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circular to the post-masters of the south and southwest, apprising them in anticipation of the incendiary stuff of which they were to be made the dispensers.'

A match was thus applied,- -a petard was thus thrown among the combustible and already excited materials, of which southern society in America is usually composed; which, as might be anticipated, led to an immediate attack on the Charleston Postoffice. The Charleston Courier, a leading organ of the south, disposed of the matter in the following brief account which it published on the occasion.

"Attack upon the Post-office.-The recent abuse of the United States mail to the purposes of disseminating the vile and criminal incendiarism of northern fanatics, has caused a great and general excitement in our community, and led, on Wednesday night, as may have been expected, to an attack on the Post-office, which perhaps though not to be justified, has much to excuse it in the cause of provocation.

"Between the hours of 10 and 11 o'clock on that night, a number of persons assembled about the Exchange, and without any noise or disturbance, but on the contrary, with coolness and deliberation, made a forcible entry into the post-office, by wrenching off one of its windows and carrying off the package containing the incendiary matter.

"We trust that this proceeding will tend to open the eyes of our northern friends to the necessity of some energetic step to prevent the unwarrantable and criminal interference of northern fanaticism with southern interests, and even induce our northern enemies to pause in their work of reckless mischief."

Modern outrage, we believe, has seldom on such slight pretexts, been found to equal in its violence this infraction of the laws and of all social order, not so much the work of incendiarism, or the sudden

CHARLESTON POST-OFFICE.

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outbreak of an easily excited population-but the result of a cool and deliberate resolve of the "sovereign people," to uphold by this unprovoked and unwarranted assault upon popular rights, the assumed prerogative of a distinct and separate class of their fellow citizens-sanctioned, it is true, in the act, by the local authorities, and sustained by the direct countenance and support of the more influential inhabitants of their city. These proceedings were immediately followed by the destruction of all the papers, newspapers, documents, &c. thus feloniously abstracted from the Government-office; which, in pursuance of an extensively published notice, were taken out on the following evening, and publicly burnt in front of the main guard, and in the presence of several thousand persons, who were witnesses of the ceremonial. But the conduct of these modern peace-preservers did not end here; for, in some few days afterwards, on the 3rd of August following, a large public meeting was held at the City Hall, in Charleston, at the call of the City Council, "to sanction the entire proceedings, and to appoint twenty-four citizens, to take charge, from thenceforth, of the United States mail," (away, be it remembered, from the control and custody of the Supreme Government of the country,)" and at a future meeting to report the further means best adapted to put down the abolitionists." "We have not at hand," (reports the Charleston Courier,) a list of the committee appointed for this purpose, but suffice it to say, it is headed by Senator Hayne,

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and composed of the mightiest men in Charleston. They have already, (in pursuance of the trusts confided to them,) quarantined the mail steam-packet, and established a regular censorship extraordinary.'

We present the foregoing, as a somewhat faithful portraiture of the morbid state of feeling, that continues unabated to the present day in the south, on the exciting question of slave emancipation, and the determination of the entire people of these states to resist to the utmost any interference with what they so audaciously assert to be their "vested rights." Yet, what, will it be supposed, was the first act of the Supreme Government on this occasion-bearded in its authority, and set at defiance? or did it condemn this lawless intervention-assert the dominion and supremacy of the laws-enforcing their due observance, by punishing with severe chastisement the actors in this exhibition? By no means; instead of entering on this first and necessary duty, they shrunk appalled from the responsibilities of their situation-became accessaries after the factpromoters of anarchy and crime, by their example, and the direct encouragement which they afforded to the Charleston rioters, conveyed to the postmaster of that city, in the letter of instructions in relation to these outrages, from the Honorable the Post-master General, Amos Kendall, and who, by virtue of his office, was a member of the United States cabinet. The letter, as proclaiming the opinion and conduct of the Supreme Government, is worthy of some notice.

CHARLESTON POST-OFFICE.

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"Post Office department, Washington.

"To the Post-master, Charleston, S. Carolina. "SIR,-In your letter of the 29th just received, you inform me, that by the steam-boat mail from New York, your office had been filled with papers and tracts upon slavery—that the public mind was highly excited upon the subject, that you doubted the safety of the mail itself out of your possessionthat you had determined, as the wisest course, to detain these papers, and you now ask instructions from this department.

'Upon a careful examination of the law, I am satisfied that the Post-master General has no legal authority to exclude newspapers from the mail, nor to prohibit their carriage or delivery on account of their character or tendency, real or supposed. Probably it was not thought safe to confer on the hands of the executive department, a power over the press, which might be perverted and abused.

"But I am not prepared to direct you to forward or deliver the papers of which you speak. The Post Office department was created to serve the people of each and all of the United States, and not, to be used as the instrument of their destruction. None of the papers have been forwarded to me, and I cannot judge for myself of their character or tendency. But you inform me that they are in character the "most inflammatory and incendiary-and insurrectionary in the highest degree."

"By no act or direction of mine could I be induced to aid knowingly, in giving circulation to papers of this description directly or indirectly-we owe an obligation to the laws-but a higher one to the communities in which we live, and if the former be perverted to destroy the latter, it is patriotism to disregard them. Entertaining these views, I cannot sanction, and will not condemn the step that you have taken.

"Your justification must be looked for in the character of the papers detained, and the circumstances by which you are surrounded.

"Your obedient, humble servant,

"AMOS KENDALL,

"Post-master General."

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DISGRACEFUL CONDUCT

And this, in a country that still vaunts itself free, and advanced in general civilization-a country that we are told is sustained by the moral force and efficacy of the laws, upheld by public opinion, and the voice of an entire people; which presents an example, in its peculiar and happy form of government, to all other nations for their guidance and imitation. In what other country under Heaven could similar excesses occur, and its government, either through apprehension of its incapacity—its puerile weakness, or from its diseased notions of what is due from the executive of a people, to the proper sustainment of the laws they are called upon to administer, become themselves, in fact, the promoters-the declared abettors of outrage such as this, that can receive no apology-no possible sanction from any assumed or positive necessity that may be said to have justified it.

"We owe an obligation to the laws," quoth Mr. Kendall. Aye, truly !-but lest the measure of his allegiance, or those of the Government whom he represented on this occasion, should be misunderstood, even for an hour, he takes excellent care to explain, that his adhesion is of that malleable and ephemeral kind, which is only to be depended on, so long as these laws, (and without waiting for their alteration or amendment, if bad, or unequal to the ends originally proposed in their adoption) may exempt from their interference, the sportive tricks of some such outbreak as his letter speaks of, of these or any other class of citizens, that either