8 the country? No one will deny the assertion. Are our friends in the North willing to contribute to ao- eomplish the triumph of the enemies of the country; and especially when their victory would be over the constitution of the land, the liberties of the people? Sir, let me tell gentlemen of the North that on this subject there is no neutral ground. There are but two parties in this contest—the friends and the foes of the constitution. They must take sides with one or the other; and wherever their influence settles, victory must perch upon that banner. The whole responsibility is with the North. Let them not shrink from their high destiny; let them glory in the occasion; let them meet it like men; let them do their -duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. Sir, will gentlemen hesitate? Is this a time for hesitation, when the government is agitated to its very centre? Is this a time to cavil about terms, when the foundations of the nation are shaken? Is this a time to make hair-breadth distinctions about the extent of rights, when our very days seem numbered? I tell gentlemen of the North, the South is in danger; and will they hesitate? Was such the conduct of the South when the North was in danger—not from a feeble band of fanatics, but frqyi the most powerful nation of the world? Sixty-eight years-ago, when the report of the musketry at Lexington gave token of the danger of our brethren of the North, a cargo of powder was captured off Savannah, by Georgia enterprise and Georgia valor. Was that ammunition, at the time so scarce in the country, retained at home to await the arrival of the enemy on our own shores, and to defend our own firesides? No sir; I am proud to say, that with that disinterested patriotism which has ever characterized the South, it was immediately shipped to Boston, and it arrived in time to thunder from the heights Of Bunker’s hill defiance to oppression. And in our late war, waged for “free trade and sailors’ rights,” did the South stop to inquire whether the owners of the ships, or the impressed seamen, were natives of a southern latitude? No; it was enough for them to know that the flag which had been dishonored, was the American flag; that the seaman who had been oppressed was an American citizen; and they were at their posts, and ready to lose their last life drop for the protection of the one and the defence of the other. • Sir; the people of the South love the Union. They venerate the constitution as the bond of that Union, and will be the last to engage in its infractions. But they love the constitution as it is; as it was construed by those who made it; as it has been approved by near half a century’s successive legislation-—sufficient for all the purposes of our government, and all the glory of our country. But now, if the North, regardless of the claims of the South, will suffer that instrument violated—if the constitution, like the right of petition, is of so much consequence as to be preserved when for their gratification, and, at the same time, of so little consequence as to be violated when for our destruction,—if the constitution is to be thus mutilated, depend upon it the South will not respect its mere fragments, scattered in the struggle of other States to overthrow her institutions. If that hour should come, (which God in his mercy avert!) she will hesitate not to appeal from the cancelled obligations of a once-venerated constitution,- to her own “inherent and inalienable” right of self-protection. rence between the abuse and use of an important right? The same amendment which guaranties the right of petition, guaranties also freedom of speech and of the press; and because those rights are secured, is there therefore no such thing as slander or libel? If their constituents cannot now be brought to understand the difference between a proper and an improper petition, upon a subject of ■which Congress has cognizance, and one where it has no jurisdiction, how is- it proposed to make them understand the difference between the rejection of a petition and the rejection of the prayer of a petition? How can they be made to comprehend how it is that a petition is of so much consequence as to be received, arid is yet, at the same time, of so little consequence as to be rejected? I trust that our friends of the North will not suffer themselves to be alarmed by the delusive cry of a “false issue” being made, or be deterred from pursuing their true course for fear of consequences which do not and ought not legitimately to follow. The gentleman from North Carolina lias attempted to illustrate this matter of “false position,” by a “simile of a battle.” Let me tell the gentleman that he has himself assumed, in the outset, “false positions;” and, in some cases, false characters for his parties in that battle. He represents a general to have taken a position with his own troops behind a secure breastwork; but has stationed his allies on exposed ground, where they are rapidly falling by the enemy’s fire. The secure breastwork is the constitution, I suppose.. But where, I ask, are the allies—where the exposed ground? Who are- the contending parties in this engagement? The enemies and the friends of the constitution? The gentleman can make no other answer. Who are the enemies? Of course the abolitionists. Who are the friends of the constitution? The anti-abolitionists. Where, then, are the allies? Are the anti-abolitionists of the North any less the enlisted soldiers and interested defenders of the constitution, than we at the South? Surely not. Where he exposed ground? We are behind the breastwork, (as the gentleman considers the constitution.) Have we pushed our friends of the North beyond that constitution? or are they beyond, and in any exposed situation? No, sir; we both stand together upon the same ground—the battlements of the constitution. The enemy—the abolitionists—are alone without; they are ''striving to enter the citadel, slavery is the weak point in the fortress. It is there they design a breach. We have there constructed a barrier: that barrier is the rule. Whilst that remains, the fortress stands. When it is gone, the fortress falls. That barrier can be removed only by some one within. The fortress can be taken, the citadel lost, only by treachery in the camp. I will pursue the simile, no farther. But let me tell the member from North (Carolina, that if this rule is lost, from the relation in which he stands to, and the part which he has borne in this transaction, he may go home to his constituents, and to his grave, covered with the unenviable immortality of having be- rayed the interest of the South, in having surrendered the constitution of his country. , I hopdd to have had time to have commented upon the motives of these abolitionists. But whatever they are—whether to destroy the institution of slavery, or, by their petitions, only to annoy and insult the South—will not the rejection of this rule by the House be to them a triumph? No one can dispute the point.1 Are not the abolitionists the enemies of
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