Nashville Union And American

Mr. Bell on the Cuba Question

When Horace Greeley signified, a few weeks since, that the Black Republican nomination for the Presidency was open for the competition of Southern men, and might be awarded to John Bell or Botts or Winter Davis, provided they proved themselves sufficiently devoted to the interests of the abolition party, we predicted that there would be a severe contest among these gentlemen for the favor of their Northern allies. We have not been disappointed. The Tribune indicated the qualifications which would be required for the nomination. It stated what degree of subserviency would be demanded from Southern men in order to secure the reward. It declared that the future would determine who should be the man,

"A speech, a vote, a proposition of the right stamp," says Greeley, "and made at the right moment, may indicate him, so that the clear eyed can no longer doubt. And that man, whoever he may be—whether Seward, or Chase, or M'Lean, or Banks, or Fremont, or Frissell, or Collamer, or Bates, or Fessenden—nay, should he have not been hitherto regarded as technically a Republican—such as General Scott, or John Bell, or Horace F. Clark, or John M. Botts, or Henry Winter Davis, provided he be openly and unequivocally ANTI-SLAVERY EXTENDING, ANTI-CUBA STEALING, ANTI-FILLIBUSTER—we shall heartily support both his nomination and his election. We give fair notice that a practical triumph in 1860 over the sham Democracy and its master, the Slavery Propaganda, is the end for which we labor, and to which we hold not only personal aspirations, but party names, wholly subordinate."

Messrs. Bell and Botts have promptly entered the ring. The glittering prize has captivated them as the philosopher of the Tribune, no doubt, expected. The required speech has been made. Mr. Botts in his address at New York, under the immediate eye of his master, subscribed to the conditions and devoted himself body and soul to the service of the Black Republicans. But Mr. Bell was not to be outdone. He had already won much favor by his opposition to the admission of Kansas. He must manifest still more clearly his hostility to Southern interests. He must formally accept the terms which the Tribune had dictated and go beyond his Virginia competitor in his servility to its demands.

A favorable opportunity offered a few days after Mr. Botts delivered his New York speech. The Cuba Question was before the Senate, and Mr. Bell was so eager to manifest his "open and unequivocal" opposition to "slavery extension," "Cuba stealing," and "filibusterism" at once, that he actually asked the privilege of the floor from another Senator who courteously yielded it to him for that purpose. His whole programme had been previously laid down by the Tribune and he had no difficulty in taking his position in conformity to the will of his northern task masters. Their policy had been clearly set forth in the following paragraphs in the Tribune.

"But as to the Republican party itself, it should leave no doubt on any mind of its hostility to the measure at all hazards and for the reason that Cuba is a slaveholding island, and that that hostility will exist so long as Slavery continues there.

The Negro Propaganda admit that they have no hope of devoting to Slavery a rod of the Territory we now possess except it may be Arizona. They abandoned Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico to Freedom. Nine inchoate States! Eighteen Senators! But, dark though the prospects be, they will not yield till they have made an effort, perhaps many efforts, for territorial expansion in a southward direction. The struggle will be severe. If the Republican party stands firm, it will be decisive: and from the hour when the Propaganda shall be defeated, the decadence of Slavery in the Union will be rapid."

Mr. Bell closely followed the track which is here marked out for him. He opposed the acquisition of Cuba at this time. The Tribune's article states that the Republicans will oppose its annexation so long as Slavery continues to exist on the island. The Tribune demands that the candidate of its party shall be "openly and unequivocally anti-filibustering" in his feelings. Mr. Bell denounces all movements for the acquisition of territory, and makes further concessions to the sentiment of the North by including the Mexican war and the acquisition of territory, which was the result of it in his denunciations. Nay, he assailed the Oregon and Texas policy of Mr. Polk, and repeated the stale calumnies which had been hurled against that pure and patriotic statesman by the New York Tribune and other kindred sheets of that period. We listened with patience, but with deep mortification to the whole of the Senator's lengthy harangue, and we heard no sentiment fall from his lips which Seward or Hale might not have uttered; we heard no sentence which a Southern Statesman alive to the interests and honor of his section would have spoken. It was such a speech as no man in the South, save John Bell, could or would have delivered, and such a one as no Southern man except his servile supporters can read without a feeling of humiliation and shame. The fanatics of the North rejoice over it as an evidence of the weakness and division of Southern counsels, while the fuglemen of the party hail it as an indication of the speaker's thorough devotion to the anti-slavery cause. Should it fail to secure Mr. Bell the Black Republican nomination for the Presidency, it will only be because his treachery to his own section has created a doubt of his fidelity to his new allies.

This man whose whole career has been a pandering to northern prejudices and a submission to northern aggression is now the acknowledged leader of the opposition in Tennessee. Under his auspices, direction and advice, they will enter upon the coming canvas. The associate of Abolitionists, the pliant and submissive subject of Horace Greeley and the agent of his hostility to Southern institutions, he is also the favorite of the Know Nothing party in his own State, who are as subservient to his will as he is obedient to the wishes of his Abolition allies and confederates. While pandering to the prejudices of the Black Republicans and selling out the rights of the South to its enemies he is dictating principles and platforms to his followers at home, whom he will shortly deliver up as bond slaves to his Northern masters. The eulogies of the New York Tribune and New York Times are already echoed by the Know Nothing press in the South, and the name which our enemies delight to honor is already floating at the head of Southern journals as their candidate for the Presidency.

To show that we do not misrepresent the feeling of the Republican party we conclude with a few extracts from the New York Times, the writer of which seems to be thoroughly acquainted with public sentiment at the North.

"The candidates prominent before the Opposition are Senator Cameron, Senator Seward, William L. Dayton, Senator Bell, Senator Crittenden, Governor Banks, A. Lincoln, John C. Fremont.

After discussing the claims of the various gentlemen mentioned in connection with the nomination, the writer continues:

"The fact is the Opposition are now casting their eyes towards a Southern deliverer; some chief who will rescue them from oppression (as they term Democratic rule). One section (American) looks to Crittenden, the other (Republican) looks to Bell, of Tennessee. The contest will be an arduous one, and not devoid of bitterness."

In confirmation of these views, the writer in the Times details a conversation between several prominent Republicans who stated:

"That notwithstanding they were personally in favor of Seward, yet that it would be more politic to nominate a 'Southerner, so that it might not be said that there was a sectional struggle for power. It was further urged that Bell, of Tennessee, was the most available candidate for them."