Parties -- will they be Sectional?Milledgeville, Georgia, Federal Union [Democratic](28 March 1854)
Every day it becomes more and more
manifest that the South will be forced to act
as a unit when the issue shall be made up
on her constitutional right to enter and
enjoy the territories of this Union, acquired or
hereafter to be acquired, upon an equal
footing with the people of the nonslaveholding
States. This issue will be made in
a few years. The determination of the
wild and rabid politicians of the North to
deny this right, and on the other hand,
the settled declared purpose of the South
to assert and maintain it, must inevitably
change the aspect of Parties as they have
hitherto existed in this Union. Throughout
the North, the Whigs and free-soil
Democrats will coalesce. A large portion,
indeed, of the body of the Democratic Party
at the North will stand firm to the creed
they have heretofore held -- they will join
with the South in the struggle for Constitutional
right. In a number of Northern or
North Western States, the Democratic
Party will triumph over every coalition. --
With a united South, a national man can
be elected President against the combined
forces of Whigs, Free-soilers and abolitionists.
Let then every effort of Southern
men be directed to harmonising for a
common alliance against a common enemy.
Whatever divisions exist, or are likely to
arise, in the political affairs of our own
State, we should never be so far removed
but that one blast from the bugle of
Patriotism, might be the signal for the rallying
of every true Southron to the Banner
of the Constitution and the rights of the
States. We do not wish to arouse the
South by ringing in her ears the notes of
preparation for battle. Far from it. We
desire merely to express our gratification
that the Southern people are now united,
and our sincere desire to see that union
perpetuated. We do not apprehend any
danger of the creation of sectional Parties.
We have too much confidence in the
magnanimity, good sense and prudence of many
Northern Democratic Statesmen, to despair
of National Parties at this time. But
if a strict adherence to the Constitution,
and the bare assertion of the plainest
guarantees of that instrument shall tend to the
division of Parties according to a
Geographical line, the Southern people must
bear an unbroken phalanx in the future
political struggles in the Union, or the
constitution will become a rope of sand, or as
clay in the hands of the potter, that may be
fashioned to the wildest caprice.
We look to the National Democrats, as the
hope of the Republic. If they are steadfast
the storm will leave no wrecks in its pathway.
If they are true to the Constitution,
their God and their country sectional parties
will not arise. If they are faithful in future
as in the past, no Abolition or Free Soil
Whig or Democrat can ever hold the reins
of the Government in his hands.
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