Macon (GA) Weekly Telegraph, "The Abolitionists and Their Proceedings," October 15, 1850

          FROM WASHINGTON.

[CORRESPONDENCE OF THE GEORGIA TELEGRAPH]

                                WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 1850. 

The Past-time of the Administration--The next Presidency--the Abolitionists and their Proceedings--a few words about them, etc.

   There are not now a half dozen members of Congress in this city, and they would be away if they had time to reach their homes and return by the first day of the next session of Congress. 

   The Administration, for want of something better to do, have been engaged in turning democratic clerks out of office, and appointing whigs to fill their places. A two cent business, and only mentioned as an instance of the smallness of those who administer the Government. 

   Col. Fremont has been employing his time replying to X the [German] or Swiss letter-writer of the Baltimore Sun, who took the side of General Foote in the recent squabble between the two Senators, and which squabble it was thought, would result in a meeting with rifles.-- And this, too, is a diminutive affair, characteristic of the parties. 

   And so you perceive, that nothing of interest is transpiring in this meridian, the matters of moment having been acted on by Congress previous to the adjournment a week ago.

   Gen. Cass is again in the field as a candidate of the Presidency. He has been appointed at primary meetings in Pennsylvania, but Mr. Buchanan has started out to head him off, and will soon put a stop to these proceedings. A large number of the western men, before they left the city, avowed that they intend to fix the machinery for Cass as they did in 1848. The Michiganders have already inscribed "Cass" [illegible] in their banners. These movements are improper and indelicate, and will not result in advantage to the individual so prominently and prematurely paraded before the people. It is supposed that Speaker Cobb can be attached for Vice President, so as to grease the nomination and make it slip down the throat of the South. Extensive calculations are made by the politicians, but the South will have something to say for themselves at the proper time. 

   Senator Seward, the dirty abolitionist and "higher-law" advocate, has occasioned a wide split in New York Whiggery, and thus he has hurt President Fillmore's chances of a re-election. We are willing that such people shall fight their own battles. Like the old woman who saw her husband fighting with the bear, we don't care which gets whipped. The Abolitionists are wheeling into line, and will make a violent effort to return fellows of their own stamp to the next Congress to perpetrate any enormity on the South which infernal genius may invent. 

   The Fugitive Slave law, it appears, has thrown negroes, white and black, at the North, into fits. Southern men have gone to several towns after their property. It is surprising, even to us Southerners, to learn of the large number of runaways residing in towns north of us, many of whom recently were all at once struck with a stampede, and are on their way to her Majesty, Queen Victoria's dominions, to get beyond the reach of their owners. If a Southerner, of Georgia, were to entice a free black into that State and make a Slave of him, we would never hear the last of it; but it is all right with the "moral and intelligent" North to steal slaves and make them free! We see no difference in principle; and must beg the pardon of Southern gentlemen for hastily putting him in our contrast, in the same paragraph with the opposite party. 

   We hear much said about resisting the operation of the Fugitive law. Darkeys meet with white "bredren" and "sistern" in the North, and talk about arming to the teeth, to shoot down the slaveholder who pursues his property. They however, dare not carry their threats into execution, for we believe that they are fearful of the terrible punishment that will be visited upon them--we will not say by whom. Faction, and fanaticism, will not reason; and hence we are not surprised at the extravagance of the devil's incarnate. 

   It is an unpleasant theme, but this should not influence us to shut our eyes to the proceedings before us. Infidelity has its seat in the North, and in the language of a son of South, there is more of it within the sound of Boston bells than among the entire population of the South. We see the Bible trodden underfoot, because it recognizes slavery and enjoins "obedience to masters," and because it forbids theft, which the abolitionists practice. 

   If the gentle and wholesome teachings of the Gospel could find "free course" among a people so lost to scriptural morality, there would be more honesty, and consequently brotherly love. What we complain of loudly is the inquisitorial impudence of which they are guilty. They set up a high court, before the bar of which Southerners are adjudged guilty; and, as in despotic countries, where the word of the Sovereign is law, slaveholders are to be dispossessed of their property on the ground of "immorality." It sickens the heart; and no wonder the man who knows his rights boldly proclaims them, and is willing to sacrifice his life for their maintenance. In the absence of this spirit he would be a craven-hearted wretch, not worthy of being kicked into an ignominious grave!

   To relieve the tedium of the recess, a man calling himself Herr Ryminger, on Saturday, stretched a wire five hundred feet in length, from the roof of a house, forty feet from the ground, and, getting out of the dormer window, walked the entire narrow way, much to the surprise of thousands of spectators. When he reached the earth, the applause was louder than when he first presented himself to the multitude. "Some things can be done as well as others."

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