New Orleans Daily True Delta, December 13, 1860

The disunionists are very much distressed because, in the appointment of the national congressional committee, several well-known, faithful, able, fearless and independent supporters of national democracy and genuine state-rights were selected over rampant disunionists, or the time-serving tools of conspiring demagogues. The names of Houston, of Alabama; Hamilton, of Texas; Miles Tayor, of Louisiana; Rust, of Arkansas, sound unwelcomely and harshly upon the ears of the enemies of the Union, and the hirelings of the traffickers in treason, without the remotest intention of sharing its risks, are, of course, loud in their censures and fluent in their impotent abuse of them. It may be asked what can the congressional committee as constituted, or however constituted, do in the present condition of the states? Can it compel the traitors in the free states to respect the laws and their constitutional duties? Can it make the abolition fanatics of to-day, or the Caleb Cushings, and Biglers, and Dixes and Van Burens, and others of similar kidney of the past, repent of the evil they have done, retrace their dishonorable and perfidious courses, and study in the future better how to respect their allegiance to the government, their duty to the confederacy, and their oaths to the constitution? Can it substitute common sense, sound views and veritable patriotism for the schemes of demagogues, the plots of factionists and the pretences of pseudo patriots? And if none of these things can be reached and attained by it, of what use is it, and how can such true southern men as Rust, Taylor, Houston and Hamilton benefit their country by sharing its work and dividing its labors? In answer to these, and all

such objections, we respond, that at no past period was there ever presented to the faithful supporters and defenders of republican government so favorable an opportunity for admonishing bad men of their misdeeds, suggesting their corrective and indicating the mode, the manner and the time of doing it; and at the same time, also, to establish the folly, the futility, aye, the insanity of seeking in a dissolution of the government, an efficient remedy for southern grievances.

The selection of the four gentlemen named above as members of the committee of Congress is an indication upon the part of the black republican majority of the House of Representatives that they are at last brought to bay, and that they will no longer be tolerated either in Washington, or in their respective states in their infamous work of violating the laws and subverting the constitution. We know Mr. Taylor’s views upon the issue now dividing the nation; we know how earnestly, sincerely and steadily he deplored the infidelity of the present administration and its predecessor to the plainest dictates of duty, to the obvious requirements of their obligations as servants of the people in their persistent declination of the issue presented by the abolitionists in their habitually wicked and treasonable opposition to the enforcement of the fugitive slave law. He deplored Buchanan’s cowardice, and like all good men mourned the degeneracy of the times when two administrations—both under the complete control of men boasting extreme devotion to southern rights, duty and honor—disgracefully allowed the laws to be violated and defied, and their officers trampled upon and maltreated; as if, instead of bringing the authors of the treason to justice, they encouraged outrage with the purpose and design at some subsequent period of malting their own infidelity to duty the principal pretext for the destruction of the government they had sworn to uphold and were honored and paid to maintain in all its integrity. Miles Taylor would not then, any more than now, counsel a withdrawal from a Union by those states which had committed no crime against its sovereignty, its authority and its laws; on the contrary, he would invoke the whole power of the confederacy to crush abolition, sedition and treason, and if there had to be secession he would make the commonwealths that had erred through perversity, obstinacy or prepense disloyalty, withdraw.—Miles Taylor, no more than any other upright, independent and conscientious man, can see why the South should abandon its just claims to its equal share of the national domain and other national property, merely because the Cushings of Massachusetts, the Van Burens of New York, the Biglers of Pennsylvania, or the Brights of Indiana, and other similar demagogues and tricksters of free states, have prostituted legislation in these places to the injury of the south, the defiance of the laws and the disregard of the constitution. He, on the contrary, would employ the whole force of this united government if necessary, to enforce the laws in these and all other states; and if by so doing Massachusetts or others deemed themselves aggrieved, they might withdraw in welcome. Mr. Taylor claims for his section all that her fidelity and devotion to the federal pact entitles her to demand and exact; but he will never, we are confident, be found supporting propositions for state secession at a wanton sacrifice of all the interests, material and moral, we of the south have, in the perpetuation of its institutions, ever faithfully labored to uphold, strengthen and perpetuate. If the fanatical states of treason-breeding New England, if Pennsylvania, Ohio and others of the middle and western states persist in disregarding and violating their constitutional duties, Miles Taylor would invoke the whole power of the republic to coerce them, at no matter what cost of blood and treasure, into respect for their duties; and if then they should still remain contumacious and rebellious, and dissolution of the Union was the only remedy for the incurable vices of those states, he would expel them, not withdraw ourselves from the Union. In this the faithful and able representative of the 2d congressional district of Louisiana differs from the brawling herd of place-hunters and the numerous brood of demagogues who seem to fancy themselves will be all great and powerful upon the ruins of their country; for Mr. Taylor has no desire for office and required the most powerful appeals of his constituents to allow himself to be elected to his present most responsible position in the great emergencies of these times. He does honor to Louisiana, and as a member of the congressional committee will not disappoint the hopes of the south.