slaves would revolt. There would be no obligation to restore them, and they would run away by hundreds in a night. If dissolution would give security to Slavery instead of dooming it to a speedy overthrow, a vast majority of the voters in the Slave States have no interests connected with it, but all their great interests the other way; and they would never consent to such a sacrifice for its benefit. No doubt, in the Slave States there are inconsiderate and headstrong young men, and even some old ones, who are ready not only to talk of, but to attempt, disunion or any other extravagance. But so evidently ruinous would be the scheme, as to preclude any reasonable question that their wiser slave-holding fellow-citizens, content as they may be to have the force of threats fully tried on the easy temper of the North, would interpose as soon as matters threatened to come to something more serious than talking, and quench their dangerous zeal in time. And even if they did not, the immensely preponderating reserved strength of non-slaveholding whites in every Slave State would in such a case have something decisive to say.

Argument apart, there is one salient fact which we should like to see the alarmists dispose of. Nothing is so sensitive as the stock-market. The fluctuations in the price-currents mark, by fractions of dollars, the slightest changes in the degrees of confidence felt in the stability and quiet of national affairs. Nothing is more impossible than that the United States securities should hold their own, in the face of any likelihood whatever of a revolution. Yet, through all the nonsense about danger of disunion which we have heard in the last two years, there has not been so much as a momentary depression of the national securities, which any body pretended to ascribe to this cause. Mr. Webster and other politicians made themselves hoarse with proclaiming the Union to be in danger, and many a merchant and broker echoed their words. But, at bottom, the merchants and brokers could not have believed a word of what was said, for they bought and sold United States five per cents, redeemable twenty years hence, on the selfsame terms as usual.

Even the newspapers which have been the most busy in getting up the panic essential to the foul business in hand, forget themselves now and then, and testify to that which is and has been just as much the truth when they have denied as when they admit it. Two papers are before us, of the day preceding that on which we write, the Courier and the Bee of September 5th, both of them Mr. Webster's special representatives in Boston. According to the Courier,

"After all, it seems that South Carolina is not united as one man in favor of a secession from the Union. There is not only a misgiving on the part of the 'chivalrous,' that the going out of the Union will not be going immediately into Paradise, but there exists, even in the city of Charleston, if we may believe the newspapers of that place, a pestilent band of 'Federalists,' the old name, by the way, is likely to

recover its old signification,

who are not up to the mark of treason and civil war, but, on the contrary, prefer peace and the Union."

It then copies a few periods from the Charleston Mercury, and refers to them as follows:

"No doubt it is 'a mortifying fact,' that there are men in Charleston who retain their understanding amid the general insanity of South Carolina, and we trust the mortification will have some effect in bringing those who are mortified to their senses. These indications certainly afford ground for a suspicion, that the public credulity has been abused by the representations of the unanimity of the people in that State in their anti-national spirit."

No doubt "the public credulity has been abused," very greatly abused, by such representations; and by whom more abused than by such prints as the Courier?

On the same day, the Bee, understood to be Mr. Webster's yet more peculiar organ, said:

"We find in our exchange papers published at the South much rejoicing at the success of the friends of the Compromise in the recent elections. With Union' for their battle-cry, and the stars and stripes' for their ensign, the friends of national harmony have triumphed gloriously. Secession has met with an inglorious defeat."

And again :

"In Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and other States where elections have been held, we are happy to see that party lines have given way, while party leaders (those drones in the political hive) have been repudiated. Whigs and Democrats, shoulder to shoulder, have marched with solid front against the advocates of secession, and have let the partisan appeals of self-elected State committees' fall unheeded upon their ears."

To be sure they have, and so they would have done at any time. To be sure there is and has been no danger to the Union whatever. Occasionally numbers of the people may follow their leaders in manifesting their discontent at some measure, and striking for better terms by a threat of disunion.

But that is all. It is the most harmless threat in the world. Make the issue seriously, and great majorities will always settle it rightly. But why could not the Bee, and its fellow panic-makers, always allow their readers to understand this? They would have done themselves more credit. And why will it artfully endeavor to do away the force of its admission, by representing, as it does, in the article from which we have quoted, the attachment of the Southern people to the Union as contingent on the proslavery action of the Free States?

We repeat, that beyond all question there are men of some prominence in the South who are sincere in clamoring for disunion. There are men of the class of Mr. Senator Rhett, with much warmth of temperament and fluency of speech, along with little head for calculating consequences. There are men of the class of Mr. Senator Davis, fond of the excitements of war, rabid from the taste of Mexican blood, and not unwilling to throw every thing into disorder for the chance of coming out of it with consequence and fame. Men of both these classes there have been in all republies, and it has been the task of cool

er heads, as it is now, to profit by their rashness in alarming an adverse party, and at the same time stand ready to put them down, before things proceed too far. The more cautious portion of these cooler persons take an early and decided stand against the vaporing of their neighbors, as Mr. Poinsett, Mr. Waddy Thompson, and Mr. Petigru have done in South Carolina. Others think the madcaps may be trusted with a little more rope before they are pulled in, and even share vigorously in their antics for a while, but retrace their own steps in reasonable season, like Mr. Butler and Mr. Burt. Very few would really desire to do any thing mischievous, if they could; and still fewer suppose that it would be possible, if they desired, to carry out their threats; if they did, they would be more chary of them.

We take it that nothing of the kind can be more certain, than that this alarm for the integrity of the Union was a matter of simple calculation on the part of those who got it up. It was a political stratagem. The transaction, stated nakedly, was this. The Slave Power jobbers said to their friends in Congress from the North, Why not let us have our way in this matter, as we have done heretofore? If you refuse, you see how much trouble we can give you. Not a man of you can expect the offices you are licking your lips for. As to places in the Cabinet, foreign missions, profitable consulships, and so on, (to say nothing of the Presidency,) dismiss the thought of all such things for your lives long, if you will not oblige us. We have the Senate in our hands, and with it the power of keeping you in that "private station" which politicians do not consider a "post of honor," whatever poets may. And as to your people at home, we have no Tariff for them on any other condition. To which the Northern jobbers, high and low, reply, Do not take us for fanatics.

We are no such thing. We are reasonable and practical men. As far as depends on us, we like your terms. Do as you please with the Territorial Proviso. Extend Slavery as much as you like. Make Pilgrim New England and the free West your slave-hunting ground, make our people your slave-catchers, and welcome, so far as we are concerned. But it is not entirely for us to say. Our people are not prepared for such moves, and will not sustain us in making them. A large portion of them are sincere in what they have constantly said about loving freedom for all mankind, and being particularly unwilling to be made slaves themselves. Nor will your bribe of a Protective Tariff be enough for them. For a great many care nothing about it, and of those who do care, a great many love Right and Liberty even better than gain. In short, it would ruin us with our constituents, if we should yield to your wishes.

Here is the problem. But wherever there is a strong will, there may generally be found a way. The parties talk the thing

We!

over, and at length the plan evolves itself from their anxious deliberations. The Southern contractors say, We have it. will give out that our people will overset the government and the Union, unless we are gratified. The thing will be ridiculous enough at first, and it will be hard for us to keep our countenances among our own people while we talk after this fashion. But the language, thanks to Mr. Calhoun, will not be altogether new, and that is one point gained. Practice will make perfect. Impudence is the great thing, and in that we are not deficient ; and, in short, we think we can act our part of the farce, if you will answer for yours. The plan is not very promising, say their Northern friends, but let us give it a trial. We shall be no worse off, if we fail. All will depend on yourselves. If we are to succeed, it must be by force of your putting on a very solemn air, and talking words like daggers. What we can do to help you, we will. We will protest that you are appallingly in earnest. We will assure our people that they must let you ride over them rough-shod, or else prepare for civil war. Some of them are easy and credulous, and will really believe us. Some, despite their tough lineage, are white-livered, and will be really frightened. Many are busy, and will not care to contradict. Not a few are longing for a Tariff or for treasury drippings, and both of those classes will lend us a helping hand. In one way and another we have some control over the professions and over the press. In short, we will do our best to aid you in getting up such a panic as will induce our people to consent that we shall yield to your wishes. We can but fail, after all. And if we should, perhaps you will still consider favorably the pains we have taken to serve you.

All this would have been premature while the election of 1848 was coming on. In the then existing state of the Northern mind, it would have played the mischief with that election. That election was scarcely over, when the operators went to work, the ostensible occasion being the Resolution of Mr. Gott, offered on the 21st of December. A meeting of the Southern members was called in the Capitol, to consider the exigency. was a failure, as it was probably expected to be. Still it was a beginning. Only about two thirds of the members from the Slaveholding States appeared. An address to the people of the Slaveholding States, prepared by Mr. Calhoun, was adopted by a vote of 42 to 17. It set forth the grievances of the Slave interest, and urged unanimity of sentiment in respect to them, but recommended no specific measures of oppugnation. Other addresses, still more moderate, were offered to the consideration of the meeting by Mr. Berrien and Mr. Cobb, both of Georgia. In the course of 1849, some of the Southern legislatures passed Resolutions expressive of their displeasure at the recent course of things at Washington. The legislature of Virginia request

ed the Governor to call it together, should Congress adopt the Wilmot Proviso, or act upon Slavery in the District, and the same recommendation was made by a Convention in South Carolina. The legislature of Mississippi proposed a convention of delegates from the Slaveholding States, in the same contingency. The Governors of Georgia and Alabama, in their annual messages, recommended that provision should be made for conventions of the people of those States, should Congress proceed to the legislation which was feared.

The public pulse had been felt. The enterprise appeared not entirely unpromising; and the campaign opened in earnest with the demonstration made in the correspondence between the Whig Mr. Clingman and the Democratic Mr. Foote, published in the Intelligencer at the opening of the Thirty-First Congress. We have already seen how things went on from that time. The debates assumed on the Slavery side the confident, and on the Northern side the temporizing tone, which belonged to the scheme. The Northern members broke the ice with their constituents by laying Mr. Root's Resolution on the table, on the 4th of February. Mr. Webster dived deeper on the 7th of March. The New York Union Meeting in Castle Garden (the first) gave in the adhesion of that heterogeneous city. The solemn preparation for the travail of the mountain at Nashville was not without its effect on weak nerves, destined though its fruit was to be a mouse of no terrible dimensions. The threat of Texas to make war upon the Union, though she had just been asking for a regiment or two to protect her from the Indians, was echoed in the tones of high Northern statesmanship, and disturbed the dreams of some. And so a sufficient number of the Northern members concluded that their constituents were prepared to forgive them, if they accommodated the Slave Power and Mr. Fillmore's administration, and passed those heinous bills by which the United States of America closed their record of the first half of the nineteenth century with the foulest crime in legislative history.