Presidential Candidates:

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"We have heard much of southern union being necessary to our safety. We now have it in our power, by cordial coöperation with our southern sisters, to secure it – to secure it on such a basis as will permanently preserve our institutions. We can here make our demand, and with a united South, we can offer it to the true men of the North. If we act wisely and present such an ultimatum, I doubt not that thousands, perhaps millions, at the North, will espouse and maintain it; for it is a platform of the Constitution, and there are hosts of conservative men who I know are prepared to maintain the Constitution of our fathers.

"Will we reject it with silent contempt – adhere to our isolation, and stubbornly refuse to fraternize with her, and all the balance of our southern sisters? Who doubts that all the South will be represented there? and can it be said, truthfully, that our voice can be of no avail or weight, when the ultimatum shall be laid down? If we send delegates, who can say that our votes may not secure a reliable nominee and a sound platform? Will the instructions of Georgia to her delegates be more or less potent with the indorsement of all or of only a portion of the South?

"If, indeed, fanaticism is in the ascendant in the North, and cannot be overcome, then what initiative step toward a southern Union, for the last resort, can be more effective than to unite all the South on the Georgia platform and instructions? Our influence in counsel and in action will be increased, whenever we show a hearty disposition to harmonize with our sisters in the South. Have we not heretofore kept aloof from their consultations in every instance, save in the Nashville Convention? – and that was a movement which did not derive any popularity in the South from being suspected of having originated in South Carolina. Sooner or later we must learn the important truth, that the fate and destiny of the entire South is identical. Isolation will give neither security nor concert. When we meet Virginia and Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, in consultation, as at Cincinnati, it is the supremacy of Pharisaism to flippantly denounce such association as either dangerous or degrading. North Carolina, Missouri, Florida, and Texas, will be there represented; and are we too exalted or conceited to meet them at the same council board?

"We shall meet there many liberal men from the North; those who in their section have done good service against political abolitionism. When we insist upon our platform with firmness, and they see we only make a demand of our constitutional rights, they will concede it; and when they go home they will prosecute the canvass in good faith, upon the principles enunciated at the Convention. Concert among ourselves, with the aid of the conservative men at the North, may enable us to save a constitutional Union; if that cannot be preserved, it will enable us to save ourselves and our institutions. Are we alone to have unoccupied seats, when such grave matters are to be decided by the Cincinnati Convention?

"Suppose the Democracy of this State should decide not to send delegates, and the other States of the South should follow her example, who would be voted for? Could the party, even at the South, without some concert, which could only be secured by meeting, rally upon the same man? No well-informed person would venture an affirmative answer; what would be the result? The Democratic party would certainly be defeated, and the Know Nothing, or Black Republican party, would as certainly be successful. Our policy, then, would inevitably bring upon us defeat; and if we are to be saved from a free-soil President, it is only to be done by the party in the other States assembling and making a nomination in which we refuse to participate. Even those who are opposing the sending of the delegates, I doubt not, rejoice in the hope that the other States, despite our impracticable example, will meet and nominate candidates.

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"The northern Democrats aided us to bring into the Union Texas, a magnificent slave-holding territory – large enough to make four slave States, and strengthened us more in that peculiar interest than was ever before done by any single act of the Federal Government. Since then they have amended a very imperfect fugitive slave law, passed in 1793, and have given us now a law for the recovery of fugitive slaves, as stringent as the ingenuity of man could devise. Since then they have aided us by their votes in establishing the doctrine of non-intervention with slavery by Congress in the territories. Since then they have reduced the odious tariff of 1842, and fixed the principle of imposts on the revenue, not the protective basis. Since then they have actually repealed the Missouri restriction, opened the territories to settlement, and enabled us, if the South will be true to herself, and aid in peopling Kansas, to form another slave State.

"In 1843, a man would have been pronounced insane, had he predicted that slavery would be introduced there by the removal of congressional restrictions. Since then they have adopted the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions and Madison's report – the very corner-stone of State rights – as a part of the Democratic platform. They have by their votes in Congress and Convention given all these pledges to the Constitution since 1843; and if we could then fraternize with them, what change has transpired that justifies the delegates in that Convention, at least, in refusing now to fraternize with northern and southern Democrats?"

The reader will easily see Col. Orr's position from this letter. He is a southern Democrat, and, as such, a defender of slavery and slavery extension, a free trader, and an opponent of all homestead bills, but he does not go with the most ultra class of Southern politicians; in short, he is "a National Democrat." He stands by the Democratic organization of the country, so long as it stands by the South and her institutions as well as it has done in the past. Upon the new issues of intervention for slavery in the territories he has not yet spoken, but he was, of course, a rigid Lecomptonite. But during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill he spoke very decidedly. He said: "The legislative authority of a territory is invested with no vote for or against laws. We think they ought to pass laws in every territory, when the territory is open to settlement, and slaveholders go there, to protect slave property. But if they decline to pass such laws, what is the remedy? None, sir. If the majority of the people are opposed to the institution, and if they do not desire it ingrafted upon their territory, all they have to do is simply to decline to pass laws in the territorial legislature for its protection."

In Congress, Col. Orr has generally ranged himself with the compromising democracy. He is not born of the old aristocratic stock of South Carolina planters, but was the son of a worker – a country merchant. This fact has never been lost sight of by a portion of the citizens of South Carolina, and they have been, some of them at least, his bitter enemies for years. It is not impossible but Col. Orr, for this reason, has taken a more "national" view of politics, and has refused to go out of the Union for the sake of the slaveholding aristocracy.

In his personal appearance Col. Orr is not, perhaps, prepossessing; though his great, black eye and fine open face show the force and power of his intellect. He is large in person, and not particularly graceful in his actions or appearance. He has a certain dignity, however, which enforces attention if he is the orator of the occasion, and obedience if he is the presiding officer.

JOHN MINOR BOTTS

We have no extended sketch of Mr. Botts to present to the reader, but a few leading facts in reference to the political man.

Mr. Botts is a native of Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, and was born in September, 1802. As early as 1834, he joined the Whig party, and in 1839, he came to Congress as a Whig. He was known in the House as a follower of Mr. Clay, or rather a supporter of Mr. Clay and his peculiar doctrines. Mr. Botts, in other words, was in favor of a highly protective tariff, the distribution of the public lands, and internal improvements. He is to-day in favor of these measures of what he would call reform. So strong was he in his devotion to the tenets of the Whig party, that when President Tyler disappointed his friends by his tariff policy, Mr. Botts, though a friend of years, at once terminated the friendship. He could not hold in respect the man who, it seemed to him, had betrayed his friends.

Mr. Botts was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska act and to the passage of the Lecompton bill. Nevertheless he is a slaveholder and a defender of the institution as it now exists in Virginia. But he is not a believer in the finality of the present system, nor is he afraid to express his opinions of slavery. This will be seen at once by the perusal of a letter to the "Richmond Whig," from Mr. Botts, from which we quote. It is dated April 18, 1859:

"I have recently received many letters from different parts of the State, asking for a copy of my Powhatan speech, delivered in 1850, which it is impossible for me to furnish, as I have only some half dozen copies left. As the best means of supplying the information so earnestly sought by those friends who are anxious to ascertain what horrible sentiments I uttered on the subject of slavery, which have been recently, to a great extent, substituted for the 'free negro' misrepresentation, I have concluded to publish, for the benefit of the Imposition party in particular, everything in that speech that relates to the question of slavery; garbled extracts of which have already appeared in a small portion of the press of that party – many of them, seeming to think there was no great amount of capital to be made out of it, have declined to notice it. The following is the portion objected to. I said:

"'There are, sir, two parties in our country, distinct from all the rest, of whom I wish to say a word. The one in the North, called 'Abolitionists,' and the other, in the South, known as 'Disunionists.' I am not sure for which of the two parties I have the least sympathy or respect; and I am not sure to which attaches the largest share of the responsibility for the chief difficulties with which the nation has been lately afflicted.

"The Abolitionists seem to estimate the value of this Union (and to hold as a condition and a price for its continuance) by the abolition of African slavery. While the ultra men of the South, or disunionists, seem to regard the perpetuation and extension of slavery as the chief bond that can hold them and the Union together. For neither of these parties have I any sympathy. I hold to the Union for far different, and, I trust, higher and nobler purposes. It is for the perpetuation of American Freedom, rather than the abolition or perpetuation of African Slavery. I am one of those who think slavery, in the abstract, is much to be deprecated; and whilst I think that, as at present organized in the southern States, it is a humanizing, civilizing, and Christianizing institution, as must all agree who will take the pains to compare the present condition of our slaves with the original African race, yet I regard it as a great calamity that it should have been entailed upon us; and I should look upon that man as the first and greatest benefactor to his country, whose wisdom could point out to us some practical and satisfactory means by which we could, through our own instrumentality, and without interference from our neighbors, provide for the ultimate emancipation and removal of all the slaves in the country. I speak of this as a desirable thing, especially to the owners of slaves, who, I think, are the chief sufferers, but at the same time I fear it is perfectly Utopian to attempt it; but I have seen too much difference between the enterprise, the industry, and the prosperity of the free and the slave States, to doubt the advantage we would derive from it if it could be accomplished.'

"Now, there it is; let them make the most of it. I will add, that I said it all at mature age, after full and careful deliberation, honestly believing and thinking all that it contains. I have seen no reason for modification, recantation, or equivocation. What I thought and said then, I think and repeat now, in the most emphatic terms; and hold, that he who objects to the sentiments conveyed, to be consistent, must not only be in favor of reopening the African slave trade at this time, but must take the position, that if no such thing as slavery had ever been known to or introduced amongst us, he would now favor its introduction for the first time; for if its original introduction is not to be deprecated, but justified and approved, why would he not advocate a traffic that holds so high a place in his judgment and regard? I do not know how many there are in this State, or in the South, who set themselves up as advocates of this revolting trade, nor do I care; I have only to say, that I am not one of them, and that, as a humanized, civilized and christianized, member of the community, I should be utterly ashamed of myself, if I could entertain any other opinions than those I have expressed; and I should deserve the scorn of all men, if I could permit any condition of the public mind to induce me so far to debase myself as to render me capable of expressing any other, for the purpose of catering to a morbid, vitiated, and corrupt taste, or to an affected and artificial sentimentality on the subject of slavery. These were then, and are now, my honest convictions, and I think all who have participated in the clamor that has been attempted to be gotten up, for the opportunity afforded me of proclaiming them from the house-tops, to the humanized, civilized, and christianized world; and I hope the Imposition press, throughout the State, will publish them, and that their candidates for gubernational and subordinate honors may read this my last declaration on the subject, wherever they may speak.

"In another part of that speech I said:

"'What I would ask and demand of the North, is that they shall not interfere with slavery as it exists under the Constitution; that they shall not touch the question of the slave trade between the States; that they shall carry out the true intent and meaning of the Constitution in reference to the restitution of fugitive slaves. These are the true issues between the North and the South; and I would go as far as he who goes furthest in exacting them, 'at all hazards, and to the last extremity." And what I would ask of the South is, not to suffer itself to be led off, without due consideration, upon false issues, presented by intemperate or over-zealous politicians, many of whom delight in, and live upon, agitation and excitement, and many more, perhaps, who owe their ephemeral fame and position to a pretended, exclusive championship for southern rights. Southern honor does not depend upon making unreasonable and untenable demands. The interference with, or abolition of slavery, where it exists, is one thing; the extension of it, where it does not exist, is a very different thing! Let us claim no more than we are entitled to under the Constitution; and then, what we do claim, let us stand by, like men who "know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain them.'"

"I have seen no reason to recant what I said here, either; these are the sentiments I now entertain, as I did when they were delivered before the people of Powhatan. What fault do they find with this? Do they indorse it or repudiate it? If they indorse it, even-handed justice requires them to say so. If they condemn it, justice to themselves, as they are resolved to make war on me, requires that they should point out wherein they differ from me.

"In this connection it may be proper to add, for the information of all who feel an interest in my record, one short paragraph from my African Church speech, in 1856, relating to the same subject; and from the several extracts herewith furnished, I think few will have any difficulty in ascertaining my position on the slavery question. Here is the passage referred to:

"'My position on the question of slavery is this; and, so far from wishing to conceal it, I desire it should be known to all. Muzzles were made for dogs, and not for men; and no press and no party can put a muzzle on my mouth, so long as I value my freedom. I make bold, then, to proclaim that I am no slavery propagandist. I will resort to all proper remedies to protect and defend slavery where it exists, but I will neither assist in nor encourage any attempt to force it upon a reluctant people anywhere, and still less will I justify the use of the military power of the country to establish it in any of the territories. If it finds its way there by legitimate means, it is all well; but never by force, through any instrumentality of mine. I am myself a slaveholder, and all the property my children have in the world is slave property, inherited from their mother; and he who undertakes to connect my name, or my opinions, with abolitionism, is either a knave or a fool, and not unfrequently both. And this is the only answer I have to make to them. I have not connected myself with any sectional party or sectional question; and so help me God, I never will.'"

JAMES H. HAMMOND

The moderate political views which Gov. Hammond, of South Carolina, has within a couple of years given publicity to, has given him a somewhat national reputation among the adherents of the Democratic party. He came to Congress as a politician of the Southern Rights school, and it was generally supposed that he would be found acting with the ultra wing of the Southern party in Congress. He brought with him the reputation of a scholar and an orator, and mingled at once in the Lecompton fray. He took sides with the administration against Mr. Douglas, though it was noticed at the time that the senator had very little to say about the Lecompton Constitution and the real issue then before Congress. His speeches were upon the general question of slavery.

The new senator from South Carolina attracted the universal attention of Congress and the strangers then present in Washington, and the impression he made was generally a happy one. His manners were quiet, unostentatious, gentlemanly. His style of speech was smooth, pleasant, and sometimes eloquent. As a man he was liked. Genial in his nature and pleasant in his conversation, he soon made warm friends at the capital – even among some of the very men whom he had in his South Carolina home regarded as little less than monsters in human shape. Senator Hammond at first tried his lance with the Illinois Giant, but either from personal considerations, or other, he soon desisted. To show Gov. Hammond's position on the slavery question in the winter of 1847-8, we quote a few passages from his celebrated speech delivered in the Senate in the Lecompton debate. We have, in the following passage, his opinion of squatter sovereignty:

"If what I have said be correct, then the will of the people of Kansas is to be found in the action of her Constitutional Convention. It is immaterial whether it is the will of a majority of the people of Kansas now, or not. The convention was, or might have been, elected by a majority of the people of Kansas. A convention, elected in April, may well frame a constitution that would not be agreeable to a majority of the people of a new State, rapidly filling up, in the succeeding January; and if legislatures are to be allowed to put to vote the acts of a convention, and have them annulled by a subsequent influx of immigrants, there is no finality. If you were to send back the Lecompton Constitution, and another was to be framed, in the slow way in which we do public business in this country, before it would reach Congress and be passed, perhaps the majority would be turned the other way. Whenever you go outside of the regular forms of law and constitutions to seek for the will of the people, you are wandering in a wilderness – a wilderness of thorns.

"If this was a minority constitution, I do not know that that would be an objection to it. Constitutions are made for minorities. Perhaps minorities ought to have the right to make constitutions, for they are administered by majorities. The Constitution of this government was made by a minority, and as late as 1840 a minority had it in their hands, and could have altered or abolished it; for, in 1840, six out of the twenty-six States of the Union held the numerical majority. In all countries and in all time, it is well understood that the numerical majority of the people could, if they chose, exercise the sovereignty of the country; but for want of intelligence, and for want of leaders, they have never yet been able successfully to combine and form a stable popular government. They have often attempted it, but it has always turned out, instead of a popular sovereignty, a populace sovereignty; and demagogues, placing themselves upon the movement, have invariably led them into military despotism.

"I think that the popular sovereignty which the senator from Illinois would derive from the acts of his territorial legislature, and from the information received from partisans and partisan presses, would lead us directly into populace, and not popular sovereignty. Genuine popular sovereignty never existed on a firm basis except in this country. The first gun of the Revolution announced a new organization of it, which was embodied in the Declaration of Independence, developed, elaborated, and inaugurated forever in the Constitution of the United States. The two pillars of it were Representation and the Ballot-box. In distributing their sovereign powers among the various departments of the Government, the people retained for themselves the single power of the ballot-box; and a great power it was. Through that they were able to control all the departments of the Government. It was not for the people to exercise political power in detail; it was not for them to be annoyed with the cares of government; but, from time to time, through the ballot-box, to exert their sovereign power and control the whole organization. This is popular sovereignty, the popular sovereignty of a legal constitutional ballot-box; and when spoken through that box, the 'voice of the people,' for all political purposes, 'is the voice of God; but when it is heard outside of that, it is the voice of a demon, the tocsin of the reign of terror."

Speaking of the South and slavery, he said:

"If we never acquire another foot of territory for the South, look at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles. As large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Spain. Is not that territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the world? With the finest soil, the most delightful climate, whose staple productions none of those great countries can grow, we have three thousand miles of continental shore line, so indented with bays and crowded with islands, that, when their shore lines are added, we have twelve thousand miles. Through the heart of our country runs the great Mississippi, the father of waters, into whose bosom are poured thirty-six thousand miles of tributary streams; and beyond we have the desert prairie wastes, to protect us in our rear. Can you hem in such a territory as that? You talk of putting up a wall of fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles so situated! How absurd.

"But, in this territory lies the great valley of the Mississippi, now the real, and soon to be the acknowledged, seat of empire of the world. The sway of that valley will be as great as ever the Nile knew in the earlier ages of mankind. We own the most of it. The most valuable part of it belongs to us now; and, although those who have settled above us are now opposed to us, another generation will tell a different tale. They are ours by all the laws of nature; slave labor will go over every foot of this great valley where it will be found profitable to use it; and some of those who may not use it are soon to be united with us by such ties as will make us one and inseparable. The iron horse will soon be clattering over the sunny plains of the South, to bear the products of its upper tributaries to our Atlantic ports, as it now does through the ice-bound North. There is the great Mississippi, a bond of union made by Nature herself. She will maintain it forever."