Alexandria Gazette

Plans of the Southern Disunionists.

Not only are certain Southern leaders openly proclaiming disunion in certain contingencies, but almost in all possible contingencies. They not only find it--in perfect accord with Senator Slidell--at the end of "four years," even if Mr. Buchanan should be elected, but they are unblushingly presenting the programme of a Southern confederacy in our very teeth, no matter what may be the result of the present Presidential struggle--always excepting alone Mr. Fillmore's election, who, they agree with Mr. P. S. Brooks, would "roll back the tide of disunion," by making "too good" a President.

We have hitherto, on many occasions, urged the Union-loving people of the South to think upon this matter carefully, and act upon it decisively and promptly.

This alarming disclosure of its hideous imminence is found in the columns of the Charleston Mercury, one of the most trusted and potent exponents of the designs and policy of the Democratic party in the whole South. That journal, in its issue of Wednesday last, has a leading editorial headed "Form of the Southern Confederacy," beginning in these ominous words, which should fasten themselves in the memory of the American patriot as matter for detestation forever:

"Next in importance to what we have considered as a fixed fact--the speedy dissolution of the Union--must be ranked the question of the terms on which the Southern States should unite in a confederate government."

The writer then deliberately proceeds to lay down the foreign and domestic policy of the new confederacy, and, after having disposed of these matters, proceeds as follows upon the question of the Presidency:

"The people of the United States have no conscientious conviction that the Presidency, in itself, is an office necessary to their well being. They make it rather a point of universal contest, than a centre of universal agreement. Parties, as such, care not what puppet they choose, so be it that they choose a puppet that they can place in power. If the puppet of the moment is rejected, he is cast into the rubbish of the political past; and, at the recurrence of the Presidential election, another is selected, equally contemptible and equally contemned, to be treated in the same manner, if he meets the same fortune.

The conclusion we draw is, that, with reference to a permanent structure of Government, the Presidency is an unnatural excrescence upon our system of a Confederacy of States. From the close of the Administration of Washington to the present time, it has been the centre and source of bitter controversy among the entire people of the country. It has been a source of hateful union among the States, who, without this bond, might possibly have lived in peace. They have many great points of union, many grand sources of sympathy. But the Presidency has never failed to stir up every element of discord, to bring into fierce contest all the armies of the spoilers, and to make itself a representative of all the plundering and contentious principles that had open or covert existence in the Confederacy.

"Believing, therefore, that this mighty element of discord, of corruption, and of centralization, might be perfectly well disposed with, as far as the just and efficient operations of the Government are concerned, we would propose that, in a Southern Confederation, the Presidency should be dispensed with. It is not necessary for any legitimate action of a confederate government. It is absurd to suppose that it is necessary to the sanction of the laws of such a government, and equally absurd to suppose it necessary for the conduct of its relations with foreign powers. All these matters are easily arranged, and the change would not produce even a passing shock in the progress of events. We might gain a great good, without incurring the least reasonable chance of a small evil."