Shepherdstown Register

The Position of Jefferson County.

If evidence were ever wanting of the attachment of the people of Jefferson county to the Union as it is, that evidence was furnished on Friday last by the spirit which pervaded the meeting held in the Court House for the purpose of hearing the Hon. James M. Mason and the Hon. Richard Parker in defence of their respective positions on the Compromise questions. It is well known that the first opposed and the latter advocated the measures of adjustment in Congress. On Friday they addressed themselves to the people, of whom quite a large number had assembled, in justification of the parts they had acted in their capacities of Senator and Representative. It is well known that resolutions had been prepared, denunciatory of the Compromise, and approbatory of the course of our Senators during the protracted struggles in the Senate: but it soon became evident, that those who had framed them had reckoned without their host, that their resolutions could not be passed; hence, deeming "discretion the better part of valour." they did not offer them for the consideration of the meeting.

We rejoice at the result of this meeting, and trust every attempt in the Old Dominion to array any portion of her people against the Union will end in a failure. and in the emphatic rebuke of the masses. We were gratified to hear Col. Mason disavow every idea of Disunion, though we cannot but think that the course of the agitators, North and South, if persisted in. will inevitably lead to that point. The country now wants rest; quiet. Let us then await for a time, and see what the North will do in regard to the Fugitive Slave Bill. which many think they will repeal. Let them do that, and then the South will have a point upon which they can unite, and stand together as one man Thep there could be no doubt of the justice of our cause, and "thrice armed are they who have their quarrel just." As devoted as we are to the Union of these States, and the hallowed associations which cluster around their history, we are not of the class of submissionists, who think that there are no circumstances which could reconcile our minds to a separation. On the contrary we think there is "a point beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue." When that point shall have been reached we are for a division. When we can no longer enjoy the right of property, which after the right of personal liberty is very properly regarded as the most sacred of all rights guaranteed to us by the compact under which we live, then the object for which this Confederacy was formed will have ceased to exist, and the Constitution will be a dead letter.

We fervently hope that this period will never arrive: that there is power sufficient in this government to enforce the observance of its laws, and that that power will be employed to the last extremity, if found necessary.