Lynchburg Daily Virginian

Mr. Toombs Makes a Speech.

There are some Democratic politicians in the South in whose patriotism and political honesty we have the fullest and most implicit confidence. There are others again whom we regard with feelings precisely the reverse. Chief among these latter, and next in rank to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of Virginia, who stands alone and unapproachable, we count the honorable Senator from Georgia, Mr. Toombs.

For years, this gentleman has professed to be one of the most voracious of fire-eaters. His matutinal meal has been reputed to be made principally on blazing-hot coals, and his ordinary drink to consist of melting platinum. He abandoned the Whig party because the food it furnished was not hot and pungent enough for his craving appetite, and went over bodily to the Democracy, who are always ready to accept such roaring patriots with extended arms. He has, perhaps, uttered as many threats and bravados to the North, and vaunted more extensively the spirit of resistance in the South, than any other of those who have become, by conversion, the accredited apostles of Democracy.

Will it be believed then, that Mr. Toombs sustains the administration in its Kansas policy? Will it be believed that, maugre his disapproval of Walker's official acts, Mr. Toombs is "not yet disposed to censure Mr. Buchanan for Walker's conduct?" Incredible as it may appear, this is the Senator from Georgia reported, in a speech recently made in his State.

We would like to know how, in the name of common sense, any man can condemn Walker, and still acquit the Administration? Is not he the agent and appointee of the Administration, with derived authority only? Are not his acts, in point of fact, the acts of the Administration? If his conduct be disapproved by the Executive, may he not be recalled as Reeder and Shannon and Geary were? Does not the Administration, by continuing him in office, notwithstanding the action of the Georgia and Mississippi Conventions, and the almost unanimous protest of the Southern people, become infinitely more criminal than even Walker himself? To talk of shielding Mr. Buchanan, while condemning Walker, is simply the perfection of absurdity.

The most that the best friend of the Administration could do, under such circumstances, would be to remain silent, with a hope that some circumstance of palliation for the President's conduct may yet be revealed.

We are further informed that the Senator "exhorted the people to stand firmly by Democratic principles. That was our only reliance. He did not know that it could save us from disaster. He sometimes had fears. The future threatened. He thought the decisive contest would be fought in 1860."

In all of which we perceive a continuation only of the same game that Mr. Toombs and his coadjutors played so successfully during the late Presidential campaign. We are continually informed that the country is in danger, and perilous times are ahead, and that nothing can save us but Democracy—and yet, though Democracy has had full sway all the time, the country is still more and more in danger every day.

Will anybody be imposed upon by so stale an electioneering expedient?

But we are "exhorted to stand firmly by Democratic principles." What are Democratic principles? Here is a fatal omission which Mr. Toombs makes in his argument. Is it in accordance with Democratic principles to sustain Walker and Buchanan? Or to condemn Walker and applaud Buchanan? Or to condemn Walker and Buchanan both? Is it in accordance with Democratic principles to approve squatter sovereignty or to condemn it? Is it in accordance with Democratic principles to consult the interests of party in preference to the interests of the South?

These questions will be answered affirmatively by some Democrats and negatively by others. Before Mr. Toombs invites us to a feast of Democratic principles, would it not have been well for him to have furnished us a bill of fare showing what are the dishes of the table d'hôte?

We really think it is time such senseless twaddle should cease. Reasonable men should be approached with reasonable arguments. Is the South any safer today for having entrusted its interests to the keeping of the "National Democratic" party! Does not everybody know that the South was never in so great peril as now? Will any one pretend that the kind of "Democratic principles" now in vogue, and which Mr. Toombs urges us with so much earnestness to accept, are the kind on which the South may implicitly rely for security and safety?

For our own part, we believe the South had better appreciate the danger at once, than to be lulled into that repose which favors the designs of the enemy, by promises of protection from "Democratic principles." It is fatal advice to the people to promise them safety in a reliance on such Democratic principles as are illustrated by the present Administration. The South will yet discover that her worst enemies are within her own border.