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Senator HAMMOND, of South Carolina, in a letter which was published in the TIMES a few days since, insists upon the necessity of a compact union among the Slave States, and advises the sending of delegates to Richmond clothed with absolute power to take such action as the emergency may require. He represents the people of the North as bent on the destruction of the slaveholding States—ignorant of the fact that it involves their own. He adds:

“They are told and believe that we are weak, and in the face of the fact that we have been strong enough to control this Government ever since it was established, and to make the country all that it is, they have been made to believe that the South dare not face the North on any decisive field—in short, on the issue of disunion. And that issue is what, it seems to me, they are now pressing keenly on us, in Congress and everywhere. We must meet it, and meet it now.”

Mr. HAMMOND here incidentally states the precise issue of the pending contest. He admits that the slaveholding States have “controlled this Government ever since it was established; and he seems to understand perfectly—though he does not confess openly—that the real point to be decided next November is, whether they shall be permitted thus absolutely to control it longer. The question of Slavery is merely an incident of the real controversy. It is prominent and important because Slavery is the weapon which the South has used to compel that union of action which has enabled it to control the Government hitherto. The Southern States cling to Slavery because it affords the only basis upon which they can unite. The North denounces it partly on moral grounds, and partly because it has been so long made the instrument of their subjugation.

But the real contest is for political power. The great body of the people of the North and West have come to feel that the South has usurped control of the Government long enough—that the real power of the country rests no longer with that section, and that every consideration of justice and expediency demands that the actual control of the Government should go with the population and the natural elements of authority. For a long time after the organization of the Government, the slaveholding States were in the ascendant. They continued to hold the majority of population—they had the greater wealth, and were thus fairly entitled to the substantial control of the Government. But that period has passed away forever. They are now in a constitutional minority, and in 1864 the Free States will have 196 representative votes, and the Slave States but 104.

Upon what grounds of justice or of right can the South still claim, in the face of this steady relative decline, the prolonged and perpetual ascendancy in the councils of the Federal Government? Why should the other States of the Union be expected to concede to them, in perpetuity, this complete control over interests which they all share in common? It was understood, when this Government was established, that it was to be a government of the people, acting under prescribed constitutional forms. In such a government power must go with the people;—and the balance of power must shift as the changes of population may require. These changes are by no means confined to the Slave States:— they embrace all sections of the country. In 1790, Massachusetts was the second State in the Union in point of population and relative political weight:—now she has fallen to be the sixth. Ohio, which had no existence then, and which, in 1800, ranked as the seventeenth of the States, has now risen to be the third. The Northwest has grown twice as fast as the Southwest:—the old North has increased but slowly, while the Mississippi valley has rushed forward, with gigantic strides, towards that supreme dominion which she is soon to wield over all the States of the common Union. The sceptre of power is rapidly passing away from the Atlantic seaboard;—the great West already snatches the Presidential nomination from the Eastern States;—Western influences, interests, habits and modes of thought already begin to control the public action of the whole country, and in twenty-five years from this time we must all, North as well as South, look to the West for the laws and the policy which are to control our interests and decide our destiny. These are among the unavoidable incidents of national growth. They spring necessarily from the fact that in so large a country—one having such wide diversities of climate and of soil, and opened in successive sections to immigration and settlement, as our own has been—the centre of power must follow the course of population, and must change as that changes from one section to another. The South can have no exemption from this universal law. It cannot hope to prolong its control over the Confederacy beyond the term which this law assigns to it.

Mr. HAMMOND is quite right in saying that hitherto the supremacy of the South over the Federal Government has been complete. It is the fact of this control,—prolonged already beyond the just limits which its relative rank would prescribe, and not always exercised with a very scrupulous regard to the rights and interests of other sections,—which has roused the people of the Northern States to an effort for its overthrow. They are naturally unwilling longer to be overborne by an aggressive and arrogant minority. They cannot consent to see their interests made permanently subordinate to the interests of a section which has become inferior to them in population, in wealth, and in all the elements of political control. They assert their right, by every legitimate title, to the control of the Government; — and it is this for which they are now contending. The South is determined to resist. It holds the attitude of a resolute usurper — resolved on perpetuating his power, and menacing with violent resistance every attempt to dispossess him. The resistance will be futile, because the war is with the laws of nature — the inevitable and irresistible influences of national growth.

The South alleges that its institutions are in danger from this menaced change. It regards this endeavor of the North to seize upon the power to which it is entitled, as a crusade against Slavery, and upon this apprehension bases its stubborn resistance. The South is undoubtedly entitled to protection against any such interference with its social security. But the time for resistance will only arrive when the attempt at interference is made. Nothing increases the danger of it half so much as the means taken to ward it off. The South has no reason to fear any unconstitutional interference with Slavery on the part of the Northern States, or of the Federal Government in the hands of the majority of the people of the Union. When any such attempt is made the South will have a right to resist;—but until that time, they have no right to offer any other resistance than that which any citizen may properly make at the ballot box. A league of the Cotton States,—such an “organization of a new Republic, under our present Federal Constitution,” as Mr. HAMMOND recommends,—would be in violation of the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and could only be regarded as an initial step to revolution.

Mr. HAMMOND says that the North is pressing upon the South the issue of disunion. In what sense this language is used we do not quite understand. The North has no purpose of doing anything which shall compel the South, either from self-respect or in self-defence, to secede from the Union;—but it is resolved, and it is nearly unanimous in the purpose, to assert its rightful share of authority in the affairs of the Federal Government. If the South regards this as pressing the issue of disunion upon them, we can only regret their mistake, and leave the people of the Southern States to decide for themselves what course they will pursue. According to present appearances there will be two Democratic candidates in the field,—one a National Democrat and the other a Secessionist. This will enable the people of the South to vote directly on the issue of disunion,—leaving the North entirely undistubed by the contest. But whatever else may happen, it is quite safe to predict that the control which the South has exercised over the Government ever since it was established, must now come to an end. Senator HAMMOND is statesman enough to afford to look this fact in the face and to make the best of it,—instead of wasting his strength in contending against what is inevitable.