The Southern Press.
The Charleston Mercury, alluding to the telegraphic rumors that
President Buchanan will oppose secession, says:
‘
We certainly deprecate war with the
Northern people through the
General Government; but
Mr. Buchanan may be assured that the first attempt,
in any form, to coerce
South Carolina into submission to a Government she has thrown off, will be considered war — He may call it by what name he pleases, but the sword will then be the final and only arbiter between us. All hopes (if he has any) of a readjustment of the relations between the two sections of the
Union under one government, will have ended, and ended forever.-- He is totally mistaken in supposing ‘"that
South Carolina wishes to enter into a conflict with him."’ Not a State in the
Union, we believe, has had more confidence in his administration than
South Carolina.
Our people will reluctantly realize the fact, that he will place his administration in the fan of the Abolition party of the North, to compel, by force of arms, a submission by the
South to their authority.
But when they do realize it, they will also realize how utterly hopeless, how desperately fatal, must be the continuance of any further union with the people of the
North.
Nor do the people of
South Carolina desire, by the shedding of Mood, to drag the other States into the movement of dissolution.
‘"If such was our purpose, we could enforce it any morning of the week.
The forts in our bay are within sight of
Charleston.
But if he chooses to begin the game of blood-shedding, we shall not decline it, for we know as well as he does, that it will drag the other States into the movement of dissolution."’ Whilst the Banks of the
North are crashing around him, and bankruptcy sits of the
Capitol, the sword will be a fitting accompaniment to the villainies and tyrannies which have produced the present calamitous state of things.
We are ready.
’
