The idea of an independent Southern confederacy, to be constituted of a fragment of the Union, survived the contest of 1832, and has been cherished with zeal and enthusiasm, by a small party of malcontents, from that day to this. Either from honest conviction or from the syren seductions of ambition, or perhaps from that combination of both which so often misleads the judgment of the wisest and best of men, this party has pursued its end with unrivalled zeal and consummate tact, never for a single moment abating its efforts to convince the South of the advantages of separation. But all its ability and all its untiring labors failed to make any serious impression, until the great and powerful interest of slavery was enlisted in the cause, and used as the means of reaching the feelings, and arousing the prejudices of the Southern people. The theories of nullification and secession, while accepted by many leading minds in that section, never made any serious impression upon the mass of the people. Indeed, it may be said with truth, that the honest instincts of the people invariably rejected these pernicious and dangerous theories, whenever they were distinctly involved in the elections. Nevertheless, there was an undercurrent of opinion in favor of them: the minds of the people were familiarized with the doctrines, and thus made ready to embrace them, whenever they should be satisfied it was indispensable to their safety and liberty to avail themselves of their benefit. These abstract principles, however industriously and successfully taught, would not of themselves have availed to urge the people on to the desperate contest into which they have been madly precipitated. The dogma of the right of secession was not left a mere barren idea: it was accompanied with constant teachings respecting the incompatibility of interests, and the inevitable conflict, between the North and the South; the superiority of slavery over every other form of labor; and the imminent danger of the overthrow of this benign institution by Northern fanaticism, and by the unfriendly influence of the commercial and financial policy of that section. Thus, the mischievous error of secession was roused to life and action by the exhibition of those unreal phantoms, so often conjured up to frighten the South--abolition, agrarianism, and protective oppression.