Southern Bluster: Extract: From The Speech Of Mr. Rayner, Of...

öir: i win not aüempt to aiscuss tne isolated queation of slavery, as it exista in the States; or attompt to prove on this floor our right to our own property. All we have to say on this subject is, f you want our slaves, "como and take them." But before you enter upon this mud crusade, } would advise you to count well the cosí of your undertaking. Before you accomplish your purpose, you must march over jiecatombs of bodies ; you must convort every one of our smiling fields into a camp Bnd Wist beat every cue of yourshares into swords. Long, long, betore you reach the hnnks of the Roanoke, every stream will run red wtth your blood, every hill will whiten with your bonea.- Atlempt this wild project, when you will, and if there be any truth in heathen story, the banks of the Styx will be lined with your shivering ghosts, for a hundred years to come. And the baltic will not be fought by thedescendantsof the Cavaliers alone, as intimated by the gentleman from Kentucky, (Mr. Marshall ;) when your myrmidons, aficr conquering them, shsll reach tho borders of the Old Norih State, they will find the brawny sons of the moiintains, and the quiet citizens of the plains, congregated on our northern borders ; we will there form a rampart with our bodies, over which you will ncver pass, tiil you have planted your feet upon our graves. I say not this in idle bravado we shall never leaveour homes to muko war upon you - but I wam you to leave us unmolested, to let us alono. You knuw nothtng, sir, you know nothing,of the fcellinga of our people, determined to maintain their rights by their own fire-side, at tho sacrifico of every comfort, at the risk of overy danger. So far as regards tho mere quostion of slavery in ihe abstract, I am not one of those who bclieve it to be a blessing. 1 beliove it to be an evil. And when 1 soy an evil, I do not mean that its tolcration ia a crime, a potilicnl sin ; but that it is a misfortune to any people, among whom t exists. But if ii wero tea times greater un evil than il i.,we will nevcr sulfer thosc who are uninterested in iho matter to interfere wiih us. There is a natural repugnance in man, agninst iho idle and insolent interferonce of olhers; and we never will bo driven lo dolhat, which, in process of time, we might have done from policy, and from interest. And I can assure Northern gentlemen, that the courseoflhe abolilionists has riveted the chainsofelaverv with doublé and triple bolts of steel, il hus thrown feack the cause of nonaluvery in tho South, at least a century. Since the people of ihe Norlh have taken this matter in their keeping, we nolonger contémplate the time in advance, when sluv ery is to ceaae amongst us. We had ralh er lear this evil, than that our enemies should claim as a triumph, that which future policy. might havo dictaled to us to do of our own accord.