ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM, INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE. TO W ATS" DA : Qamrtuin fllovninn. September 1. 1855. Selects HE A VEN. " By night T saw an angel in a dream. And tims I questioned it concerning heaven." L'.>>k down blest soul from thy realms of light, And t'-I! mo how did-t wing thy flight, To the world of soul, from the world of clay, \i d s y v j i.stifc'i tiiee from earth away ? Was it a voice which said " Depart!" While Death's cold hand was on thy heart? Or didst thou go less suddenly, To life and immortality ? What brings met thee on the road. When thou didst wing thy way to God ? Did angels pure—did seraphs meek. Lead thee to heaven, that thou didst seek ? Did they deck thy bodiless form with a cloud ? Or with mist which encircles the moon as a shroud? I or with the rainbow's fire, To dazzle the stars with thy bright attire? ■ Did they greet thee with love ? sweet spirit, say ! Or open in silence, the gates of day ? Did they lull thee to rest, or wake thee to song, When thou wert borne on their wings along? While caged in thy clayey form below, of heavenly glory what couldst thou know ? Hat now thou art gone, angelic soul, To the realms long sought—the wished-for goal, 1 prey thee, speak softly in mine ear. Oh, where is thy home in that radiant sphere ? Is it beneath the glorious throne, V, iii-re God sits night and day alone ? RAnil there, and tiiee, d >e-> it behove To -ing His praise, and chant His love ■ Or 'mong.-t the stars, say. dost thou sL.oe, A ■ one ot them, or more divine ? 'Mai the - .n's radiance dost Lhou dwell? Or does a moonbeam suit thee wt 11 T trav, 1 oast, or to tr ,vel we t, As it st beseems a sv'rlf > lest ? T pierce the ocean—gaze beneath, or skim the snowy in ■ intaiu's breath ? Or watcher oi the earth art tiion ; A holy one. upon whose brow sits calm resolve aud firm intent, To do Hi- will—His instrument— one of those ministering spirits who < in .-earch all nature through and through? ' I am. I am !" the angel said, " And wt 1 thou hast my mission read. 1! i. mortal, question me no more ; W h it though my fervent spirit soar. And thou wouldst fain Inquire of me < >f all my spirit's ecstuey. And where my heavenly home I keep ; Or in what realms of bliss I .-teop AD -pirit's wing; enough li kn sv That heavenly vice whii h bid m< i;\ w ; Wbi'-h called me from flit earth away, 1 the same voice 1 n ov ! cy. Wh< n first the ' 1c- > d call I be .:■<! 1 hit a- st rat ilcb-ht. u ' Returning home, and now i by T.irough earth, thrum h air. or thr t the ky ; And when is heard tele tiai so uni, The people of the skies look round, D itii haste and speed t<> do His will ; Nor rest on tardy wing until All is ftillillcd ; and it is this Obedience which with us is bliss ; It makes the heaven where we do dwell. Nor is it phirc or magic spell, Which is our happiness. Oh, no! All places whercso'er we go. Are full <ii God ; nay, everywhere We feel His presence and liis care ; And this is it which makes us ilc<t. For this is heaven, and this is rest!"' stltdcb Sfecttjr. [From the National Magazine for August.] j PETER CARTWRIGHT, THE BACKWOODS PREACHER. Me once gave a sketch of Petf.r Cart- I right iii these pages. It would be unpurdona ic lo omit the adventures of such u character mil this class of "jottings j" we must then call itii again into your presence, " courteous read- j ■. even if we should repeat .some of his stories , Iready told. He appears broken with years and labors, i ml you perceive some paralytic tremblings in i -attitude and voice ; but there is nevcrthe- a general aspect of strenuous vigor about j He look - a if he might yet wrestle with ! ar< and come off conqueror, as we learn he ' '■' ;, !!y has heretofore. He is war-worn and : ' iiilier-lieaten. His complexion is bilious,the j fb-guun nts of his face wrinkled and tough,his ! 1 - -iimll and twinkling, and defended by a ; pair ol spectacles with greeu side glasses, ! ' nw °th compact and full of force, his head j and round, his forehead deeply indented, b.il Ins hair—there is no description of that ; "h- as if he had poked it into the bag of ' Kilkenny eats, and had not had time to " u "> it since its extrication. And yet do not there is any fierceness about his caput. .' u-rilv ; a face more finely characterized .V' k r °o<l nature and gallant generosity is not ' * >een. Should wc attempt an intellectn ' l'!' 1 trait of Peter Cartwright, we should sum '•"tii say that he is characterized by good and good humor. We know not "that we * r ' K'tter describe him. lie strikes right ot _ '.Djf-ot before him, and never fails to hit it ; alms that characteristic of the highest kC "Pi Drovity, sententiousness. Wc never tha- W f s st'P t ' '"General Conference mor- •De minutes at once. His humor is al , -poutuneons—always ready. I r som< ;' ' cu ts sharply, but is usually gcuial aud , L "' rou ri h'-ving rather than * exasperating Dumor is a rare excellence, but it . • u !,IS ' v *hiablc chiefly for its rare- Wn ,' i"trins.eally valuable. It should far,.*' severc ty grinned at, with elongated gi.. a '"l.. eV( ' n ecclesiastical bodies ; it often ' x '"iarating sunlight among lower 'il l ? dweorj, Twd sometime dispels -"tloF , es '" fil,ite ly more tlian thestrong ''r t ' ic loudest rhetoric to remove ol ed sto husiuess. Still, a man of combin ferV,y. M ,' USC a "d K°°d huinor is liable to suf tttfp ls P ar agement. Our poor human na self-eomplimenting propensi < of a npcrior man with a qualify- iug " but," the import of which is, that though he excels us in some things, we can sec in him defects wc have not ourselves. He- has im agination, " but," he has not much sense ; he has humor, " but,' he has not much logic.— Much of this kind of twaddle is sheer fudge, and something worse. Peter Cartwright is uot mere a man of humor, but of genuine sagacity ; woe be to him that attempts to circumvent him in debate. If some of his short sayings were divested of their humor, and spoken by a grave mau, they would pass for unique utterances of wisdom ; as they are, they pass for pertinent jokes—happy hits. Peter Cartwright is a " Doctor of Divinity." Good old George Pick ering, when asked once if the Methodists had | any Doctors of Divinity, replied, "No, sir, we don't need them ; our divinity litis nut yet be come sick." Those healthful days seem, however, to have passed, if we may judge from the ample provi sions made lor theological medication among u.-5 now-a-days. Some college in the West deemed Peter Cartwright too know ing in the I Materia Medica, or too skilful with the scalpel, ! ! to die untitled, and, therefore, dubbed him I). | I I). \\ e know not that he pretends to encv j clopedic erudition, or is more skilful than some j ! other doctors we are acquainted with in the j 1 learned languages-—a knowledge of which is : ; usually pre . supposed in giving that title ; the j 1 only learned quotation we ever heard from him i was in respect to a matter of business, which i seemed to be beyond the reach of his brethren ; j if was, said he, "in swampus non-comatibus." i The learned doctors around liiin smiled verv! eognizautly, as they usually do at college coin- j m< neements. when a Latin phrase is quoted \ whi:;ii, tnougn uuiuintciiigibie to the vulgar! throng, is ;:.v, is remarkably striking to ■ them. His fellow-soldier in the West, James B. ! Finley gives the following further account of j hm. <>i wineli we gave an extract once, but ! now give it fail} " Inline: \vu ue gathering at the Metho-1 dist cgmp-ground near Springfield, oa the see <*W Sunday of 8 r, rlwf. A pbwerfh!' magic had attracted tills great mass of peo- ' !■■■ ' fr< n th ir homes in many comities a hun dred milo round. The new presiding eider, a lab- ar.vid from Kentucky, an orator of wide spread, wonderful renown, it was known, would thunder on that day. The prestige of his fame had lightened before him, and hence the uni versal eagerness to listen to one concerning whom rumor's truuipet-tougue discoursed so loudly. " Morning broke in the azure east, bright and beautiful as a dream of heaven ; but the cx-prodi_ry had not made his advent. Eleven o'clock cu.ic—: ,e regular hour of the detona tion of tin- h :.vy guu of orthodoxy—and still there was no news of the clerical lion. A com mon circuit pre elmr took his place; and sensi ble ot tit. popular disappointment, increased it by inouf.iin _ a miserable failure. The vexed and restle-s crowd began to disperse, when an event happ: in d to excite afresh their curiosity and concentrate them again denser than ever. A messenger rushed to the pulpit in hot haste, and presented a note, which was immediately read out to prevent the people from scattering. Hit- following is a literal copy of that singular epistle; DEAR BRF.THRF.X : The devil lias founder id my horse, which will detain me from reach ing your tabernacle till evening. I might have performed the journey on foot; but I could not leave poor Paul, especially as he has ne ver left Peter. Horses have no souls to save, and, therefore, it is all the more the duty of Christians to take careof their bodies. Watch and pray, and don't let thedevil get iinioinj- von on the sly before candle-light, when 1 shall be at my post. Y our brother, I * i". rkr C vrtwhi i ; iit ." " At length the day closed. The purple cur tain of night fell over the earth from the dark ening sky. God's golden lire flashed out in heaven, and men below kindled their watch fires. Ihe encampment, a village of snowy tents, was illuminated with a brilliancy that caused every leaf to shine and sparkle as if all the trees were burnished with phosphorescent flame. It was like a theatre. It was a thea tre in the open air, on the green sward, be neath the starry blue, incomparably more pic- ■ turcsqne and gorgeous than any stage sccnerv, ! prepared within walls of brick or marble, where I the elite of cities throng to feast their eyes on i beauty and their ears on music. " Presently a form arose in the pulpit, and commenced giving out a hymn, preliminary to the main exercises, and every eye became rivet-j ed to the person of the stranger. Indeed, as some one said of Burke, a single flash of the gazer's vision was enough to reveal the extra ordinary man, although in the present case, it must, for the sake of truth, be acknowledged that the first impression was ambiguous, if not enigmatical and disagreeable. His figure was tall, burly, massive, and seemed even more gi gantic than the reality from the crowning foli age of luxuriant, coal-black hair, wreathed into long, curling ringlets. Add a head that look ed as large as a half-bushel ; beetling brows, rough and craggy as fragmentary granite, ir rudiatt-d at the base by eyes of dark lire ; small and twinkling like diamonds in a sea— they were diamonds of the soul, shining in a measureless sea of huinor—a swarthy com plexion, as if embrowned by a southern sun ; rich, rosy lips, alway slightly parted, as wear ing a perpetual siniic : and you have a life like' portrait of the far-lamed back wood.- prea cher. "Though I heard it all, from the text to the amen, I am forced to despair of anv attempt to couvey an accurate idea of cither the substance or manner of the sermon which fuiiowed. There are dilYeront sorts oi sermon*—the argumeu tary, the dogmatic, the post alary, the persua .-.ive, the punitive, the combative, "in orthodox uiov,. and knocks," the logical, a.iu the poetic; but this specimen belonged to none of these categories. It was swi generis, and of a new species. " He began with a loud and beautifully mo dulated tone, in a voice that rolled on the se rene nigh Lair like successive peals of thunder. Method) t ministers ore celebrated for sonorous PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT TOWANDA, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA., BY E. O'MEARA GOODRICH. voices ; but his was matchless in sweetness as well as power. For the first ten minutes his remarks, being preparatory, were common-place and uninteresting ; but then, all of a sudden, his face reddened, his eye brightened, his ges tures grew animated as'the wafturesof a torch, and his whole countenance changed into an ex pression of inimitable humor ; and now his wild, waggish, peculiar eloquence poured forth like a mountain torrent. Glancing arrows, with shalts of ridicule, bonmots, puns, and side splitting anecdotes sparkled, flashed, and flew like hail till the vast auditory was convulsed | with laughter. For a while the more ascetic I strove to resist the current of their own spon i taneous emotions. These, however, soon dis j covered that they had undertaken an impossi ble achievement in thinking to withstand his | facitie. His every sentence was like a warm linger, tickling the ribs of the hearer. His j verv looks incited to mirth far more than other | people's jokes, so that the effort to maintain i one's equilibrium only increased the disposition to burst into loud explosions, as every school boy has verified in similar cases. At length the encampment was in a roar, the sternest fea tures relaxed into smiles, and the coldest eyes : melted into tears of irrepressible merriment.— This continued thirty minutes, while the orator j painted the folly of" the sinner, which was his j theme. I looked on and laughed with the rest, but finally began to fear the result as to the speaker. How," I exclaimed, mentally, " will he ever be able to extricate his audience from that deep whirlpool of humor ? If he ends thus, when the merry mood subsides, and calm re flection supervenes, will not the revulsion of feeling be deadly to his fame ? Will not every hearer realize that he has been trifled with in matters of sacred and eternal interests ? At all events, there is no prospect of a revi val to-night ; for though the orator were a I magician, he could uot change his subject now, and stem the torrent of head-long laugh ter." j " But the shaft of my inference fell short of me mark : and even then he commenced to , change, not all at once but gradually, as the i wind of a thunder-cloud. His features lost their rom.cal tinge of pleasantry ; his voice j grew first earnest, and then solemn, and soon wailed out in the tones of deepest pathos ; his j eyes were shorn of their mild light, and yielded I streams oi tears, as the fountain of the hill ( yielded water. The effect was indescribable, j and the rebound of feeling beyond all coucep- i tion. lie descanted on the horrors of hell till every shuddering face was turned downward, ' as d expecting to see the solid globe rent asun der, and the fathomless fiery gulf yawn from ; beneath. Brave men moaned, and fair, fash ionable women, covered with silken drapery and bedight with gents, shrieked as if a knife ' were working among their heart-strings. " Again he changed the theme ; sketched the joys of a righteous death—its faith, its hope, its winged raptures, and angels at tending the spirit to its starry home—with such force, great and evident belief, that all eyes were turned toward heaven, and the en tire congregation started to their feet, as if to hail the vision of angels at which the'fin ger of the preacher seemed to be pointed, ele vated as it was on high to the full length of his arm. " He then made a call for mourners into the altar, and live hundred, many of them till that night infidels, rushed forward and prostrated themselves on their knees. The meeting was continued for two weeks, and more than a thou sand converts were added to the church. From that time his success was unparalleled, and the fact is chiefly due to his inimitable wit and mas terly eloquence that Methodism is now the pre vailing religion in Illinois. " lie was distinguished by one very uncleri cal peculiarity—combutiveness. Ills battles, although always apparently in the defensive, were as numerous as the celebrated Bowie.— The only difference was this, thai Bowie fought with deadly weapons, while the itinerant used but his enormous fist, which was as effective, ' however, in the speedy settlement of belligerent ! issues as any knife or pistol ever forged out of steel. Let the reader judge from the following ! anecdote : " At the camp-meeting held at Alton, in the ! autumn of 18ho, the worshippers were aunoyed by a sot ol desperadoes from St. Louis, under the control of Mike Fink, a notorious bully.the ! triumphant hero of countless lights, in none of j which he had ever met an equal, or even set-! ond. The coarse, drunken ruffians carried it : with a high hand, outraged the men and insul-! ted the women, so as to threateu the uissolu- ' tion of all pious exercises ; and yet such was , the terror the name of their leader, Fink, in- i spired, that no one could be found brave enough to face his prowess. "At last, one day, when Cart wright ascend ed the pulpit to hold forth, the desperadoes, on the outskirts of the encampment, raised a yell so deafening as to drown utterly every other ' sound. The preacher's dark eyes shot lightning. : lie deposited his Bible, drew off his coat, and remarked aloud : " Wait for a few minutes, inv brethren, while I go and make the devil pray." " He then proceeded with a smile on his lips to the focus of the tumult, and addressed the chief bully— "Mr. Fink, 1 have come to make yon pray." " The desperado rubbed back the tangled festoons of his blood-red hair, arched his huge brows with a comical expression, and re plied— • By golly, I'd like to see you do it, old snor ter." '• Very well," said Cartwright; " will these, g utiemen, your courteous friends, agree not to -how foid play ?" "In course they will. They're rale grit, and would n't do nothiu' but the clear thing, so they won't," rejoiued Fink, indignantly. " Are you ready ?" asked the preacher. " Heady as a race-boss with a light rider," answered Fink, squaring his ponderous person for the combat. "The bully spoke too soon ; for scarcely bad the words left his lips wbeu C'artwright made a prodigious bound tow ard* bis autago " RESARDLESS OF DENUNCIATION FROM ANY QUARTER." nist, and accompanied it with a quick, shoot ing punch of his herculean fist, which fell, crashing the other's coin, aud hurried him to the earth like lead. Then, even his intoxica ted comrades, filled with involuntary admira tion at the feat, gave a cheer. But Fink was up in a moment, aud rushed upon his enemy, exclaiming : "That warn't done fair, so it warn't." " He aimed a ferocious stroke, which the preacher parried with his left hand, and, grasp ing his throat with the right, crushed liiin down as if he had been an infant. Fink struggled squirmed, and writhed in the dust, but all to no purpose ; for the strong, muscular fingers held his windpipe as in the jaws of au iron vice. When he began to turn purple in the face, and ceased to resist, Mr. Cartwright slackened his hold and inquired— " Will you pray now ?" " I doesn't know a word how,"easped Fink " Repeat after me." "Well, if I must, I must," answered Fink "because you're the devil himself. " The preacher then said over the Lord's prayer, line by line, and the conquered bull? responded in the same way, when the victor permitted him to rise. " At the consummation the rowdies roared three boisterous clmers, and Fink shook Cart wright by the hand, declaring— " By golly, you're some beans in a bar-fight. Id rather set-to with an old he-bar in dog-dnys. j You can pass this 'ore crowd of nose-smashers, I blast your picfur' !" Afterward Fink's party behaved with ex- ! treme decorum and the preacher resumed the ' Bible and puipit. An odd^ scene that, certainly j and " not verv i apostolic," say you, sober reader. We join you j in the remark but it is characteristic, as'we said in another case. We give it as a fact from old friend Fin-' 1 ley li I act that illustrates not only the charac-! ter of the inan, but of the country and its-early i times. " Circumstances alter cases," is a popu-! lur proverb in the West, as well as elsewhere ; I and even good men are heard, occasionally, to affirm out there, that Lynch law is better "than no law. Mr. Bungay, in his volume of " Off-hand Takings of Noticeable Men of our Age," says that he heard Peter, at Boston, during the last General Conference of the Methodist Epis top.ii Church, ami thus describes the occasion : " The great western preacher has arrived, and is now searching the well-thumbed Bible for his text. Quite a number of distinguished divines are present. The preacher looks like a backwoodsman, whose face had been bronzed at the plough. His black hair, straggling se ven ways for Sunday, is slightly tinged with the frost of age. A strip of black silk is twis ted around his neck, and a shirt collar, scrupu lously clean, is turned down over it. He is of ordinary size, dresses plainly, and looks like a man perfectly free from affectation. In a fal tering voice he reads a hymn. The choir wed the words to sweet and solemn music—a fer vent prayer goes up on the wings of faith—un o'her hymn is read and sung—the 12th verse of the 11th chapter of Matthew is selected for his text. Now the old pioneer preacher, who j has waded swamps, forded rivers, threaded for-! ests, travelled with Indians, fought with bears ' and wolves, preached in the woods, and slept in the field or the prairie at night, is standing | before us. Look at him, ye gentlemen with i white neckcloths and black coats, who ride in carriages over smooth roads to supply churches with cushioned pews and soft benches to kneel on. How would you like to labor for nothing among wild beasts, and hoard yourselves, in a climate where the ague shakes the settlers over the grave two thirds of the year ! Would yon exchange your fat livings, and fine palaces,aud unread libraries, for black bread and dry veni son, a log hut and the society of bears and blue racers? God bless the brave, wise and good men to whom we are so much indebted for the blessings we enjoy. He says lie would make an apology if lie thought it would enable him to preach better, for he is afflicted with a severe cold. " Some folks," said he, " say lam fifty years behind the age. God knows," he continued, " I am willing to be a thousand be hind such an age. Religion is always of age, and can talk or run without stilts or silver slippers." He concluded an able aud inten st ing discourse, which elicited undivided atten tion, with the following fact; " During a splen did revival of religion at the West, a young preacher, manufactured in one of the theolo gical shops out li<Tc, came to lend a helping hand. 1 knew lie could not handle Methodist's tools without cu't"i r his fingers, but he was very oUkious. Wi, \v liad a gale—a jtontc eostul gale—aud s.IINTTS fell without looking for a soft place, and Christians fought the de vil on their knees. Well, this little man would tell those who were groaning under conviction to be composed. I stood this as long as 1 could, and finally sent him to speak with a great, stout, athletic man, who was bellowing like a bull in a net, while I tried to undo the mischief he had done to others. He told this powerful man to lie composed, but I told him to pray like thunder just at that instant the grace of God shown in upoif his soul, and he was mj delirious with delight, he seized the lit tle man in his bonds, and holding hint up, bounded like it buck through the congregation." It is impossible for the pen to do justice to this fact. The speaker moved us all to tears and smiles at the same moment, while he said what j lew men would venture to say." While he was preaching, years rgo, General i Jackson entered the church, when a pastor ! seated in the pulpit gave his " la-other Cart wright" a nudge, and wispered that the old he- I ro had just come in—as much as to advise, ' " Now be particular in what you say." But! Peter, to the great astonishment of every one, i louder than ever, exclaimed—" Who cares for | General Jackson ? He'll go to hell assooua-s | anybody, if he doesn't repent!" When the sermon—a home-made one—was ended, a friend asked the general what he thonght of that rongh old fellow, and received for answer, "Sir. give me twenty thousand of such men, aud I'll whip the world, including the ueril !" It is quite possible, brother reader, that your and our notions might not quite agree with the general's, yet, neither of us can fail to see iti this eccentric, but veteran evangelist, the inan of his times and his circumstances. And you, dear sir, starched, and brushed and perfumed, who now recline in the stuffed arm-chair of your garnished study, wondering why the world should take any interest in such a specimen of humanity—what kind of a specimen would you have been ? what would you have done in the rough battles through which this weather-worn but jolly-hearted old man has borne the stand ard uf the cross—borne it with a brawn? but ever faithful arm? God bless the old man, with all his oddities ; uud may he yet fight his way iuto heaven. Peter Cartwright joined the "old Western Conference" in 1805, though he began to travel a year earlier, we believe. He was a voting man—only about eighteen years old—when he entered the itinerant field, and lie has been in its foremost struggles ever since. The "old Western Conference" was in that day the only one beyond the A lleghenies. It extended from Detroit to Natchez, and each of its districts comprised a territory about equal to two of the present conferences beyond the mountains— Those were the days of great moral battles in that vast field ; and the men who fought them j were made great, some of them gigantically so, j by their circumstances. Among them were ! Young. Walker, Shinn, M'Kendree, Burke, j Lakin, Blackmail, Quinn, and similar might? j men. Cartwright began his regular travel's | with Lakin on .Salt River Circuit—(save the i name !) Most of ins fellow-heroes have gone I to their rest ; but they gained the field, and j fortified their cause all over it. They, in fact, laid the moral foundations of our ultra-montane States. The few remnants of the old corps should be cherished and honored bv their! Church. COL. P.LNTOX'S HISTORY.! THE XOUTII .1XI) THE SOUTH-CO MPAJIA- [ UIVE I'ROSPEIifTY—SOUTHER X DISC OX i TE.\ I—ITS TRUE CA USE. , AXSO ISJs—MJ:. VAN bcken, rKKsa-isr. To show the working of the federal govern- t meat is the design of this \ iew—-how how i tilings are done under it and their effects—that the good may be approved and pursued, the evil condemned and avoided, and the machine of government be made to work equally for the benefit of the whole Union, according to the wise and beneficent intent of its founders. It thus becomes necessary to show its working in the two great Atlantic sections, originallv sole parties to the Union—the North and the South —complained of for many years on one part us unequal and oppressive, and made so by a course of federal legislation at variance with! the objects of the confederation and contrary J to the intent of the words of the constitution, i The writer of this view sympathized with that complaint--believed it "to be, to mncli extent, well-founded—saw with concern the corroding effect it had on the feelings of pa triotic men of the South ; and often had to lament that a sense of duty to his own con stituents required him to give votes which his judgment disapproved and his feelings condemn ed. 'Litis complaint existed when lie came into the Senate*; it had in fact commenced in the iirst years of the federal government, at the time of the assumption of the state debts, the incorporation of the first national bank, and the adoption of the funding system—all of which drew capital from the South to North. It continued to increase ; and, at the period to which this chapter relates, it had reached the stage of an organized sectional expression in a voluntary convention of the southern states.— It had often been expressed in Congress and in tlie state legislatures, and habitually in the discussion of the people ; but now it took the more serious form of joint action, and exhibited the spectacle of a part of the states assembling seetionally to complain formally of the unequal, and to them, injurious operation of the common government, established by common consent for the common good ; and now frustrating its objects by departing from the purposes of its creation. The convention was railed commercial and properly, as the grievance complained of was in its root commercial and a remedy was proposed. It met at Augusta, Georgia, and afterwards at. Charleston, South Carolina, and the evil complained of, and the remedy proposed, wen strongly set forth in the proceedings of the body, and in addresses to the people of the southern and southwestern states. The changed relative condition of the two sections of tin country, bclbie and since the Union, was shown in their general relative depression or prosperity since that event ; and especially in the reversed condition of their respective foreign import trade. In the colonial condition the compari son was wholly in favor of the South : under the Union, wholly against it. Thus, in the year lTtiO—only sixteen years before the Declaration of Independence—the foreign imports into Virginia were JB8.">0,000 sterling, and into South Carolina Cob"), 000 ; while into New York they were only .£1 K'o,ooo ; int > Pennsylvania, €lOO,OOO nud into all the New England colonies collectively, onlv £061.000. I'll esc figures exhibit ail immense superiority of commercial prosperity 011 the .side of the South in its colonial state, sadly eonstrnsUug with another set of figures exhibited by the convention to show its relative condition within a few years after the union. Thus, in the year the imports into New York had risen to sj:ijKlO,oo<>, being about seventy times its colonial import at about an equal period before the adoption of the eonstitutiou ; aud those of South Carolina stood at $0,000,000 —which, for all practical purposes, may be considered the same that they were iu 17*50. Such was the difference—the reversed condi tions—of the two sections worked between theui in the brief space of two generations— within the actual lifetime of some who had seen their colonial conditions. The proceedings of the couventiou did uot stop there, but brought down the comparison (under this com mcreial aspect.) to near the period of its own VOL. XVI. —XO. sitting>—to tlwj actual pori(Kl of the highest manifestation of southern discontent in 1832, when it produced the enactment of the South Uaroliua nullifying ordinance. At that tiino nil the disproportions between the foreign commerce of the two sections had inordinately increased. The New Yoik im| urts (since 1821) had more than doubled ; the Virginia had fallen off oae-iialf ; South Carolina two thirds. The actual figures stood : New York, fifty-sevcu millions—Virginia half a million- South Carolia one iniilion and a quarter. This was a disheartening view, and rendered more grievous by the certainty of its continua tion, the prospect of its aggregation, and the conviction thut the South (in its great staples) furnished the basis for these imports, of which it received so small a share. To this loss of its import trade, and its transfer to the North, the convention attributed, as a primary cause, the reversed conditions of the two sections— j the great advance of one is wealth and iin- I provements—the slow progress, and even com parative decline of the other ; and, with some allowance for the operation of natural or inherent causes, referred the effect to a course of federal legislation unwarranted by the grants of the constitution and the objects of the Union, which substraeted capital from one section and | accumulated it in the other. Protective tariff', : internal improvement, pensions, national debt| I two national banks, the funding system aid I the paper system, the multiplication of offices, j profuse and extravagunt expenditures, the i conversion of u limited iuto an almost unlirait i ed government ; and the substitution of power and splendor for what was intended to be a | simple and economical administration of that part of tliesr ufluiis which required a general head. 'lliese were the points of complaint, and which had led to the collection of an enormous revenue—-chiefly levied on the products of one section of the L rv.on, and mainly disbursed in another. So far as northern advantages were the result of fair legislation for the accomplish ment ol the objects of the Union, all discontent or complaint was disclaimed. Ail knew that the Mipcr.or advantages of the North for navi gation would give it the udvantage in foreign commerce : but it was not expected that these advantages would operate a monopoly on one side and an extinction on the other ; nor was that consequence allowed to be the effect of these advantages alone, but were charged to a course of lcgi-huiou not warranted by the objects of the Union, or the terms of the con stitution which created it. To this course of legislation was attributed the accumulation of capital in the North which had enabled that section to monopolize the foreign commerce which was lounded upon southern exjnjrts—to cover one part with wealth while the other wu.s impoverished— and to make the South tri butaries to the North, and suppliant to it for a small part of the fruits of their own labor. U nliuppily. there was no foundation for this view of the ease, and in this lies the r.ot of the discontent of the South uud it s dissatisfac tion with the Union, although it may break oat upon another point. It is in this 'belief of an incompatibility of interest, from the perver ted working of the federal government, that lies the root of southern discontent, and which constitutes the danger to the Union, and which statesmen should confront and grapple with ; and not iu any danger to slave property,which has continued to aggrandize in value during the whole period of the cry of danger, oud is now of greater price than ever was known be fore, an 1 such us our ancestors would hate deemed fabulous. The sagacious Mr. Madison knew this—knew where the danger to tha Un ion lay, when, in the 86th year of his age, and the last of his life, and under the anguish of painful misgivings he wrote, (what is more fill-' iy set out in the | revious volume of this work,) these portentous words : ' The visible susceptibility to the contagion of nullifica tion in t'u southern states—the sympathy arising from known cause :—ami the inculcstfil impression of u perina r.ent incompatibility of interest between the Sorth anel the .South—may put it in the power of popular leaders, aspir ins to the highest stations, to unite the South on some criti cal occasion in some einirse of action of which nullification may be He fist step, secession the second, and a farewell irparation the let t.'" So viewed the evil, aud in his last days, tha xreat .surviving founder of the Union, seeing as he did in this inculcated impression of a per manent incompatibility of interest between the two sections, the fulcrum or point of support on which disunion could rest its lever, and par ricidal hands build its schemes. What has been published it) the South, and adverted to in tiiis view, goes to show that an incompati bility of interest between tho two soctious, though not inherent, has been produced by the working of the government—not its fair and legitimate, but its perverted aud unequal work ing. Tnis is tho evil which statesmen should see and provide against. Separation is no remedy. Exclusion ol nor. hern vessels from southern ports is no remedy, but is disunion itself, uud upon the very pn : ut which caused the Union to be formed. R -gulation of commerce be tween the states and with foreign nations was the cause of the formation of the Union.— Break that regulation, anil the Union is bro ken, and the broken parts converted into an tagonist nations, with causes enough of dissen sion to cng-mdor perpetual waves and intlame incessant animo.-it Vs. The remedy lies in the right working of the constitution—:u the ces sation of unequal legislation—in the reduction of the inordinate expo uses of the government— in it- return to the simple, limited and econo mical machine it was intended to he ; and in the revival oi' fraternal feelings and respcet for each other .- rights and just complaints, which would return of themselves when the real cause of discontent was removed. Tiic conventions of Augusta and ('harlcslon proposed their remedy for the southern depres sion aud the comparative decay of which they complained : it was a fair atul patriotic rcuio lv—that of becoming their own exporters,and opentug a direct trade in their own staples be tween southern and foreign ports. It was re commended —attempted —failed. Superior ad vantages for navigation in the North—greater aptitude of its people for commerce—establish ed cour e of bur-incf.?—accumulated capital -
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