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T.Elis STATE LIBRAR~
ranks, there is not only safety, but also fortune and promotion - gold for the dastard and station for the traitor.- Domestic Esaus! they sell their birth right for a mess of pottage. This is certainly a deplorable condition for a free people. It is well calculated to try the souls of men. If all hope have not forsaken the south, it is because her reliance is in the justice of a righteous provi- dence, and in the integrity of her principles and purposes. It is to be hoped that she has too much virtue to despair. But where lies the path of safety? Shall we appeai to the great written charter of American freedom? This she has already done, and found it a waste pa.yer, but the ghost of a dead constitution. Shall she appeal to the honor, humanity and justice of her persecutors? This too, she has already done, and was spurned from their presence with indignity and scorn. They but mocked at her calamity and re- joiced at the prospect of her speedy destruction. Thus surrounded and hunted down by· the deadliest of all foes - the hell-hounds of ' fanaticism and harpies of faction - the question naturally arises, what is her best course to pursue in so great an extremity? This, gentlemen, I presume is the chief question proposed to be discussed at your mass meeting. It is one certainly of great and exciting in- terest - whose magnitude can hardly be perceived, involving in its decision the eternal destinies of the whole continent; and all who seek to have any influence in its determination, should never lose sight of the high responsibilities they assume, nor the vast consequences which are to fl.ow from their decision. Above all they should avoid those turbulent and angry passions which obscure the intellect and pervert the moral sense. I can hardly suppose that the opinions of an humble citizen like myself, can be of much importance to the public; nor would I now think it necessary to avow them, if I were not invited to do so by those in whose good intentions and sound discretion I have every confidence. Such as they are, you are welcome to them; and should they not correspond with your own, as I fear they will not, you must remember that nothing but a profound sense of duty could induce me to place myself in a position where I have everything to peril and nothing to gain. The course then, gentlemen, which I would advise the south to pur-. sue in the present crisi, [sic] is plainly this - she should say to her northern brethren - "your continued aggressions upon our rights; peace and safety, can no lonj:?er be home - the institution of slavery which you seek to destroy is identified with our existence; it is to us a matter of life and death; and if you do not immediately and forever abandon your purpose of wresting it from us, and reducing us to utter ruin and despair, we shall consider the confederacy as wissolve<l by your act, and will protect ourselves accordingly." This appears to me the only alternative left to the south. We see that the northern States are bent upon our destruction; that all their movements tend that way; that they are determined to force UR into the abolition of slll V• ery, and of consequence to plunge us into greater horrors than ever befel a civilized people. The sentir·ent is now publicly avowed ~.v the most prominent of their leaders and a.cted upon by all, that the eman- cipation of southern slavery is an obligation higher than all others, and above any oath to support the constitution; and the government
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