The last week has been full of stirring incidents in the
progress of that great movement, which is now working out the
deliverance and liberty of the South. Our Commissioners have
appeared in Washington. The Custom House, the United States
Arsenal, Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney are in our
possession. On Morris' Island, and on Sullivan's Island, our
engineers are busy throwing up earth works, with a view to the
Harbor and Fort Sumter. The sudden abandonment of Fort
Moultrie by the United States troops, and the occupation by
them of Fort Sumter, has filled our people with military
enthusiasm. The threatening aspect of the Black Republican
party - the resignation of his office by the Secretary of War
in Washington, and the confusion and excitement which
bankruptcy of the Government and the conflict between the two
sections of the Union occasion at the Federal Metropolis,
augers well for our cause. The Government stands paralyzed.
If it dares to send the Federal troops, now in Fortress
Monroe, or the Norfolk Navy Yard, to Charleston, Virginia will
rise up and seize the fortresses of the United States within
her territory; and before this week is out, every military
post on Southern ground will be in possession of the State
authorities of the Southern States. They will all see that
the issue of force is made by the Federal Government; and that
the fate of our Southern State must be the fate of all. The
coercive power of the Federal Government, so long vaunted as
adequate to suppress the secession of a State, is rapidly
proving itself to be, what it has long been supposed and said
to be - a wretched humbug - a scarecrow - a dirty bundle of
red rags and old clothes. We said it ten years ago, and again
a few months since, that secession could not and would not be
put down by the Federal Government. Even General JACKSON, in
all the plenitude of his popularity, felt the inadequacy of
military force to perpetuate the Union; and whilst putting
forth his Proclamation and Force Bill with one hand, he was
under great apprehension and most busy with the other hand in
getting up a Tariff in the House of Representatives, which he
afterwards said was far better for the South in its
concessions, than the Compromise Tariff of 1833, made by Mr.
CLAY. That still greater humbug, of the eighteen millions of
freemen, north of the Ohio and MASON and DIXON'S line, who are
to rush down upon the South in true Tartarie style, is also
rapidly changing its frowns into grimace. Before long, we
fear, we will be the tender object of their distorted smiles
and grim affections; and by the aid of our frontier Southern
States, they will put forth their meek endeavors to win us
back to their paternal embraces.
The interest in the proceedings of South Carolina in the
great drama of secession, will probably end with this week.
Other actors are coming upon the stage. Other States will
secede from the Union. Other ports are to be blockaded; other
forts are to turn their guns upon the people, or be seized.
The spirit of the South is rising to meet the great emergency
her safety and honor requires; and as State after State
withdraws from the Union, the fixed attention which our little
State drew upon herself will be turned to the grand
aggregation of free and independent Southern States seeking, in
a common assemblage, those new means of preserving their
liberties and institutions which their separate organization
renders necessary. South Carolina will lose her attractions
with the return of the garrison from Fort Sumter to Fort
Moultrie, and the quiet triumph of her secession, in the
control of her destinies, will be a thing of course.