Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.
the State of feeling in Arkansas--position of the South, &c.
Osceola, Arkansas Jan. 13
Seeing in your columns no communication From our State, and thinking that anything from any place relative to the subject which is now rending asunder the Union of the States would not be unacceptable to you or your reader, I have end favored to give you a perfect account of the feeling in Arkansas upon the great questions of the day.
The feeling in this county, (Miss.,) one of the most conservative in the State, If not now for immediate secession, is yet for determined resistance to the oppressions of the now dominant party of the North.
While, probably, those in favor of co-operation have a majority in the county, there is a band to which every day brings new recruits who are in favor of immediate secession.
We have no Submissionists amongst us; or, if we have, they are ashamed to show themselves in the light of the sun.
This being the state of feeling in a strongly conservative county, you can judge of that in other portions of the State where conservation has never equalled that of the counties lying immediately on the Mississippi river.
Coercion is looked upon here as a measure received in the brain of insanity, and brought forward by short-sighted, knavish politicians to secure the influence of fanatical fools, whose Idiocy is in keeping with this atrocious and brutish doctrine.
Andy Johnson's course is execrated by every one who pretends to call himself a white man. Applauded by Black Republicans, he stands despised by all the rest.
‘"Oh for a whip in every Southern hand, to lash the scoundrel naked through the world."’
The Legislature of this State has passed a bill calling a Convention.
It was time, for upon the action, or rather non-action, of the Legislature, not ‘"muttered curses"’ were beginning to fall.
Arkansas will follow in the lead of her elder sisters of the South.
A Southern Confederacy will of course be established, and means for the future protection of Southern institutions are being discussed throughout She South.
Among the rest, the passage of an act to prevent the naturalization of any person whatever in the Southern Confederacy who is not a resident at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
You will perceive at once the necessity for this law; for the population at the North, thrown out of work, and perishing by starvation, as they will be, when our great staple is withdrawn from their markets, consequent to a dissolution of the Union, will emigrate by thousands and hundreds of thousands to Southern territory, bringing with them their peculiar views of the institution of the South; and if we allow them the privilege of naturalization, we will soon have in our midst a party, and no small one, whose every principle is subversion of the peculiar institution.
When too late, we have discovered what mistaken levity has brought upon us, what will be our remedy?
Can we easily crush out that party when, under their secret teachings and influence, they will have abolitionize a large number of those with whom they come in contact?
Then, indeed, will we have the ‘"irrepressible conflict"’ In all its dreadful phases.--With a dense population at the North, fanatically hostile, and a set of not less dangerous and secret enemies at the South, inviting our negroes to rebellion, we will then regret, alas!
too late, the mistaken policy of this dangerous forbearance.
It is said that the cotton States intend passing laws prohibiting the inter-State slave trade.
If so, it will be because they believe it to be vitally necessary to the protection and perpetuation of the institution of slavery.
We are looking with anxiety to the other Southern States; and especially do we look to Virginia to take the stand which she was always want to take, and which is now due, not only to herself, but to her sister States of the South. D. S. B. 