Southern Shield

The late Elections for the Nashville Convention.

It seems rather strange, at the first blush, remarks the New Orleans Bulletin, that upon a question involving, as we are told, the destinies of the Southern States, that there is not one of them in which the people can be aroused to a sense of their imminent danger. They have been implored, importuned and menaced to take some action against Northern aggression; and yet the people obstinately and provokingly seem determined to act for themselves and to wait for the crisis which has been for so long a time threatened, before they will resort to the extreme remedy—disunion.

In one of the slavery States, at least, an effort has been made to give the people a free representation, and we believe the only one—Georgia. The Legislature of that State resolved that the voters in each Congressional district should be required to vote for a delegate to the Nashville Convention, and the Governor accordingly issued his proclamation inviting the people of that patriotic State to assemble on the first Monday in April, and vote for delegates. The spirit with which they responded to this executive pronunciamento, may be inferred from the informal returns that have been unofficially promulged. The press have been importuning the Governor to give the official returns of the votes polled, and to declare, under the authority of the great seal of the State, according to the ancient usage, the elected candidates. But Gov. Towns turns a deaf ear to all such invocations, and he will do no such thing. A smart shrewd man is that same Georgia Governor, and the last one to disparage his party by exposing its weakness; he well knows that no credentials, officially signed, will be required to gain admission to that august assembly, for all who present themselves will be freely welcome. There will be room enough and to spare, and a formal certificate of election may be safely dispensed with.

And yet Georgia will be as popularly and faithfully represented in the Convention as any other Southern State; how full this representation will be, may be inferred from this ascertained fact, that not one-third of the counties in the State voted, and that the aggregate of the entire vote in the ninety-one or two voting counties does not equal the voters of one of the large counties. This, we should say, is sufficiently significant of public sentiment in that State, and what we say of Georgia may be said of every other Southern State. It is the politicians, and not the people, who are agitating this question, and who are getters-up of this Convention, and in that body, if it ever does meet, there will not be a single delegate who can truthfully avow himself as the representative of the people.