Richmond Enquirer, July 10, 1860

The effort now being made to attach odium to Mr. Yancey, and through him unpopularity to Mr. Breckinridge, shows how little the people of the North understand the political sentiments of the great mass of the Southern people. Never was any State more ably represented, or her interest more gallantly defended, than was Alabama by her gifted son, Wm. L. Yancey. Every sentiment of his speech at Charleston, and his noble defence of his State at Baltimore, finds a response in the Democracy of Virginia, and all the unmerited abuse that folly levels at his head but endears him to the Southern people and renders his influence greater and more controlling.

The charge of disunionist, now so frequently made against Mr. Yancey and through him directed at the supporters of Breckinridge and Lane, is so supremely ridiculous and silly that it reflects more upon the good sense of those who make it, than injury upon those against whom it is levelled. With just and equal rights to every State, there will be no disunionists in any section; but a denial of the benefits and equality designed by the Constitution, will make disunionists in every section. We have respect enough for the manliness and courage of the Northern people to believe that a successful refusal of their just rights would make them as much disunionists as we know such refusal will create at the South.

Resistance to wrong and injury—to tyranny, whether of one man or eighteen millions—is the cherished birth-right of every citizen of the Federal Union. A penny on the pound of tea was an abstraction utterly insignificant and worthless when compared with the consequences of a war of seven years, and expense of millions of treasure, and the loss of thousands of lives; and yet that penny created an independent people, and built up a nation, now one of the first powers of the world. Disunion in '76 had not more enemies nor less friends, because of its insignificant penny abstraction cause; nor will disunionists in 1861 be deterred by the tory cry of Union, when a majority of the States have authoritatively pronounced for "the irrepressible conflict" against the rights, interests, property and lives of the minority.

If the Southern States are to be ruined by "missiles" hurled by the hands of Lincoln and his followers, not from Illinois against Kentucky, but from Washington City, with the power and patronage of the Federal Government, against the institutions and lives of the people of the Southern States, it will be a matter of small consequence whether that ruin follow the effort at independence or comes as the natural consequence of a servile submission to Black Republican rule. Mr. Yancey, as the advocate of disunion without cause, would be powerless, but as the bold and powerful champion of the rights, property and lives of the Southern people, even with the cause created by an abstraction, would prove a most powerful Moses to the second exodus.

Upon the accession of Lincoln to power, we would apprehend no direct act of violence against negro property, but by the use of federal office, contracts, power and patronage, the building up in every Southern State of a Black Republican party, the ally and stipendiary of Northern fanaticism, to become in a few short years the open advocates of abolition, the confiscation of negro property by emancipation sudden or gradual, and eventually the ruin of every Southern State by the destruction of negro labor. By gradual and insidious approach, under the fostering hand of federal power, Abolitionism will grow up in every border Southern State, converting them into free States, then into "cities of refuge" for runaway negroes from the gulf States. No act of violence may ever be committed, no servile war waged, and yet the ruin and degradation of Virginia will be as fully and as fatally accomplished as though bloodshed and rapine ravished the land. There are no consequences that can follow, even forcible disunion, more disastrous to the future prosperity of the people of Virginia, than will be this sowing the seeds of discord and division, of emancipation and abolitionism by Northern hands, to be cultivated and harvested by the people of Virginia.

If Mr. Yancey is a disunionist to avert these sad consequences, there will be no odium in the charge; on the contrary, the best and noblest men of the Southern States will rally around the gallant Alabamian, to avert consequences so calamitous to the peace and prosperity of the Southern States.

The supporters of Mr. Brenckinridge are no more disunionists, because Mr. Yancey may be so considered, than are the friends of Mr. Douglas slave-traders because Mr. Gaulding, or some such man, advocated the slave trade unrebuked in the Douglas Convention. The only Georgian present in the Douglas Convention advocated the slave trade in a labored and silly effort for nearly one hour, unrebuked by any delegate; and yet we are not uncharitable enough to charge the slave trade upon Mr. Douglas, because of the folly of his Georgia supporter.

These are reflections which address themselves to the supporters of Mr. Douglas in Virginia, and to all those who advocate two tickets—Douglas and Johnson, Breckinridge and Lane—in every State.

The running of two tickets in Virginia has other consequences equally serious. It divides and distracts the Southern people, and, by the division, and the animosities which it will excite, encourages the fanaticism of the North. It matters not how true to Southern rights and Southern interests the supporters of Mr. Douglas may be, the very act of separation from the great body of their friends, neighbors and associates of the South, and the adoption of the silly slogan "disunion," towards their fellow citizens of the South, will give them the character of submissionists, which will cause them to be regarded by the North as the pioneers of Black Republicanism in the South. In vain will they point to the record of Mr. Douglas as justification against the suspicions they will have excited at the South, and the hopes they will have encouraged at the North.