Staunton Spectator

Of all the letters from distinguished men which the present political excitement has called forth, we have read none which seems to us to meet the case at all points so satisfactorily as the one addressed by the Rev. Dr. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, to his nephew, the Vice-President of the United States. Dr. Breckenridge declares that the settled and deliberate conviction of Kentucky is that the dissolution of the Union is no remedy for anything whatever, but that it is itself the direst of all calamities. Kentucky has been exposed, along a frontier of seven hundred miles, to greater evils than all the slave States which have no free frontier put together; yet she has never entertained a single thought of secession. It is Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri that have bourne all the losses and annoyance, and are to bear all the impending peril. To these States, therefore, the decision of the national aspects of these impending perils emphatically appertains. In like manner the border free States ought to remember that their borders are as much exposed as ours; so that on them, with reference to the free States behind them, rest the duty and the right of deciding the national aspect of the subject of slavery on the free side of the line. It may be confidently asserted that posterity will hold these border States, on both sides, responsible for the fate of the nation, if they permit the country to be ruined, and themselves to be thrown into a position of endless mutual hostility, along a common frontier of fifteen hundred miles.

The true remedy for such disorders as we complain of is not in the breaking up of the Government, but in the due enforcement of the laws. When any part of the country refuses to respect the laws, the proper course is to take up arms and compel obedience. Says Dr. Breckenridge:

"Civil war itself within the Union, horrible as civil war always is, is necessarily temporary, and is consistent with the ultimate preservation of everything distinctive in our present nationality, and in all our institutions, general and particular; and a universal civil war at this time within the Union could hardly fail to end in the permanent establishment, for the whole country, of just what our fathers established from 1776 to 1789. But after the division of the Union upon the slave line, and the necessary breaking out of fierce and interminable war along the frontier extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the western border of Missouri, no man can foresee a state of case when peace can ever be preserved along that frontier as well as it can be in the Union, and every man can see that any future union of the divided portions of the Confederacy, if any union shall ever be possible, must be upon the very terms which now exist.

It is alleged, however, that there is the utmost probability that a Northern anti-slavery party will ultimately acquire controlling influence over every department of the Federal Government, and that the slave States cannot, consistently with honor, continue members of a Union controlled by such a party.

"To this let me say," continues Dr. B., "first of all, that if every word were true and certain, the wise, manly and successful alternative would be, not the dissolution of the Union, but the recovery of the country, by force if necessary, from those who shall have subverted its Constitution. Nor can there be any doubt that the united South and the minority of the North will be always and to every intent, without arms or with arms, more powerful in the Union than the united, much less the divided South, can ever be out of it. Nor does it appear to me to be loyal to the people of the North who are faithful to the Constitution, even if they were the smaller number, for the South to withdraw and leave them subject to a domination as intolerable to them as it is offensive to us."

We can hardly doubt that if the real feelings and wishes of the people, North and South, could be represented at Washington, uninfluenced by partizan [sic] bias, the whole matter in controversy would soon be settled without difficulty. How stands the case? The Republicans at the North generally disclaim any intention or desire to interfere with slavery as it exists in the Southern States, but profess to believe that it is the settled policy of the South, by means of the Federal government, to extend slavery throughout the country; and to resist this encroachment of the "slave power" as they call it, they are organized into a political party. On the other hand, the South generally believes that the Northern majority are banded together to wage a fanatical crusade against the institution. The long continued and virulent abuse of slavery and slave- holders by Republican speakers and writers certainly encourages the impression alluded to. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that slavery is a bad institution, it is difficult to tell why those who have no responsibility on account of it, and no control over it, should persist in denouncing it, unless they desire to raise a crusade for its extermination. But if the Republicans are sincere in their formal declarations, there need be little difficulty in coming to an amicable settlement. With the exception of a few extreme men at the South, the people of this section are not "slavery propagandists"--they have no desire to carry slavery into any Territory now free, and it is not their interest to do so.--They could give profitable employment to many more slaves than they now hold, and the institution would only be weakened by being diffused. They, however, with reason, object to being told that they shall not do what they believe that they have a Constitutional right to do, although they have no idea of doing it. Why then cannot all parties and both sections agree to let the matter alone and cease agitation. Soil and climate will, without doubt, ultimately settle the boundaries of slave and free territory to the satisfaction of all reasonable people.

Should all efforts to restore peace to the country fail, we fall back upon Dr. Breckenridge's idea. He says:

"The firm determination of every portion of the Union to maintain its rights within the Union, under every extremity, would soon put an end to all necessity for any portion of it to elect between terrible means of doing so. It is horrible to reflect that the children of the Revolution might be obliged to shed each others blood. How much more horrible to shed it in such a manner that oceans of it could never restore what we had destroyed, while every drop of it would be an eternal testimony against our folly!"

A Southern Democratic journal, commenting upon the recent able and praiseworthy address of the Central Committee of the opposition in Mississippi, exclaims, "The Whig party has disappeared in the Union. The American party is powerless everywhere." In reply to these assertions, it should be seen that nothing more was needed than to refer to the fact that they emancipate from a source rarely accused of simple accuracy in connection with matters of party bias.

Any man capable of putting two and two together can predict with absolute certainty what must follow the sentences quoted at the outsetting of this article. "There is but one organization in the country retaining vitality and force sufficient to make it a serious and hopeful resistance to Blak Republican ascendancy in the councils and government of the Confederacy--and that is the Democratic party." Of course, of course. The sun shines; one and one make two; three thirds make a whole; there are four quarters to the globe; day follows night; night follows day--how plain, how very plain it all is. And yet the Black Republican party came into existence during the Democratic administration, it has continued to grow and prosper while the Democratic power was in power; it has received no serious check from Democracy, nay, if the truth were told we fear it would be found that the Black Republican party owes its very existence and every stage of its growth to the unwisdom of that very organization which now so loudly vaunts that it alone has force and vitality enough to oppose a serious and hopeful resistance to Seward's ascendancy. What would be thought of as a sentinel who having permitted the enemy to overrun the camp or failed to arrest them, should repair to the commander-in-chief with the braggart and impudent assertion that he must be retained in the post of honor and of danger, because, forsooth, he alone is capable of holding it against all odds? And if it were ascertained that this same sentinel, so boastful of his prowess, had himself broken down the barrier and invited the enemy into camp? Yet this is precisely the position of the Democratic party at this hour. The hard common sense of the people, slow to arouse, is at last awakened to the incompetency if not the infidelity of those whom they have so long trusted, and the absurd pretensions of the Democracy will not again be believed until the strange conviction has lodged in the public mind that black is white and pouring oil upon fire is the best mode of stopping a conflagration. We by no means believe what our Southern contemporary has ascribed about the Whig and American parties, but, be the truth what it may in reference to those organizations, one thing remains fixed in the popular judgement beyond the chance of removal, and that is this: The Black Republican party has openly avowed its sectionary and incendiary designs, and the Democratic party has proved its inability to cope with its sectional antagonist. Therefore the people have no option other than to go outside of those parties if they would save the country from ruin.--Balt. American