| Summary: | Editorial from the Montgomery Advertiser and State Gazette. The piece credits the rise of abolitionism with the South's recent efforts to formally defend slavery ("'to vindicate the truth of history'"). It then discusses the Democratic platform and presidential candidate, noting the party's cohesion despite sectional differences of opinion: "It cannot be asked of Northern men that they should prefer our system to theirs, or that they should desire to extend slavery. But when they admit that ours is a legitimate state of society, sanctioned by human and divine laws, consistent with the Constitution and true republicanism, and pledge themselves to the support of our rights . . . they have gone as far as we can demand, or have a right to expect. It would be well indeed could we instill into them our own convictions, and claim their assistance in establishing slavery because of a coincidence of opinions, as they now yield it from a sense of constitutional duty, in protecting and assuring the possession of our rights . . . They cannot admit it to be a social and political evil, degrading and ruinous to the country where it exists, and yet consent to its extension. They would be driven, admitting its constitutional rights, to advocate disunion as the only remedy; and this is the remedy of Black Republicanism, and must be the remedy for the South if the Union affords her no protection."
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