. That there are fanatics in the country capable of exhorting such things, clamoring to overturn, and overturn, and overturn until on the ruins of this republic they shall be able to set up "an anti: 7 slavery Bible> an anti-slavery God, and an anti-slavery Constitution'' no one coin deny." Here is depravity which has im¬ bibed its color from the "blackness Of darkneBS." I do not lift the veil to stir your indignation; but to re¬ veal the truth that you may com¬ prehend the magnitude of our dan¬ gers, and tax your patriotism and wisdom to prepare a remedy. Let us calmly pursue our investigation, and endeavor to get down beneath the surface of party platforms, that we may find and analyze the ele¬ ments which are at work in the North, and see whither they are drifting. I find three Clements there at work which, in my opinion, if not met and crushed by the force and power of the government, will, soon¬ er or later, outgrow and overturn the government itself. They are: 1, A perversion of the social feelings. 2. A perversion of the religious feelings. 3. A perversion of the political feelings. Each of these elements, uncheck¬ ed, has asserted a mastery over different governments. But when they have all become blended into an intensified fanati¬ cism, I am acquainted with the his¬ tory of no government upou earth, in which they have existed, that they did cot conquer the government, without the government conquered them before they had outgrown its power. First, then, in the social elements we find all the affinities and harmo¬ nies which biod families together— which collect the families into the communities—and the communities into the State. Indeed the State is but the outer band of aggregated families and communities—but the embodiment of social constituents and relations—but a form of society founded on the social feelings, and these cohere upon the principle that like clings to like. Let these social feelings become perverted, antago¬ nistic, dissocial, and a pressure com¬ mences" on the outer band and the inevitable tendency is to disruption. Take the family where we find the strongest social ligaments—let them- become perverted and malignant, and the different members fly to the four winds. Extend the perver¬ sion to the community—to the State —and the tendency is the same.— Social loyalty is the centripetal force of the happy, enduring Re¬ public. Suspend that force, and its harmony will be destroyed and its elements will be dissolved. Look to France and you will see the power of social perversion in the Socialism and Fourierism which contributed largely to sweep the reigning Mon¬ arch from his throne, in the recent revolution. Let us examine the evidence of the perversion ©1 the social feelings- in the North. The abolitionists en¬ tertain a hatred of the most intense' malignity towards the slaveholder^ They teach it to the child in thef mother's lap. They teach it around the fireside. They teach it in the# 8 schools. They teach it in their news¬ papers. They teach it in their liter¬ ature. They teach it from the hus¬ tings. And they teach it from their pulpits. The fire of fanaticism has burnt it, like a branding iron, into the mind of the rising generation that the slaveholder is a tyrant, a roller and a murderer. The slave holds a higher niche in their esteem than the master. They have boas¬ ted in Congress that they have feast¬ ed our fugitive slaves at their own tables, given them money, and sent them on their way. And even some of them have gone so far, as to con¬ quer the conventional repugnance to color, and advocate an amalga¬ mation of the races. i Such feelings, such hatred, and such hostility must necessarily pro¬ duce alienation between the North and the South. But one error always opens the door for another. The social com¬ bustion ignites the next most in¬ flammable feelings, which brings us to consider the perversion of the religious sentiments on the subject of slavery. Religious fanaticism is the most desperate, and dangerous of all the frenzies of the human mind. As John Randolph said—"It has no stopping place short of heaven or hell/ It matters not whether right or wrong, it will suffer martyrdom' before it will surrender an ©pinion. In its aggression it crucified the Son of God, and afterwards marched on a crusade, through nations of blood, Jo rescue his sepulchre from the sacrilegious tenure of the infidel. Look to the North and trace iti progress there. It has wrested ti e plain teaching of the Bible to make the relation of master and slave a sin; refused christian communion with the slave-holder; denied the use of its pulpit to Southern Ministers; proclaimed the slave-holder a heretic, having na part in the covenant of Grace; instead of exhorting our ser- vants^uneter the yoke counfctheir own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and bis doctrine be not blasphemed," it has given them the newfangled teaching to burn their masters' houses and cut their throats, then to fly to the North for protection; and it has vexed, rent, and torn our different churches into fragments. But the social and reli¬ gious fanaticism having exhausted its didactic frenzy, and having failed to overthrow slavery by the force of public opinion, it must have a sword of power to cleave its way, in pursuing its "one idea'' as a slai of destiny. It now rushes upon the political arena, and enters into the struggle to grasp the power of the government. Here we are brought to consider the perversion of the political feelings of the North— We all know the strength of our political partialities and prejudices — how they inflame the zeal, bias the mind, and warp the judgment —how they engender antipathy, provoke intolerance, and incite pro¬ scription. But when nursed into fanaticism, they are ready to throw us into any paroxysm of folly, and 0 hurry us to any extremity of dan¬ ger. We may see an instance of their strength and obstinacy in the protracted wars between the houses of York and Lancaster in England, where the royal sceptre was wrenched from the alternate grasp of contending sovereigns for generations. Let us again recur to the North, and note Bome of the evidences of their political perversions. They have disturbed "the domes¬ tic tranquility" of the Soath by distributing incendiary prints and cuts, and sending emissaries to pro¬ ject and stir up servile insurrection. They have violated our private rights of property and the criminal laws of our States by enticing away our slaves. They have violated the constitu¬ tion and laws of the United States by harboring them in their own States, and refusing to deliver them up on the claim of" the owner. They have annoyed aud distracted ■Congress and interrupted the ordin¬ ary legislation of the country by insulting petitions, memorials, reso¬ lutions, an'l speeches, and sent them out through the government prints, and at the public expense, to imflame and demoralise the public mind. They violated the constitution by superinducing the necessity of the Missouri Compiomise, and then vio¬ lated this covenant of amity between the North and the South, by speak¬ ing and voting against the admission of slave States into the Union. They violated all the laws of hu¬ manity and national honor by voting against supplies of men and money to succor their country's distant soldiers, and encouraged their ene¬ mies "to welceme them with bloody hands to a hospitable grave,17 and in¬ voked disaster upon our armies, solely upon the ground that their success might extend the area of slavery. They have violated the constitu¬ tion by denying equality of rights to Southern citizens, ant? by com¬ bining in Abolition and Emigrant Aid Societies, with enormous capital to furnish men, arms, and ammuni¬ tion to murder and drive them from our common domain. They have incurred the guilt of treason and rebellion by taking "an armed occupation" of Kansas.and at¬ tempting to overthrow the lawfully established territorial government. They were guilty of factious leg¬ islation, by endeavoring to force an unwilling government to admit Kan¬ sas, with a rebel constitution, as an equal State into the UnioD, bv voting against appropriations to defray the expenses of the government. They thrice aided in voting down the application of the Missouri Com¬ promise to our acquisitions of Mexican territory, which superinduced the compromise of 1850, and then with hypocritical audacity, eharged that the doctrine of congressional non-in¬ tervention with the population of our territories, was a slave aggres¬ sion on the North, and used it as a pernicious pretext to engender sec¬ tional strife. They have denied the right of properly in our slaves, and denied their constitutional obligation to de¬ liver them up, on claim of the owmer, and have obstructed the execution of the fugitive slave law by mobs and murder. They have reviled the constitu¬ tion of their fathers by pronouncing it a "covenant with hell," and have defied it by proclaiming a "higher law" in its teeth. They have denounced ©ur Supreme Federal Judiciary as a "citadel of slavery," impeached its integrity, and mocked its judgments—and this net only by a few irresponsible brawling fanatics, but in the legisla¬ tive action of thirteen sovereign States which have shown the crest of nullification in their ''Liberty Bills." They have invaded our States, shed innocent blood, stirred different servile insurrections, burnt our houses, poisoned our waters, and a desperate outlaw, Montgomery, is now engaged in the work of plunder and murder on the western border of Missouri! And last, they have organized a great political party on the grand central idea of hostility to slavery, and they are marching with all their converging forces, to make a captive of the Federal Government, We have now traced the abolition movements from the foundation of our government, working up, and up, and up, like a coral reef from the depths of the ocean, through the social, religious, and political ele¬ ments of the North, until we see them cropping out in treason, rebeh lion and revolution. What does it all mean? Bid you ever think of it? Why do the abo'- litionisfs wish to clothe themselves with all the panoply of the Federal Government its Jaw-making, law-ex* ecuting military, and naVal powers? Is it to protect, or to destroy the institution of slavery? Let tfaeir own representative men answer,— Mr. Seward says—"It is an irre¬ pressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must, and will, sooner or later, become entirely a slave holding nation, or entirely a free labor nation." What does the same Senator think of the result of the conflict as expressed at a later day in the Senate? "A free Republican Government like this, notwithstanding all its con¬ stitutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the progress of socie¬ ty. Free labor has at last apprehen¬ ded its rights and its destiny, and is organizing itself to assume the government of the Republic. ' It will henceforth meet you boldly and res¬ olutely here (Washington.) It will meet you everywhere,-in the terri¬ tories and out of them whenever you may go to extend slavery.- It has driven you back in California and Kansas, it will invade you soon in Delaware, Maryland, and yirginia, Missouri, and Texas. It will meet you in Arizonia, in Central America, and even in Cuba," * * * "The interest of the whole race demands' 11 4be ultimate emancipation of all men. Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take effect with needful and wise precautions, against sudden change and disaster, or hur¬ ried on by violence is all that re¬ mains for you to decide. * * * It is for yourselves, and not for us to decide how long and through what further mortifications and disasters the contest shall be protracted be¬ fore freedom shall enjoy her assured triumph." But by what plan do they design to operate for its accomplishment? Mr. Sumner says: "The work cannot stop. Quickened by the tri¬ umph now at hand, with a Republi¬ can President in power, State after State quitting the condition of a ter¬ ritory, and spurning slavery will be welcomed into our plural unit and joining hands together, will become a belt of fire about the slave States, in which slavery must die." Again—Listen to an extract from the New York Herald, a paper of very large and influential circulation: "How stands the case? Since 1850 two more free States—Minnesota and Oregon—have been ndmittod giving the North a Senatorial major¬ ity of six. Kansas will be admitted this next winter which will increase the majority to eight. Should "Honest old Abe's1' administration go on smoothly, Nebraska, Washing¬ ton,Chippewa,Idaho, Nevada and Ari- zonia will be added to tho free list making a Senatorial majority of twenty against the slave States, a .majority against them of perhaps one hundred in the House. The question therefore of onion or dis¬ union, will have to be settled with Lincoln's election, because acquies¬ cence on the part of the Southern States to his administration, will result in such an accumulation of Northern anti-slavery strength, in every department of the govern¬ ment, as to render any subsequent Southern secession movement, under any provocation, utterly foolish and impotent. The position of the South¬ ern States will be like that of the Italian States after the European peace of 1815. They will be put completely under the thumb of-the Northern masters. The simple truth is, that in submitting to Lincoln's election, the South must be content to prepare deliberately for the abo¬ lition of slavery from Delaware to Texas. This is exaetly what this thing means. The will and the pow¬ er will be given, with Lincoln's elec¬ tion, to a party founded upon this "one idea," and pledged to this work and they will do it." Here then we have developed the meaning and the plans of this three beaded fanaticism in its struggle for power. But independent of what their leaders may say, the natural tendency of their opinions would drive them to the same result. They un¬ derstand that submission to the election of Lincoln, will be an ac¬ quiescence in all their d&signa-*-thafc tbey may take judgment by confes¬ sion for the doom of slavery "from Delaware to Texas." Then let us inquire to what arm- 12 ory we shall fly for weapons, to fight and foil the meditated aggres¬ sion? Can we hope to reason it down? I tell you no. You had as well talk to the whirlwind. , I have read the speeches of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Cass. Douglas and others, which in eloquence, logic and power, rivalled those of Demosthenes aDd Cicero. Lord Chatham and Edmund Burke, in their palmiest days, and yet I have not seeu the record of the first out- and-out abolitionist who was corner- t ted under the pressure of it nil.-— Webster, towering to the height of his Olympic power, with his heaviest thunder, could never stun one of them in his tracks. Calhoun, with his searching logic, fierce as the electric fluid, could nev¬ er pierce the links of an abolitionist's coat of mail. "Clay, upon whose lips, Senates, on other oecasions,:had hung in rapture, and whose impassioned strains bad swayed the soul of nations, could never with his "voice of the char¬ mer," move the deal, the earless fa¬ natic. Aye, our intellectual giants have entered the list, and, with a better vantage ground than we have, fought the latile1 of reason. They went staggering from the arena, exhausted jd mind and body, as men that beat the air, uncheered with a single cap¬ tured trophy, But on the contrary the fanatics have increased, like lo¬ custs from the earth, and aie now swarming with invading millions.— No wonder that those great men died oppressed, with the awful sense that they bad outlived thp virtue of their government! They lived to see; but, in sadness closed their eyes upon, the adumbra¬ tion of the dark day which now broods upon our unhappy land.r- Great men! While they lived they composed the hopeful national device of the Fulcrum and Equilibrating powers of our country. Clay the fulcum planted in the middle, and Webster and Calhoun the balancing, weights of the Northern and the Southern States. But the device is broken and with it Hope bids farewell to Reason. Then if reason fails, where shall we seek a remedy?— Shall we resort to immediate seces¬ sion. I answer no. We were born into allegiance to our government. We owe it our lives and our fortunes as long as it is willing and able to protect us. The duties of allegi¬ ance and protection are reciprocal between the citizens and the gov¬ ernment. When the government refuses or is unable to protect the citizen he is absolved from his duty of allegiance. • Then let us send out the rallying cry and close around our govern¬ ment, lay our grievances before it,in¬ voke its justice and its power to stand before us, and join issue with the licentious aggression that would; crush our rights and with them the constitution of our country.— Let all of us South, and all the friends our constitution North unite in "one idea," and as the question now rests on the shoulders of powef? 13 let u s first fight the aggressors through the force and power of the government. The government may take alarm at its own danger, and encouraged by our united, earnest and faithful demonstration, it may stir up its slumbering vigor, steady its tottering frame and trembling limbs, and march out in a panoply equal to the robust occasion. It may be that our government has too long been playing at dalliance with the danger, and with its confiding and good natured idiosyncrasies, too long slumbered fn a Delilah's lap. The enemy has been insidious in its approach; as Mr. Seward says, that things, which could hardly be whis¬ pered in the ear twenty-five years ago, are now proclaimed boldly in the Senate—clearly showing that the enemy threaded the out-walks of con¬ stitutional liberty with a moccasin step, but, as it approaches the citadel, it marches with the tread of the earthquake. The government must now fight' the battle at its own for¬ tress gate. It must be armed with laws and remedies to the extent of its military and naval'powers. Con¬ gressional Resolutions about rights and duties will be but straws and cob¬ webs in such a contest. Congress now may plainly see its delinquencies in the past. They received abolition petitions with one hand to please the North, but laid them on the table with the other hand, to appease the South. After solemnlyJResoitf/ttgr them a hun¬ dred times as dangerous to the public tranquility, assailing constitutional rights,and threatening to the integrity of the Union, why did they not pass a law to expel and punish the member* who incurred the guilt of introducing such petitions? They knew well that the constitutional rights of pe¬ tition belonged to the aggrieved, and not to the aggiessor; yet they permitted the abuse of one constitu¬ tional right, and made themselves the channel of aggression upon another constitutional right. Why not pun¬ ish the man,on the same principle,-who signs an abolition petition to be seat to Congress to assail a constitutional right? Why not punish, by Federal law, every man who becomes a mem¬ ber of an Abolition or Emigrant Aid Society, which have for their ob¬ ject the overthrow of a constitution¬ al right? Why not break up these nests of cocatrice's eggs which are hatching and training up such mis¬ creants, as John Brown, Montgom¬ ery and the thousand others who are plotting servile insurrections* burn¬ ing our bouses, plundering our bor¬ ders, murdering our citizens and poisoning our wells? Ho, they claim the right of petition! and the right of association under their State char¬ ters!! Ha,Congress was afraid of the ghost of the old Sedition act, andsnf* fered itself to be horned around and over the constitution, and fought the thing with a boxing glove, instead of the battleax of the law^ The Southern States, in self de» fence, haye gone to the extent of their power, in the passage of penal laws, t® prevent the circulation of incendiary documents, and to punish seditious intermeddlera with tlidf slaves,— Northern fanatics, baffled by these, h&va changed thier tactics, and have been sowing sedition amongst themselves, and organizing a revolutionary pajty, aspiring to the possession of the government, that they may use as a besom to sweep slavery from the South. The South is now at her extremity. The Feder- al Government must act promptly, fearlessly, and with its power.— Let it pass laws to suppress and pun¬ ish the treason which is building its nest in the very capital. Let it strike wherever it finds an arm lifted against the "domestic tranquili- ty'* and constitution of the coun¬ try, Let the President, when the laws pre passed, if resisted, invoke the spirit of our Father Washington, and follow his example in the whis¬ key rebellion in Pennsylvania, call upon all good citizens to stand by the laws, and, as then, so now, wan¬ ton rebels may see an over-awing majesty in our laws displayed in our army "with banners." (Just fiere a voice from the crowd, "That's the doctrine, fight for our rights in the Union, but never out of it.") No Sir. I will fight for my rights in the Union, and out of it too, if necessary. As long as there is ag¬ gression, 'I proclaim resistance.— I love the Union with Us constitution, and am willing to live under that constitution without the dotting of an J, or the crossing of a T, if I can be protected in the true spirit of its guarantees. Our fathers made it and said they were willing to live under at. They left it as a legacy of rights to their children. They taught us the/ example of defending our rights. If we will not defend them we are unworthy of them. The people of the South are too well schooled iq their rights, not to perceive the dif¬ ference between the Union with Con¬ stitution, and the Union without the Constitution•—the difference between the name of a thing, and the thmtf itself. They jknow that it is the Constitution which sanctifies and en¬ dorses the Union; that contitu- tion its bone and sinew, its veins and arteries, its very life. The people of the South are too wise to committhem- aelves to the suicidal,but, perhaps, well meaning dogma, "The Union for the sake pf the Union"—which commits them to a surrenderor the Constitution and the turning loose upon them four and a half millions of slaves, to plunder and piurder them, and then to be held in contempt by all man¬ kind for the ignoble surrender of their rights. The people of the South are too sensible to fuss about the shell after the oyster is taken out. Bur to recur to our train of thought from our digression. If the Federal Government is able to pro¬ tect the Constitution it will stand, if not, it will fall. ' Do you inquire what sort of government we would have, which could be preserved only by force? I answer deplorable in* deed. But all goverments must be upheld, to a greater or less extent, by force. I know that our govern¬ ment cannot force the Northern fa¬ natics to love the Constitution, but it may, perhaps, have power to tnake them respect \t I know that the struggle to subdue them will be protracted, and, in my opinion, will not be ended during the present generation. The governmont,though now a leaning tower, may hold them at bay, until their present mad¬ ness has burnt itself out. I know that, when the government at¬ tempts coercion, their leaders will threaten it with destruction, by turn¬ ing loose their rampant millions.— But let them threaten and roar, if the government can only abide the seige. But when are we to have peace and harmony? In the North they will have to go back and .apply the correclive, where the error commenc¬ ed. Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined. Let them teach the rising generation that their Sothern brethren belong to the same type of race with themselves and that they are socially their equals: —Let them teach them they believe the same Bible, worship the same God and that they are religiously their equals in church fellowship and Grace:—Let them teach them that the citizens of the several States are politically their equals, and teach them to love and respect their government, to submit to its Constitution in good faith, and wherever and whenever it enjoins an active duty, to perform it:—Let them teach them, while it is their will not to own slaves, it is the constitutional privilege of others to own them, and if a slave flies to them to be harbored, to exhort that slave to return, as the Angel of God ad- 5 monished the fugitiveHagar to rettira* and ''submit herself to the hand of her mistress:1'—Let them teach them" that it is both a christian and po¬ litical duty, to submit themselves to all the civil authorities, where they are not used for the destruc¬ tion of their rights:—Let them teach them to view onr whole country ae but one vast farm, sectioned off in¬ to different fields for cultivation by different members of the same family, and that it is no cause of quarrel if one cultivates grain in his field, another tobacco in his, another cot¬ ton in bis, another raises stock in his. so that One does not invade the rightfiT of the other, and! that there is harmony of interest, 'in diversity of labor and production. Those things our fathers agreed to, and bound themselves and their posterity, in the solemn covenant of the con¬ stitution, to perlorih. When such ah era shall dawn upon the conntry, the roar of faction will be silenced:—Northern and Southern christian brethorn tfill again ruth into each others arms, re¬ unite their sundered bonds, and again take down Zion's LTarp from the willows, and toake it peal out such strains as have,not been heard since the days of David:—The song of harmony will break from all our hills, pour along all our vallevs, roll aloDg all our streams, swell in all our marts—and all will blend into the loud diapason of a Nation's joy, such as never shook the realms be¬ fore. And this is not all. Hcrpe' would run along down the ibtufe, and' 18 ssviog oat her replenished lamp from some Pisgah height, and give u& a vision of our national apocalypse—a nation the most bappy, the most powerful, the raest enlightened, the most prosperous,'sod the most power¬ ful that ever existed on the globe. But whether our government can worry out the seige of fanaticism and achieve such a sublime destiny, I confess, it is a darkly problematic. If it can, patriotism should endure the contest. We wall become more patient and hopeful as the govern¬ ment gains new points of vantage ground in the conflict. At least it is a patriotic duty, when our govern¬ ment is about to take a wild-fire flight to ruin, to bang upon its wheels until we see that the fatal plunge is inevitable. I reluctantly confess that I can have no confidence in any Congressional compromise based on abolition faith. It is already hardened in the vice of covenant-breaking. It, has broken all former compromises, broken up all its church connexions, broken up and demoralized all the old political organizations, and even spurned and broken the constitution, ^f the con¬ stitution cannot restrain it, I can but distrust any rfew covenant of faith. Congress may purchase an ephemeral truce, but not a permanent peace by compromise. I see but little chance of amplifying the powers and reme¬ dies of the constitution by amend¬ ment. The voting stregth of the enemy destroys this hope. I know of no remedy but in the power of the Government as it is-, and even in that 1 would despair, but for the christian faith, that there is a God who rules in the armies of Heaven, and amongst the inhabitants of the earth; and al¬ though the Black Republicans may cover the North as the armies of the Midianites and Amalekites, "'like grass-hoppers for number," before Gideon and the sword of the Lord, yet, by some unforeseen shift in the order of the battle, they may turn their swords upon themselves. Then, trusting in God, let us as a united people, make another stand for a united constitutional liberty, by appealing to the justice and power of the Government. The trembling needle of destiny, perhaps, will soon settle down in Congress, pointing to our weal or woe in the Union. If the Government demonstrates its impo¬ tence to protect us, then we will have exhausted our patriotic duties. And then, let the united shout go up from the South, "To your tents, 0 Israel"! And in memory of our fathers and reverence for their wisdom, and as our last act of devotion to the Tem¬ ple reared by them, when we see its yielding pillars and hear its fall¬ ing beams, let us rescue the Amer¬ ican Constitution and re-launch it with the destiny Of a United South. But we have been told to-day by our chairman (Ron. G. W. Jones) that the Government is' in no imme¬ diate danger from the election of Mr. Lincoln—that he was constitutional¬ ly elected—that upon assuming the office of President he would be swotn to support the Constitution—and that, even if he bad the will to dis- if obey it, still we have a majority in both Houses of Congress who would be a check upon him. 1 reply, that, as to the technical fact of Mr, Lincoln's election, it is no cause for a dissolution of the Union. 1 do not understand our more South¬ ern States to put the issue on that fact. Mr. Lincoln, unsupported in his views would be powerless. But it is *he ground-swell and battle-cry of the millions behind him for do¬ minion which are arousing the South to action. They believe that the law of self preservation does not re¬ quire them to wait till the storm has burst upon them, before they prepare to meet it. While it is true that we now have a majority in both Houses in Con¬ gress, and that Mr. Lincoln's party could pass no hostile law,it is equally true, that Mr. Lincoln, by his veto, can block the passage of any law for the protection of the South against licentious violence. Then we have the significant fact of the government held in equilibrio by two of its co¬ ordinate branches. It is the scale of destiny hung over the nation.— The Black Republicans hope, by a few more popular elections and the admission of a few more free States, tg turn the balance in their favor. As to Mr, Lincoln's oath of office, I can find but little consolation in that. If he construed the consti¬ tution as we do, we might pick up some courage. His conscience is. already under the pressure of the idea that "This government cannot en¬ dure permanently half slave and half free." In his Cooper Institute speech, Feb, 27, 1860, he denied that the constitution recognized the right of property in the slave, and insisted that the language used in re¬ lation to slavery, "was employed on purpose to exclude from the constitu¬ tion the idea that there could be prop¬ erty in man/' There is no end to the perversion of fanaticism. There is no one who entertains a more cold¬ blooded, disorganizing, revolutionary view of the constitution than Mr. Lincoln. He was elected on this re¬ volutionary idea—and his election was a revolutionary act. Would that every hand, which was extended to vote for him to revolutionize this government, in the act, had become as the withered had of Jeroboam, when he tried to lay hold of the man of God before the altar! Again, we are exhorted to peace. The cry of peace will never bring it, as long as there is aggression. When an invading foe determines on con¬ quest, and marches with flying col¬ ors,the rolling drum and the piercing notes of the fife, and we see smo¬ king houses, pools of blood and ra¬ vaged fields, the cry of peace! peace!! will never stay the tide of desolation. We must either resist, or bow and take the yoke prepared for ub.~ Never let us be guilty of the sin of doing nothing in the face of approach¬ ing danger. It has also beer, intimated, that some of oar more Southern States have been educated to disunion, and they wish to make the election of Mr. Lincoln, a pretext to break up the government The argument ia boifa impolitic) and unsound. For the sake of argument, however, let it be conceded, that South Carolina was wrong in her ancient notion of nul¬ lification, but now that she has a real grievance, in common with all the other Southern States (which is con¬ ceded) is it fair to briog up the old error to impair her merit, in common with the other Southern States, in the present controversy? Candor would say not. The argument is also a double scabbard from which the enemy draws one sword, and the other is sent amongst ourselves. It gives unity and courage to the ene¬ my, and brings division and weak¬ ness to ourselves. A pari of the strategy of the Black Republicans is first to divide, then to conquer. Our divided churches and political parties bear witness to their success. If our own discord permits them to practice their strategy upon us, we are bound to "tread the plank 6f doom." What good will it do to de¬ nounce our more passionate Southern breathren as madcaps, Hotspurs and Hidalgos? Or to threaten them, that you, perhaps, will be on the other side of the question? Do you think you can appease the chafed and wounded lion by spearing him in his den? No sir. The policy only drives them to more desperate defi¬ ance and to the death struggle. If the South, like the porcupine, is flar-! ing up her quills of resistance to med¬ itated outrage, those quills must be Btroked the right way aud with a friendly hand to gat them down.— Their patience is already to the bri® of endurance. They have endured more, foreborne more, and forgiven more than perhaps any other people.- And even now, we ere threatened with the incoming administration, to turn upon us the powers of that gov¬ ernment which was formed for our pro¬ tection, to rake us "from Delaware to Texas. Under all this South Caroli¬ na and the other cotton States have my sympathies. And if we would > have them listen to us, we must speak to them in kindness and as friends— not encourage them to precipitancy, bat to restrain them to prudence— that we may be united in counsel, united in redress—united in destiny. But let us not, by reproach, drive them to an act of desperation, which will furnish the government with a pretext (just what the abolitionists want) to lead the van of aggression upon an aggrieved and magnanimous people. God forbid, that the General Government should ever become the dupe of such a scheme! God forbid, that it should ever become so blind to the true merit of the controvesy, as to fight the effect, instead of .the cause, of bur internal woes! Heaven deliver it front the 'unnatural, un¬ manly and un-paternal misrule of scourging a portion of her children (ov asking what is rights and to make them submit to what is wrontj! Heav¬ en deliver it from"such madness, folly, despotism and ihfariiy'. Let it first read the "Riot act" to the North, be¬ fore it turns to quarrel with the South. But suppose it should turn loose' jts power and sweep the ootloti' 19 JBtates with ua whirlwind of fire,'* end leave them parched and black¬ ened with desolation, what would it gain, and what the merit of such a shocking tragedy? As it would turn and leave the South, like a .helpless and wailing widow in sack cloth and ashes, it would discover an¬ other startling fact, that it had left ita real enemy in its rear, shouting with its Jacobinical frenzy for an "Abolition God, an Abolition Bible, and an Abolition Constitution''!— Then if it would preserve the Con¬ stitution, as made by our Fathers, it must enter upon tbo second act in the tragedy, and, perhaps, continue until revolution is glutted with its own horrors. If such is to be the policy and fate of the American Republic, bet¬ ter now let the North and South avert it; write "Mizpah" between them, separate in peace—and in a new Covenant write—"The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." Then let us not by any reproach and unfriendly insinuations drive our more Southern States into any act of indiscretion. If they distrust our sympathy and friendship, our couusel Will have lost its virtue.— They ask nothing but their constitu¬ tional rights, and they will die mar¬ tyrs before they will surrender them. They believe that their fraternal en¬ durance has been put to a sufficient test, and that they can find peaco and security only in secession. It is their opinioD, and it may be right. Our experiment of applying to the Government "for redress may prove a delusion. But whatever events the future may have in store, the South may call Heaven and Earth to witness, that she has never demanded aught on the subject of slavery, which our Constitution and our Supreme Ju¬ diciary have declared to be wroDg! The recording historian will attest the fact, that, while in the Union Southern patriotism and devotion, chivalry and honor, knew no car¬ dinal points, but covered every inch of our common country. When England dared to set her foot upon Northern soil, murder an American citizen, and send the steam ferry -boat, Caroline, "a flyiDg pyra¬ mid of fire" over the cataract of Niagara, in Congress, Southern tongues were moat vehement to de¬ nounce the outrage, and Southern chivalry was impatient to lend the succor of the sword. I remember to have beard a tale of revolutionary times. The news of the seige of Bostow by the British had reached Virginia. Several of her hardy men had met, and under a well-remembered tree they discussed the peril of their Northern friends, and there united in a covenant to shoulder their knapsacks and mus¬ kets, and march to their relief.— Over rugged hills and through drea¬ ry wilds they performed the weary march on foot, and offered their services and lives to aid those North¬ ern friends. It was under, or near, that same old monumental tree, that John Brown and hia followers ehe