not agree to secede for that cause; but if such a President were elected a second time, or if Congress passed another tariff, then he believed that they would. But it seems from more recent revelations that the disunionists are not so patient as he supposed them to be. The two leading Democratic organs of Louisiana and Mississippi have lately warned the people of those States that in "all human probability" the Republicans would elect the next President, and, as disunion was the proper necessary consequence of that event, urged the selection of such men as candidates as would be best qualified to accomplish that object. Last year there was publicly organized in Alabama what is termed the 'Southern League," having disunion for its undisguised object. A Democratic paper published in Mobile announces that at a recent conference of leading men of the party, it was resolved that the attempt at disunion should be vigorously pushed on at once. Still more recently we have the action of the Southern Convention held in Mississippi. There all disguise has been thrown aside. In the event of the Republican party electing its candidate at the next Presidential election, the convention recommends measures to prevent the installation of the Republican President by forcibly retaining power in the hands of the present Administration, or failing in that, to sever the slaveholding States into a separate confederacy.

Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, a leading Democratic representative, in a letter written and published within the last few weeks, says: "It is but too probable that a hostile sectional party North will soon acquire possession of the Government. In that event the South should not remain a moment longer in the Union. Then I go for Southern independence at all hazards.”

While these notes of preparation on the part of disunionists are so distinctly audible, will not the people of Kentucky and Tennessee be aroused to a proper sense of their danger? In voting for Governors, legislators, and members of Congress, will they not select men most reliable for counteracting the project and preserving the Union? It is said that some Democratic candidates, while confessing danger to the Union, are urging the people of Kentucky and Tennessee to intrust its preservation to their party, because, as they say, theirs is the only party having the power to preserve it. With more propriety it might be said,

theirs is the only party having power coupled with the inclination to destroy the Union. Its members have control of at least six disunion States, and obtained that control because they are disunionists. The proposition of these Democratic candidates is in effect nothing but an insulting threat. As the danger all proceeds from members of that party, it is saying to the people, let our party continue to rule or it will ruin you. Let the party continue to rob and waste your treasure in paying its venal followers, or it will break up your Government. The patriotic freemen of Kentucky and Tennessee will spurn the proposition. They will scorn to owe even the preservation of their loved country to the bought forbearance of a corrupt party. That country must be saved by the love and valor of its patriot sons or it is not worth preserving.

In the opinion of many thousand conservative Union-loving men, the time has arrived for combining the strength of all such toward preserving the Union. Conventions representing seventy thousand of them in Kentucky, a like number in Tennessee, a like number in Virginia, and forty or fifty thousand in Maryland have so declared. They may fairly be considered as representing, when so declaring, the sentiment of the whole nation outside the Republican, Democratic, and Abolition parties. They have invited conservative patriots of every section to follow Mr. Clay's advice-cast away all party ties, and combine into a great national party, having "preservation of the Union" for its principal if not sole platform.

From the well-known fact that full three-fourths of the slaveholders of Kentucky are among the Oppositionists who have organized the movement in this State, it may be inferred that they stand in the same relative proportion in Tennessee and Maryland, and that the Oppositionists embrace full one-half of the slaveholders of Virginia. The inference is also fair that they embrace at least a moiety of all the slaveholders in the entire South. In the opinion of many intelligent persons, though this may not be true, if considered as to the number of slaves held, yet it is less than the truth when the slaveholders, large and small, are all counted by the head.

All that this great body of slaveholders want, in reference to this peculiar property, is peace and quiet on the subject. For its

protection they neither desire nor ask the aid of any political parties. Their right is well defined and sufficiently guaranteed in the Constitution. With the feeling of calm security belonging to proper manhood, they believe that nobody will ever dare attempt practically to pass that limit. Even should such an unanticipated attempt ever be made, they have an undoubting reliance upon the superabundant efficacy of their rifles and muskets in repelling the assault. The slaveowners of the border States feel that the generating, through party strifes, of inimical feeling in their neighbors immediately across the slave line, has done and will continue to do them more prejudice than any direct action of Congress could possibly inflict. They are therefore sincere, when saying to the conservatives of the North, all we want on the slave question is that it be put to rest and taken entirely out of party politics. As to protection, we ask none, need none, beyond what the Constitution guarantees and our own muskets can

secure.

That this proposition will prove acceptable to the great body of the conservative Union men of the North there can be little doubt; nor can we doubt that they will force their politicians into its acceptance. All information, public and private, proves that they are as heartily sick of the pernicious agitation of the slave question as we are. They are essentially a practical people, and view political questions mainly with an eye to practical results. They see that there is no longer a foot of territory remaining upon which the slave controversy can have any practical result. Law, climate, and geographical boundaries, now permanently established, give a final quietus to the whole subject. As to the non-admission of slave States into the Union, that is a position which the Republican party has never assumed; but, on the contrary, by their vote on the Crittenden amendment to the Kansas bill, they solemnly repudiated it as a party dogma. But as that party was organized mainly with a view to the slave question, and to protect the North against alleged Southern aggression on that subject, it has a lack of nationality, a savor of sectionalism and antislavery propensities which precludes any portion of the South from harmonizing or co-operating with it as a party. It can never be brought integrally into any new national combination. It must be disbanded, like the Whig and American parties, and

its really conservative Union members must come individually into the composition of a great national Union party, or no part of the South can co-operate with them.

The proposition for such a combination is sufficiently fair and equal, even in reference only to relative strength of numbers. It is true that, while Fremont received 1,300,000 votes, Fillmore received only 800,000. But it must be remembered that Fremont received 200,000 Abolition votes, which, from present indications, will be withheld from the Republican ticket hereafter, and that more than that number of men did not vote for Fillmore only because he had no chance for being elected. The Oppositionists outside of the Republican and Abolition ranks must nearly equal, in point of numbers, the whole Republican party proper. It is true that the distribution as to localities gives the Republican vote vastly the most availability. But that, in the eye of either justice, patriotism, or enlightened policy, should make no difference with Northern men in yielding up party organization. for the sake of a great national fusion. When near a million of their fellow-citizens are asking such a fusion for the sake of the Union, and to relieve the nation from the incubus of the corrupt Democracy, the request comes with an imperative force to which the judicious and patriotic men of the North must certainly yield. A mere sectional triumph in a contest for the Presidency is what they ought not, and, upon reflection, cannot desire. Such a triumph cannot result beneficially to the nation. An administration of the Government for four years exclusively by Northern men would be a most perilous experiment. Whether the Union would stand the strain of such an experiment, is what no discreet man would willingly put to the test. The patriotic warnings on that subject of Mr. Fillmore, in his powerful speeches of 1856, the people of the North have not forgotten. Such a sectional triumph in the election of a President must, as he told them, prove worse than a barren victory. It would arm Southern disunionists with great power toward the accomplishment of their aim. It would give them great aid in their unceasing efforts to play upon the sectional feelings and prejudices of the South-for consolidating the South in sectional opposition to the North, and generating such sectional animosity as would enable them to strike successfully for disunion.

If there are any intelligent men at the North who believe that a Southern Whig or American of distinction would accept a nomination on the Presidential ticket of the Republican party, or would accept office under its President when receiving not a single electoral or even popular vote from the South, it is time that they should be undeceived. No Southern gentleman of high standing would seek the Presidency by such means. Any Southern man who might accept office under such circumstances, for the sake of the emoluments, would be of that class whose support would tend rather to alienate than conciliate Southern confidence in a Northern President so elected. Rightfully or wrongfully, there is at the South an almost universal feeling of jealous distrust toward the Republican party, which it would be vain to attempt to mitigate so long as that party keeps up its present organization. The disbanding of that party and the overthrow of the Democracy are two things needful, indispensably needful, to the restoration of national concord and prosperity. This is so obvious that intelligent men of every locality must concur in the opinion; and there can be no reasonable doubt that the conservative masses at the North will compel the politicians to disband the party and fuse with conservatives from every quarter on the simple platform, "Preserve the Union and quiet the slave question."

This result will be greatly facilitated if the Opposition should succeed at the next election in Kentucky and Tennessee. The available Southern aid thus manifested by those States and Maryland toward the formation of a new national party, will afford great inducement for the conservative masses at the North to bring about the fusion.

But should this anticipation not be fulfilled, should the Republican party fail to disband, and thus secure a thorough, enduring defeat of the Democracy, the conservative Union men of the whole nation will still have the opportunity of clinging together and preserving the nucleus of a great conservative party, to meet a national exigency at some future day. By running a third candidate, as was done with Mr. Fillmore, they will be kept together, and saved from absorption into either the Republican or Democratic party. Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland will be kept in their true position of neutrality between the North and the South, and that of pacificators between both extremes for the preservation of the Union.