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THE OLD
OLD GUARD,

A MONTHLY JOURNAL, DEVOTED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF 1776 AND 1787.

VOLUME II.-JUNE, 1864.- No. VI.

THE NULLIFIERS OF THE NORTH.

WHо are they? Who are the men that have undertaken to render null and void the Constitution and laws of their country? We shall not disagree as to the punishment they merit. Nor shall we long be in doubt as to the parties upon whom the chastisement ought to fall. Their record is undisguised, unblushing, and unrelieved by even a paliating regret. Thirty years ago they announced the determination to overthrow the Constitution. The plot began with Garrison, and ends with Lincoln. In the beginning it was called treasonous-it acknowledgad itself to be so, and stoutly gloried in its shame. It ends by turning the tables-calls itself loyal, and denounces as traitors all who cling affectionately to the Constitution and the laws. While this revolution was in the hands of its founders, it seemed to be harmless, because they had the impudent honesty to confess their dark designs; but the moment it fell into the hands of ambitious politicians, who had the craft to make their assaults upon the Constitution in the prostituted names of liberty and patriotism, it proved equal to the worst hopes of its found

ers. When it began to gild its treason with the names that were revered by the people, it achieved its first power for evil. Now, in the same breath with which they blast their country, they declare that they are trying to "bring the Government back to the principles of Washington."

The Father of our Country, with miraculous sagacity, foresaw that just such a guilty party might arise to curse our fair inheritance; and, with solemn pathos of prophecy, he warned us against them in his Farewell Address. Hear him:

"In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as a matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discrimination-Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. fluence within particular districts is to misrepreOne of the experiments of party to acquire insent the sent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourself too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations: they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

"The unity of government which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is the main pillar in the edifice of your real independence-tle support of your safety, of your prosperity, oi that very liberty which you so highly prize.

But, as it is easy to foresee that, from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many

artifices employed, to weaken in your minds

the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external ene

mies will be most constantly and actively (though often cowardly and insidiously) directed; it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to speak of it as of the palladium of your safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together its various parts."

These are the warning words of Washington. Are they not already fulfilled?

Have we not a party now triumphant which is "characterized by geographical discriminations?"

Ilas it not built itself upon a difference of local interests and views?"

Is it not an "attempt to alienate one portion of our country from the lest?"

Has it not "enfeebled the sacred ties which linked together its various parts?"

Are not the prophetic words of Washington fulfilled in the history and triumph of this party?

Has it not been the mission of the Republican party to inflame the pas sions of the ignorant and the violent, until a general feeling of unrest, hatred and disorganization is diffused, like a destroying poison, through every strata of the public mind?

A party has at last triumphed whose sole political capital is hatred or ignorance of the lawful institutions of one half of the Republic.

Could this state of things go on and the Republic survive?

Ought it to survive in the midst of injustice, theft, and contempt of Con

stitutional law?

Northern agitation of the slavery question robbed the South of over sixty millions of her property in less than thirty years.

It increased the taxes of many of the southern States one-quarter or onethird, by rendering extraordinary means necessary to protect their property and lives.

It nullified the Constitution of the United States in twelve of the nonslaveholding States, and threatened to go on in its "irrepressible" march, until every slave State should be despoiled of its property.

Mr. Seward, in his speech at Boston during the last campaign, declared that his party was contending "for weal or for woe, for life or death, in the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery"-and he added, "we are now in the last stage of the conflict, before the great triumphant inauguration of this policy into the gov ernment of the United States," and, "with this victory comes the end of slavery."

He might have added, with this victory comes the end of the Republic! Ought it not to come, if there was no hope that the North would recede from its war upon the Constitutional rights of the South? Do we expect that the Union will remain after the principles and guarantees on which it was founded are all swept away? It cannot, and it ought not to last in crime and injustice. It cannot, and for one we do not wish to see it last, with one half making war upon the institutions of the other half. The party in power has fulfilicd its mission. The "irre

pressible" conflict has proved no mere rhetorical flourish in the mouth of Mr. Seward, but a terrible, a bloody reality, destroying our resources, desolating our homes, and finally leaving our country a mass of smoking ruins. The prophecy is fulfilled, and the prophet revels in the fruition of carnage and death.

Was the South a dog, that we expected her to remain to be denounced, insulted, and robbed of her property by a blatant and lawless fanaticism which had nullified the Constitution and laws in nearly every northern State?

Men of the North, do you know what you have done? Do you know that in at least twelve of the northern States you have trampled the Constitution of your country under your feet? Do you know that you have resisted with mob violence, and with legislative enactment, the supreme law of the land?

Do you know that you have not only broken the peace of this Union, but you have broken the solemn compact that made us a nation? You have torn out the key-stone from the arch on which the temple rested, and now you shout and scream, and mock, and dance about, while the mighty edifice is falling!

You are just as much bound by the Constitution of your country to give up a fugitive slave to his master and to respect the rights of that master, as you are to obey any other part of that sacred instrument. Read this clause of the Constitution:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into at other, shall, in consequeece of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on

claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

There can be no doubt as to the meaning of this clause of the Constitution; it says, in so many words, that the escaped slave "shall be given up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." It has never been pretended that there is the least ambiguity in the meaning of this section of the Constitution. The Supreme Judges, even of the New England States, where the people are, for the most part, crazy on the subject of negroes, have never presumed to deny the plain import of this clause.

Mr. Seward admitted it, in his speech in the Senate of the United States, February 27th, 1860, when he said, in referring to the history of the Constitution:

"Each State reserved to itself exclusive

political power over the subject of slavery within its own borders. Nevertheless, it unavoidably presented itself in their consultations on a bond of Federal Union. The new government was to be a representative one. Slaves were capital in some States, in others capital had no investments in labor. Should those slaves be represented as capital or as persons, or should they not be represented or taxed at all? The fathers disagreed, debated long, and compromised at last. Each State, they determined, shall have two Senators in Congress. Three-fifths of the slaves shall be elsewhere represented and be taxed as persons, What should be done if the slave should escape into a labor State? Should that State confess him to be a chattel, and restore him as such, or might it regard him a person, and harbor and protect him as a man? They compromised again, and decided that no person held to labor or service in one State, be discharged from such labor or service, but shall be delivered upon claim to the person to whom such labor or service shail be due."

This is Mr. Seward's statement; and we demand of him the reason why he did not use his influence to induce his party to rescind the laws which they passed in twelve of the northern States, in nullification of the Constitu

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