American State Convention,
At Toure Hall, Hartford.
The American Party of Connecticut, and all others opposed to the election of the nominees of the Cincinnati Convention, and to the principles as expressed in their platform, are requested to meet in Convention at HARTFORD, on the 6th day of August, A.D. 1856, at 10 o'clock in the forenoon, to nominate Electors for President and Vice President of the United States. The several towns are entitled to elect delegates to said Convention equal to three times the number of their Representatives.
WAIT N. HAWLEY,
HENRY HAMMOND,
J. E. DUNHAM,
O.H. PLATT, American State
PATTEN FITCH, Central
JOHN M. WADHAMS Committee,
HIRAM WILLEY,
D. D. SILLIMAN,
WE ALLUDED, yesterday, to the letter of Senator Toombs of Georgia to a friend in Virginia. The sentence in that letter threatening disunion is as follows:
"Our danger is not from abroad, it is at home. The election of Fremont would be the end of the Union, and ought to be. The object of Fremont's friends is the conquest of the South. I am content that they shall own us when they conquer us, but not before.
Respectfully yours, R. TOOMBS."
Here we have a direct declaration from a Southern leader that Fremont's election would be a signal for disunion; and because such threats are heard from the South, the Buchanan papers of this State call Fremont's supporters "Disunionists." It cannot be that candid men, and men of judgement will be deceived by such slang and driven by this oft repeated threat into the support of slavery and Buchanan!
We beg the attention of the thinking public in the examination of this subject. Disunion is threatened by the South, if Col. Fremont is elected President. If he is elected, it will be by a majority of the electoral votes, given in a legal manner, as authorized or required by the Constitution. The North have a constitutional RIGHT to vote for whom they please, without consulting the South, or taking the candidate which the South presents. Is there anything in this to justify the treats of disunion the slave power utters? Can it not be seen that such threats are employed for the sake of intimidating the North? Is the North to succumb because the South threatens disunion in consequence of the result of a legally and constitutionally conducted election? Men of sense must see this clearly.
But the North have heard these cries of disunion too long and too often to be intimidated by them. The Union was to be dissolved if the Wilmot Proviso passed--if California was admitted as a free State. But time rolled on; the Union still stands. We all can remember Senator Foote's threats--even the very day was named--of the end of the Union. But the Union still stands. Even within the past year, the election of Mr. Speaker Banks was to be followed by an immediate dissolution of the ties that hold the Confederacy together. But Banks occupies the speaker's chair, and was conducted thither by Aiken of South Carolina, and the Union still stands. These threats do not alarm the North as they once did.
It is not so much the election of John C. Fremont that arouses the prophetic denunciations of Robert Toombs as it is the single and simple principle on which the parties that support him stand--the non-extension of slavery. "No more slave territory" is an alarming cry to men who make their living on raising men and women for the market. On this subject, we commend the remarks of Mr. Tappan of New Hampshire, made in the House, July 29th. He says:
"Therefore, when we assert our intention to adhere to this time-honored policy, and say to slavery, 'Thus far and no farther,' we intend neither to dissolve the Union ourselves, nor suffer it to be dissolved by others. Sir, what is the history of slavery prohibition in the territories? I can barely glance at its rise and progress, as I pass on to other matters. Mr. Jefferson himself is the author of this legislation, and if the doctrine we now contend for be treason, then was Mr. Jefferson a traitor? On the first day of March 1784, a committee, consisting of Mr. Jefferson of Virginia, Mr. Chase of Maryland, and Mr. Howell of Rhode Island, submitted to Congress a plan for the government of 'the territory ceded, or to be ceded, by individual states to the United States,' embracing all the territory between the 31st degree of north latitude, which was then the southern boundary of the United States, extending westerly to the Mississippi river. This plan provided, among other things, that the territory should be divided into the nine states, designating them by name, and defining the particular boundaries of each. It also contained the following provision, which has been the basis of all the subsequent anti-slavery legislation in regard to the territories:
"That, after the year 1808 of the Christian era there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty."
"On motion to strike out this provision, sixteen, among whom was Mr. Jefferson, voted to retain it, and seven voted against it. It lacked one vote of the requisite number--the full vote of seven states being required to retain it.
"Three years later, however, it was incorporated into the celebrated Ordinance of '87, which applied to the territories northwest of the Ohio. It is a remarkable fact, Mr. Chairman, as will be seen by a glance at the map, that if the far-seeing and sagacious policy of Mr. Jefferson, contained in this provision, had prevailed in 1784, under its operation the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky would now have been free states.
"That the policy thus attained would have been advantageous to the states just named, a comparison between the thrift, enterprise and prosperity of those states, and the great free states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, formed out of the northwest territory, under the Anti-slavery Ordnance of '87, will conclusively establish. That it would have been better for the destiny of the republic, let the fierce struggle between the antagonistic principles of liberty and slavery, which now convulses our country, bear witness.
"Mr. Chairman, the Fremont party to-day, are only contending for the application of the same principle to Kansas, which Mr. Jefferson proposed for all the territories of the United States in 1784!"
This point is strongly put, and we earnestly recommend its consideration to all those who suppose the North is crowding on the rights of the South, by upholding the doctrine of the non-extension of slavery.
The South are not sincere in this threat of disunion. They must perceive they would gain nothing by it. Would the condition of slave property be any more secure by a disruption of the Union? Would there be no stampede of slaves from Delaware and Maryland and Virginia and Kentucky and Missouri, lying on the border of the free states? Would not the very uncertainty of the tenure of such property drive the slaveholders farther south and make those frontier states free? In these states, slavery is now upheld and preserved only by the Constitution and the Union. Abrogate the one and dissolve the other, and where would be the security of this property in these frontier states? The South are not sincere in this threat of disunion. They utter it to frighten the North, but the North has heard it too often to be intimidated by it. Go on, then, Fremonters; elect your President--forbid the extension of slavery--and prevent the South from any attempt to dissolve the Union!
"American State Convention, At Touro Hall, Hartford," Hartford (CT) Courant, August 4, 1856, p. 2