The Daily Dispatch: January 31, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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From South Carolina.
Tre Virginia resolutions.

The resolution adopted by South Carolina to reply to the Virginia resolutions have been published. The proceedings in the South Carolina Legislature connected with their reception are interesting. In the House, the following message was received from Gov. Pickens:

State of South Carolina.

Executive Department, Jan. 28, 1861.

To the Speaker and Members

of the House of Representatives;

Gentlemen His Excellency, the Governor of Virginia, has transmitted to me the enclosed resolutions, passed by the Legislature of that illustrious Common wealth.

It will be seen that their object is to induce the Legislature of South Carolina to send on Commissioners to meet Commissioners from Virginia, and also from all the States that think proper to send similar Commissioners, on the 4th of February next, in Washington city to "consider, and, if practicable, to agree upon some suitable adjustment" of the great issues that have been made in the Confederacy.

We are disposed to treat with the most profound consideration every proposition that may emanate from the State of Virginia, and to yield to her almost everything, except what may involve vital principles. More than a year ago the State of South Carolina, actually by a most sincere desire to do everything to her power to avert the dangers that it was manifest then threatened the Federal Union, Commissioner to Virginia, and made an urgent appeal to her to step forward and devise some plan upon which the States immediately concerned might act together, and save their peace and their rights, and yet preserve the common Constitution as a blessing for all the States. It was then thought unnecessary, on the part of Virginia, to take any steps to act in concert with South Carolina. If our States had acted at that period, perhaps something might have been done to secure new guarantees by which our peace and our charted rights might have been protected in a common Union. As far as the Northern States are concerned, they have, many of men often violated their obligations as States under the Federal compact; and the compromises that have been made being the two great sections of the Con- federacy have been wantonly set aside. We have appealed in vain to their plighted both and to the integrity of the covenant.--We have been traduced and denounced through their pulpits, their press, their orators, and their statesmen, as unworthy of equality both them as States, and even as their inferiors in a social point of view. Their people have united in over whelming majorities at the recent elections, upon issues which openly involve our peace and existence, to put into power a party who entertain the deepest and most malignant hostility to our institutions and to our people. This is the great overt act of the people at the ballot-box, from which there no appeal to any higher tribunal, under our system of government. They have greed to place at the head of the army and navy a President, not for the protection of the rights and the peace of our people under a common inheritance, fixed and transmitted to express charters from the very origin of the government, but with open and avowed principles of deep and settled hostility, and with pledges made by him, at the head of a powerful party, for the final extermination of institutions essential to our power as a people and to the peace of our society. We have been forced to resume our original powers of government and to assert our separate sovereignty as a State, in order to seek that protection which we were compelled to believe would not be given to us and to our people under the power of such a party and such a Chief Magistrate.

Under these circumstances, however much I might be disposed to yield the most profound respect to the State of Virginia, and to any suggestion from her, yet it is difficult to perceive upon what grounds this State could agree to send Commissioners to Washington to meet Commissioners from the Northern States as well as from the Southern States.-- It might only result in deeper and wider difficulty and confusion. I refer the whole matter with great deference, to your wisdom and decision, hoping in any event that the kindest and most respectful reply may be made to Virginia.

Perhaps it is not improper to state that this State has agreed, through her Convention, to meet delegates from other seceding States, at Montgomery on the fourth of February, and our Convention has actually appointed delegator to attend this meeting from these States. The object of this Convention of States at Montgomery, will be to form immediately a common Government for the States that have seceded, and by efficient organization to secure their permanent independence beyond the reach of any contingency. It would obviously be impolitic for this State to send delegates to a meeting at Washington, appointed for the same day, to meet the States of the North with a view to preserve or to reconstruct the Federal Union with them, when we have agreed first to meet our sister seceding States, to whom we owe our deepest obligations, and feel bound by every tie to make no compromises with any other powers until we have first formed with them a separate and independent Union. F. W. Pickens.

The resolutions of the General Assembly of Virginia were then read.

Mr. Aldrich offered the following resolutions.

Resolved, That South Carolina receives with pleasure the expressions of kindly feeling extend- ed to her by the State of Virginia, as contained in the resolutions of the General Assembly, appointing the Hon. Judge John Robertson a Commissioner to the State of South Carolina.

Resolved, That under the policy adopted by South Carolina, inasmuch as the State of South Carolina has dissolved her connection with the Government of the United States and seceded from the late union known as the United States, and inasmuch as this State has invited the seceding States to meet her in Convention at Montgomery, on the 4th day of February next, which invitation has been accepted by the States seceding, the invitation of Virginia to appoint Commissioners to assemble in Washington for the purposes indicated in the first resolution of the General Assembly of Virginia, communicated by the Hon. John Robertson to this State is respectfully declined.

After some debate--

Mr. Tracy offered the following resolutions as an amendment to those of Mr. Aldrich:

Resolved, That this Legislature receives, with the most respect, the proposition from the illustrious common wealth of Virginia, contained in the preamble and resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of that State on the 19th of January, 1861, and forwarded to this Legislature.

Resolved, That the General Assembly of this State has neither the power nor the will to re-unite this State with the Union known as the United States; and therefore, respectfully declines to entertain the proposition of Virginia.

After further debate--

Mr. Rhett offered the following resolutions as a substitute for the resolutions of Mr. Aldrich:

Resolved, That the State of South Carolina, in severing the ties which bound her to the Federal Union did not act hastily or without the fullest and most thorough deliberation, and that her session from the United States was final and irreducible, and that she cannot, therefore, with honor, dignify or good policy, send Commissioners as requested; and that South Carolina, therefore, with all deference to the illustrious Commonwealth of Virginia, declines her proposition.

Resolved. That the sympathy of Virginia with South Carolina, as expressed in the resolutions transmitted, is received with pleasure by this State.

After some further debate, a series of resolutions were received from the Senate and adopted. They are those already published.