The Daily Madisonian

THE SOUTH IN PERIL.

It may be excusable in a candidate for office to advocate or oppose any measure of general interest, as it may be popular or unpopular with a majority of the People, for the purpose of securing his election, provided his action be not in violation of any of the rights guaranteed by the supreme law of the land; but the instant he manifests a disposition, in the attainment of a selfish object, to disregard or trample upon any of the fundamental compromises or stipulations contained in the Constitution, he should encounter the frigid condemnation of every honest and intelligent citizen. Personal and party attachments—the charms of friendship, and even the ties of kindred—should be rent asunder, rather than the solemn Compact, formed by our revolutionary fathers—on which is based the fabric of freedom, and the last hope of its preservation—should be desecrated and destroyed to facilitate the temporary and unholy elevation of any aspiring individual to the Presidency. We die daily, and none of us live a century; but the Constitution was designed to endure forever, for the benefit of those to come after us, to the remotest generation.

And yet it is a fact—a melancholy and undeniable fact—that for the purpose of purchasing the votes of a large and increasing body of deluded fanatics of the North, a "Northern" candidate for the Presidency—who, on one occasion, with motives of a similar nature, though not liable to such pernicious consequences, declared that he advocated "Southern principles"—is at this moment encouraging and abetting the perpetration of an act, alike subversive of the Constitution and destructive of the individual rights of his fellow-citizens of the South.

The South and South-west—the abused and trampled States which had religiously believed the solemn professions of Mr. Van Buren, and on more than one occasion had given him a generous support—are now betrayed and despised by this "Northern man," since the deluded fanatics of his own region have multiplied in numbers, and increased in hostility to the South to such an extent as to render it hazardous for him to adhere to his former professions. And so the South has been deceived and cast off by its wooer from the North, like a soiled and threadbare garment.

When we charged Mr. Beardsley, of New York, who, at the commencement of the present session of Congress, evinced a determination to secure the support of the Abolitionists for Mr. Van Buren, with being the agent and organ of the "Northern man with Southern principles," our assertions were based upon accurate information. The Richmond Enquirer denounced his Abolition tendencies, and the Globe denied that he acted with the approbation of Mr. Van Buren. He was removed from Congress and placed on the Bench. But neither the denunciations of the Richmond Enquirer, the denial of the Globe, nor the translation to the Bench, could thwart the purposes of Mr. Van Buren. There were 16,000 Abolition votes in the State of New York, and 150,000 in the U. States, which it was necessary for him to secure, inasmuch as they had been tendered on certain conditions. Immediately after Mr. Beardsley was translated, the arrival of Mr. Van Buren in Albany was announced by the papers; and following "close upon" his advent was the passage of the outrageous Abolition resolutions copied by us on Tuesday. The most extravagant declarations in violation of the Constitution, and in subversion of the guaranteed rights of the South, ever uttered by the Birneys and the Garrisons, are equalled, if not surpassed, by these resolutions adopted under the sanction and by the direction of Mr. Van Buren himself!

In the Assembly which adopted the resolutions instructing the Van Buren members of Congress to vote for the reception of petitions praying for the destruction of the Constitution, and the seizure of the property of the citizens of the South, there were nearly one hundred Van Buren men and only thirty Whigs!

That act will unquestionably secure the favor of the Abolitionists for Mr. Van Buren. But who can tell what the consequences will be to the South? Thus aided, thus encouraged and emboldened, no one can say how far the fell spirit of infuriate fanaticism will go. We can only hope that the terrors of the sword and the faggot will not be added to the indiscriminate and universal pillage threatened to the devoted South!

The first step taken in crime, the ambitious aspirant never pauses in his career. He will wade through blood, if it be necessary, to attain his object. If Mr. Van Buren can consent to the reception of the petitions of demoniac fanatics, praying for the demolition of our glorious Constitution, for a promised equivalent to himself, how long will it be before he will be asked to sanction its destruction, by violence, on the same terms, and how can he refuse? He cannot refuse if the South shall pusillanimously submit to the deliberate insult and injury meditated in what he has already done!

There may be those in the South who will cling the closer to the man who boasted of his "Southern principles," in proportion to the amount of cruelty inflicted, like ruined, though still confiding and infatuated victims; there may be Republican editors, who will endeavor to convince their Southern readers that the deceiver's motives are philanthropic, and that he will pause in time to avert the desolation impending over them; there may be some chivalrous sons of brave and noble sires, who will asseverate that Mr. Van Buren is misrepresented, that his principles are identical with those of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson, and that the present Chief Magistrate, though born in Virginia, and bred at the feet of the Sage of Monticello, is really the unworthy being he is described to be by Mr. Van Buren's organ, and deserves all the contumely heaped upon him; all these may be so, but yet we will still indulge the hope that the ancient spirit of the Old Dominion is not entirely extinct—that sufficient numbers of worthy sons of noble sires still exist, to make a successful stand against the invasion of their rights—rights secured to them by their departed fathers—let the assault come from whatever quarter it may. They do exist, and they will make the stand. They will not only make a successful stand in defence of their property, but they will beat back their enemies, and teach their Lindenwald ally that the eternal preservation of the Constitution in its integrity is of far more importance to them, than a brief term of Executive rule can be to him.

We will close this article by appending a paragraph on the subject from Mr. Calhoun's recent Letter:

"Much less, still, can I give my support to any candidate, who, shall give his aid or countenance to the agitation of abolition in Congress or elsewhere; or whose prominent and influential friends and supporters shall. I doubt the sincerity of any man who declares he is no abolitionist, while at the same time he aids and countenances the agitation of the question, be his pretext what it may. If we have a right to our slaves, we have the right to hold them in peace and quiet. If the Constitution guarantees the one, it guarantees the other; and if it forbids the one from being attacked, it equally forbids the other. Indeed, the one stands to the other, as means to an end, and is so avowed by the abolitionists; and on the plainest principles of morals. If the end be prohibited, the means of effecting it also are. Of the two, I regard the deluded fanatic far less guilty and dangerous than he who, for political or party purposes, aids or countenances him in what he knows is intended to do that which he acknowledges to be forbidden by the Constitution."