The Terrors of Submission
The Charleston Mercury,
October 11, 1860
A few days since we endeavored to show that the pictures of ruin and desolation
to the South, which the submissionists to Black Republican domination
were so continually drawing, to “fright us from our propriety,”
were unreal and false. We propose now to reverse the picture, and to
show what will probably be the consequences of a submission of the Southern
States, to the rule of Abolitionism at Washington, in the persons of
Messrs. LINCOLN and HAMLIN, should they be elected to the Presidency
and Vice-Presidency of the United States.1. The first effect of the
submission of the South, to the installation of Abolitionists in the
offices of President and Vice-President of the United States, must be
a powerful consolidation of the strength of the Abolition party at the
North. Success generally strengthens. If, after all the threats of resistance
and disunion, made in Congress and out of Congress, the Southern States
sink down into acquiescence, the demoralization of the South will be
complete. Add the patronage resulting from the control of ninety-four
thousand offices, and the expenditure of eighty millions of money annually,
and they must be irresistible in controlling the General Government.2.
To plunder the South for the benefit of the North, by a new Protective
Tariff, will be one of their first measures of Northern sectional dominion;
and, on the other hand, to exhaust the treasury by sectional schemes
of appropriation, will be a congenial policy.3. Immediate danger will
be brought to slavery, in all the Frontier States. When a party is enthroned
at Washington, in the Executive and Legislative departments of the Government,
whose creed it is, to repeal the Fugitive Slave Laws, the under-ground
railroad, will become an over-ground railroad. The tenure of
slave property will be felt to be weakened; and the slaves will be sent
down to the Cotton States for sale, and the Frontier States enter
on the policy of making themselves Free States.4. With the control
of the Government of the United States, and an organized and triumphant
North to sustain them, the Abolitionists will renew their operations
upon the South with increased courage. The thousands in every country,
who look up to power, and make gain out of the future, will come out
in support of the Abolition Government. The BROWNLOWS and BOTTS’,
in the South, will multiply. They will organize; and from being a Union
Party, to support an Abolition Government, they will become, like the
Government they support, Abolitionists. They will have an Abolition
Party in the South, of Southern men. The contest for slavery will no
longer be one between the North and the South. It will be in the South,
between the people of the South.5. If, in our present position of power
and unitedness, we have the raid of JOHN BROWN—and twenty towns
burned down in Texas in one year, by abolitionists—what will be
the measures of insurrection and incendiarism, which must follow our
notorious and abject prostration to Abolition rule at Washington, with
all the patronage of the Federal Government, and a Union organization
in the South to support it?
Secret conspiracy, and its attendant horrors, with rumors of horrors, will
hover over every portion of the South; while, in the language of the Black
Republican patriarch—GIDDINCS—they “will laugh at your calamities,
and mock when your fear cometh.”
6. Already there is uneasiness throughout the South, as to the stability
of its institution of slavery. But with a submission to the rule of
Abolitionists at Washington, thousands of slaveholders will despair
of the institution. While the condition of things in the Frontier States
will force their slaves on the markets of the Cotton States, the timid
in the Cotton States, will also sell their slaves. The general distrust,
must affect purchasers. The consequence must be, slave property must
be greatly depreciated. We see advertisements for the sale of slaves
in some of the Cotton States, for the simple object of getting rid of
them; and we know that standing orders for the purchase of slaves in
this market have been withdrawn, on account of an anticipated decline
of value from the political condition of the country.7. We suppose,
that taking in view all these things, it is not extravagant to estimate,
that the submission of the South to the administration of the Federal
Government under Messrs. LINCOLN and HAMLIN, must reduce the value of
slaves in the South, one hundred dollars each. It is computed that there
are four millions, three hundred thousand, slaves in the United States.
Here, therefore, is a loss to the Southern people of four hundred and
thirty millions of dollars, on their slaves alone. Of course, real estate
of all kinds must partake also in the depreciation of slaves.8. Slave
property is the foundation of all property in the South. When security
in this is shaken, all other property partakes of its instability. Banks,
stocks, bonds, must be influenced. Timid men will sell out and leave
the South. Confusion, distrust and pressure must reign.9. Before Messrs.
LINCOLN and HAMLIN can be installed in Washington, as President and
Vice-President of the United States, the Southern States can dissolve
peaceably (we know what we say) their Union with the North. Mr. LINCOLN
and his Abolition cohorts, will have no South to reign over. Their game
would be blocked. The foundation of their organization would be taken
away; and, left to the tender mercies of a baffled, furious and troubled
North, they would be cursed and crushed, as the flagitious cause of
the disasters around them. But if we submit, and do not dissolve our
union with the North, we make the triumph of our Abolition enemies complete,
and enable them to consolidate and wield the power of the North, for
our destruction.10. If the South once submits to the rule of Abolitionists
by the General Government, there is, probably, an end of all peaceful
separation of the Union. We can only escape the ruin they meditate for
the South, by war. Armed with the power of the General Government, and
their organizations at the North, they will have no respect for our
courage or energy, and they will use the sword for .our subjection.
If there is any man in the South who believes that we must separate
from the North, we appeal to his humanity, in case Mr. LINCOLN is elected,
to dissolve our connection with the North, before the 4th of March next.11.
The ruin of the South, by the emancipation of her slaves, is not like
the ruin of any other people. It is not a mere loss of liberty, like
the Italians under the BOURBONS. It is not heavy taxation, which must
still leave the means of living, or otherwise taxation defeats itself.
But it is the loss of liberty, property, home, country—everything
that makes life worth having. And this loss will probably take place
under circumstances of suffering and horror, unsurpassed in the history
of nations. We must preserve our liberties and institutions, under penalties
greater than those which impend over any people in the world.12. Lastly,
we conclude this brief statement of the terrors of submission, by declaring,
that in our opinion, they are ten-fold greater even than the supposed
terrors of disunion.
