***************** The Courier, New Orleans, La., September 12, 1860***********************
Letter From Baton Rouge.- From a private letter just received, we extract the following:
We had a magnificent rally of the friends of Breckinridge and State Equality here on Saturday night. There must have been more than two thousand people present, including a delegation from the Breckinridge Club of Port Hudson and hundreds of ladies. Semmes made one of his clear, telling, argumentative and comprehensive speeches, which was listened to throughout with profound attention. Col. Hunter, also, made an earnest and able speech. The proceedings began with a brilliant torch-light procession, and closed with another-enlivened with music, salutes, rockets, etc. The good old Democratic spirit is moving here, you may be assured. HAL
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An Interesting Document.- …The announcement by Mr. Douglas at Petersburg and Norfolk, that he would treat those who attempt to dissolve the Union on account of the election of Lincoln, as Jackson treated the nullifiers in 1832, has induced some of our Georgia contemporaries to republish the following letter addressed by the Hon. Herschel V. Johnson, the candidate for the Vice-Presidency on the Douglas ticket, to a committee of gentlemen of Augusta, Ga., in the year 1851. It will be seen that Gov. Johnson handles without gloves those who, like Mr. Douglas, maintain that the right of secession is merely a right of revolution. Can the ticket with such a head and tail mislead a sufficient number of the Democracy of the South to give a single State to the Opposition?
We commend this letter to the supporters of Mr. Douglas who are charging the friends of Mr. Breckinridge as disunionist.
Letter From Gov. Johnson.
“Milledgeville, Ga., August 30, 1851.
Gentlemen:- I thank you for your kind and pressing invitation to a barbecue, to be given to Col. Robert McMillen, the Southern Rights candidate for Congress in the Eighth District, on the first Tuesday in September next. But official engagements forbid me the pleasure of its acceptance. Morgan court will be in session at that time.
My personal acquaintance with Col. McMillen is limited, but I know him by reputation as a gentleman of high moral worth, brilliant talents, and sound republican principles. Such men I am pleased to honor, and sincerely trust the great cause whose banner he bears by the united voice of the Southern Rights party of his district, may be triumphant.
The contest in which the people of Georgia, in common with her sister slave-holding States are engaged, is one of vital importance. It involves the destiny of the South, and the federative character of our system of government. It is waged upon the right of a State peaceably to secede from the Union. The Gubernatorial candidate of the Southern Rights party maintains the affirmative, and the candidate of the Submission party the negative of this great question. The one, that the right necessarily results from the reserved sovereignty of the States and the nature of the confederacy; and the other, that it exist only as a right of revolution. The former insists that the General Government has no right to coerce a seceding State; and the latter, that such seceding State must depend, for the maintenance of its position, “upon the stout hearts and strong arms of a free people.” The one, unhesitatingly and boldly avows that if a Southern State were to secede, he would not obey a requisition by the Federal Government made upon him as the Executive of Georgia, for troops to force her back into the Union; and the other declares he “would convene the Legislature of the State, and recommend them to call a convention of the people” to instruct him in an emergency in which the impulses of the true Southern heart should be a sufficient guide. The great issue, then, I repeat, is the right of a State to secede from the Union, and the correlative absence of any right, on the part of the Federal Government to force such a State back into the Union. It cannot be evaded by the senseless clamor of union! This glorious union! The integrity of the Union is not assailed by the Southern Rights party in Georgia. Its true friends are those who insist upon maintaining the rights resulting from the sovereignty of the States. Its real enemies are those who, from behind it, as a “masked battery,” level their destructive artillery against its strongest outposts, by counseling submission to aggression, injustice and robbery, because, like “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” they come under the hypocritical garb of compromise. Then let a vigilant people look well to the true and only issue involved in the pending campaign- the right of a State peaceably to secede from the Union.
I would not, if time and space justified, enter into an argument in favor of the affirmative of this issue. I believe it is understood by the people. It has been a cardinal tenet of the Republican creed form 1798 down to the present day, maintained by Jefferson and Madison and Macon, Lowndes and Troup, and all the distinguished Statesmen of that school, who properly understood the theory of our government, and whose hearts beat responsively to the great American sentiment which is at once the parent and the soul of constitutional liberty. Argument is not needed to elucidate or enforce it. If the people, shaking off the trammels of party, and spurning the timid counsels of temporizing submissionist and selfish tradesmen in the great mart of political bartering, will obey the honest impulses of true Southern sentiment, they will require no argument to array them on the side of truth, their hearthstones and constitution….
…Whoever observes the signs of the times cannot fail to see that the right of secession will probably at no distant day, assume the form and magnitude of practical importance. The South is in a permanent minority in our Federal Legislature. The tone of Northern fanaticism abates not in its frenzy and insolence. It presses on rapidly to the consummation of its diabolical designs. And what check has the South upon its progress? Have we any under the established rules of parliamentary law? Can we expect any justice at the hands of the present Freesoil Executive and his Cabinet? Can we effect anything by argument and appeals to the reason of our Northern oppressors? Can we obtain shelter under the broad shield of the Constitution? No…
…I say, let us bear to the last point of endurance, but let us never proclaim through the ballot box, that we have no right to secede, and that if we do secede we are to be regarded as insurgents and revolutionist. It never, never can be true that our forefathers, in the struggle of ’76, fought only to achieve that which is the right of serfs, the right of revolution. They had that under the British crown. But they struggled for more- for colonial sovereignty- and they won it. Did they turn around immediately and surrender all they had battled for into the power of an elective consolidation? Never, never. Those who maintain such a position falsify all the history of our revolution, and bring dishonor upon the master spirits of its thrilling and eventful scenes. The right of secession must be maintained. It is the last, the only hope of the South. Let us maintain it with unanimity, and we can hold in check the spirit of abolition and consolidation. But if we yield it, the whole theory of our federative system is changed, and we are in the power of those whose mercy is like that of the wolf to the lamb. If we yield it, we not only proclaim in advance, that we will submit to usurpation and aggression, but we do worse, we admit that we have no right to resist. And that is political vassalage. With sentiments of high regard.
I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant,
Herschel V. Johnson.
To Messrs. Robert A. White, Turner Clanton, T. W. Fleming, Committee.”
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Alarming Rumors.- We understand, from a leading New York merchant, engaged in the Southern trade, that a customer of his, just as he was buying a bill of goods yesterday, received a letter from his wife in Florida, where he resided stating that the negroes had become insubordinate, and that serious anticipations of an outbreak were entertained, that a Committee of Vigilance had been formed and other effective measures adopted. The news so startled the gentlemen that he at once dropped business, neglected his fall purchases, and started with the first conveyance for his home.
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****************New Orleans Commercial Bulletin*****************
Boston Journal, 6th- Arrival of Native Africans.- The bark Wm. G. Anderson, Capt. Hall, arrived here yesterday bringing with him five native Africans for the Boston Aquarial Gardens. Their names are as follows; Machaolo, a Fingo native; Maquala, a Tulu native; Macomo, a Ratie native; Quagga, a Bushman native; Sturrnan, a Hottentot.
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The Disaster On Lake Michigan.- Fuller Particulars.- (the collision occurred 10 miles from shore-the great loss of life was due to their only being two life boats for 300- 400 people.)
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Walker’s Last Raid.- The mad and unwarrantable enterprise of the great filibuster has ended in disaster and utter defeat. Another band of brave, but recklessly impulsive, young Americans have, it is most probable, by this time met the fate of their predecessors in Central America. According to the latest, and it seems entirely reliable accounts, Walker has been compelled, by Capt. Salmon, of the British sloop-of-war Icarus, to evacuate Truxillo, and with his few remaining followers- having lost many of his men in various encounters with the Hondurean forces- he is now endeavoring to escape through hostile country, closely pursued by an enemy overpowering in numbers, and but too eager to destroy him utterly. Truly, the destiny of “the grey-eyed man of destiny” seems that of disastrous failure.
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**************The Daily True Delta***************
Incendiary.- Last Saturday, about half past 1 o’clock in the morning, (says the Shreveport Southwestern) Logan’s mill, in this parish, eight miles from Shreveport, was discovered to be on fire. Mr. R. S. Elliot, (who resides about 150 yards from the mill) with all the force on the premises, succeeded in extinguishing the fire in about a half hour. Shortly after which, the cry of murder was heard from the residence of Mr. E. It seems that two men had fired the mill, doubtless for the purpose of drawing Mr. E. and family from the residence, and whilst they were engaged at the fire, to rob the house. No clue has been obtained of the incendiaries.
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Mississippi Items.- The citizens of Leake county, says the Carthage Southern Union, are holding “corn meetings, to procure corn for the pressing want of those who have made a total failure in their corn crops this year.”
Fatal Accident.- We learn that on Thursday evening last, (says the Woodville Gazette of the 8th, )a terrible accident happened at Mrs. F. M. Currier’s Belmont plantation in this county. A steam engine had just been erected on the place, and upon the evening referred to, they were sawing lumber- Mr. P. E. Lloyd, the overseer, superintending. One of the negroes was ordered to turn off the steam, but misunderstanding the order given, turned it on- which, of course, shattered the machinery to pieces, hurling parts of it in every direction. Mr. Lloyd was killed in an instant- his head completely taken off. Fortunately, no one else received any injury, although we learn Mrs. Currier herself and several of her slaves were in imminent danger.
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Wm. S. Baily, having revived his anti-slavery paper, the “Free South,” at Newport, Ky., has been arrested and held in one thousand dollars bail on the charge of publishing an incendiary paper.
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Writing Passes For Slaves.- F. Bakn was yesterday changed by officer Cazeau, in the First District Police Court, with being a dangerous and suspicious character, and with writing false passes for slaves. Remanded to await a hearing on the 9th October.
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Served Right.- Paul Keil was yesterday fined $15, by Recorder Emerson, for cruelly ill-treating his horse, on Rampart street.
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Destructive Fire- Factory of the Louisana Oil Company Destroyed.- Loss $150,000.- About four o’clock last evening fire broke out in the resin oil factory of the Louisiana Oil Company, on the new shell road, between Clara and St. Jane streets, and opposite to the depot of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad.
The fire and the consequences of it are much to be deplored; greatly on account of a check it may give (we hope it will not) to a most important branch of home industry, and the loss it will occasion to a number of our most enterprising citizens, who have largely invested in the undertaking….The fire was caused by the blowing out of pitch-cock of one of the stills…The effect of the blowing out of the cock, was to send up a burst of flame, of what may be called terrific nature, to the ceiling of the second floor, …(the city fire department contained the fire to only the factory structure saving many businesses and property).
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David Upton