UNITED STATES.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVI, Issue 7, 22 April 1857, Page 4

UNITED STATES.

[Fvoin tho Rome JVetus, Januaiy 12.] Great excitement prevails in the South West, owing to insurrectionary movements among the negroes, particularly at Franklin, Columbia, and Dover, Tennessee. Twenty-four muskets and two kegs of powder had been found in the possession of a gang at Columbia, in Perry county, Tennessee. Fifteen negroes had been killed by their owners, and at Dover, on the Cumberland river, eleven had been hung ; one white man, disguised as a negro, had been whipped to death. It was thought a general uprising of the negroes would take place about the holidays, and the whites were arming and organizing for defence. In the House of Representatives the principal subject under discussion was the claim of Mr. Whitfield to a seat in that body as the delegate from Kansas. He was finally admitted by a vote of 1 12 ayes to 108 nays. Mr. A. P. Cook has arrived at Washington, from Arizona, the new territory formed out of the Gadsden purchase from Mexico. He brings with him his credentials, and will claim a seat in the House as delegate from that territory. He reports the population of Arizona at from 10,000 to 15,000 persons, and that the territory will make a state about as large as Pennsylvania. At a sitting of the Senate, on the 14th of December, a southern member moved a strong resolution, called forth by the proposals to reopen the slave-trade : — " Resolved, that this house regard all suggestions or propositions of every kind, by whomsoever made, for a revival of the slave-

trade, as shocking to the moral sentiments of the enlightened portion of mankind ; and any act on the part af Congress legalising or conniving at the legalising of that horrid and inhuman traffic, would justly subject the United States to the reproach and execration of all civilized and Christian people throughout the world," This was carried by 137 to 7 1 . It was then resolved, by 183 to B, that it is "inexpedient, unwise, aud contrary to the settled policy of the United States, to repeal the laws prohibiting the xVfrican slave trade." Among the eight "nays" was the name of Mr. Preston S. Brooks. The negro excitement at Tennessee and Kentucky had subsided, but continued in other southern states. The United States Senate, on the 22nd December, passed a bill authorizing the purchase of revenue cutters. Washington despatches state that orders have been given to government officers in New York to stop all shipments of men, arms, and provisions to General Walker. A meeting held in New York in aid of Walker was very enthusiastic. Contributions of 1,000 rifles, 1,000 dollars, 5,000 lbs. of bacon, and 100 barrels of bread, were made on the spot ; and General Wheat announced that 2,000 recruits would volunteer from New Orleans, and some hundreds leave New York immediately to join General Walker's army. President Pierce has ordered the arrest, on a civil process, of Cornelius Garrison, Charles Morgan, and General Walker, at the instance of the Transit Company, for seizing their property on the Isthmus. The packet-ship New York, which left Liverpool on the 13th of December, went ashore on the 19th, in a gale, two miles north of Barnegate Inlet ; seven lives were lost, and 300 passengers were four nights and days on the bleak coast, without clothes, food, or shelter.