there is any such law as this on the statute-book of Pennsylvania? If he has, why then I am satisfied. Mr. MEMMINGER. In reply to the gentleman I would say that I hold in my hand an elaborate report made on this point by a Committee of the Legisiature of Virginia in which the laws of each State are professed to be correctly stated.

Mr. INGLIS. of that report? Mr. MEMMINGR. It was made at the last session, January 26th, 1860. Mr. INGLIS. To what law do they refer? for Pennsylvania has recently revised her criminal code, and, I understand, has omitted some portion of that law. Mr. MEMMINGER. This is all the information I have on the subject. It confirms what is stated in the report. Mr. ENGLISH read from De Bow's Review an article Ja very erroneous one] in support of the assertion contained in the Declaration, that nearly all the Free States had refused to sustain the Constitution.

Will the gentleman give me the date

Mr. MAXCY GREGO. The gentleman who just resumed his seat, has pointed out in detail the various questions referred to in this report. He has shown that things have been said there which ought not to to have been said, and of the correctness of which we have not sufficient evidence. But my objection to the paper is greater than this. It is that, as a State paper, to go out as a new Declaration of Independence, it is entirely defective and imperfect. It purports to be a declaration of the causes which justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The causes! And yet in all this declaration not one word is said about the tariff, which for so many years caused a contest in this State against the Federal Government. Not one word is said about the violations of the Constitution in expenditures not authorized by that instrument; but the main stress is laid upon an incomparably unimportant point relative to fugitive slaves, and the laws passed by Northern States obstructing the recovery of fugitive slaves. Mr. President, if we undertake to set forth a declaration of the causes which justify our Secession, we ought to publish a complete document - document which might vie in its completeness with that which was adopted in 1776-not that I mean to say that that is a model cause! that would be to say a good deal too much. This declaration might be put forth by gentlemen who had no objection whatever to the lavish and unconstitutional expenditures which have been made by the Federal Government for forty years past. This is not the sort of paper which, in my opinion, ought to go forth to justify A correct designation of this paper would be a declaration of some of the causes which justify the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. If it is proper to set forth in a solemn declaration some of the causes, why let the title be altered, and, if the Convention think proper, let it go forth; but if we undertake to set forth all the esuses, do we not dishonor the memory of all the statesmen of South Carolina, now departed, who commenced forty years ago a war aquint the tariff and against internal improvements, saying nothing of the Taite! States Bank and other measures which may now be regarded as obsolete. Many of the acts of the non-slaveholding States obstructing the recovery of fuzitive slaves have been passed since 1852-I think the majority of them; but I do not regard it as a matter of day importance. But when the people of South Carolina, eight years since, declared that the causes then existing fully justified the State in seceding, did they confine themselves to these miserable fugitive slave laws? No! Sir, I regard it as unworthy of the State of South Carolina to send forth a new declaration now, and in it to say nothing about any other esuse justifying their action but fugitive slaves. I am in favor of laying this report on the table, or recommitting it.

our action.

Mr. KEITT. I agree with the gentleman that the power of taxation is the central power of all Governments. If you put that into my hands, I do not eare what the form of Government may be, I will control your people through it. But that is not the question in this address. We have instructed the Committee to draw up a statement of the reasons which influenced us in the present case in our withdrawal. My friend suggests that sufficient notice has not be paid to the tariff. Your late Senators, and every one | of your members of the House of Representatives voted for the present tariff. If the gentleman had been there he would aten have noted for it. [Laughter.] The question of the tariff did agitate us in 1832, and did array this State against the Federal Government. And I main

i

tain that this State did triumph then. Mr. Clay said before the nullification, that the tariff system had been established for all time. After the nullification ordinance Mr. Clay said that that ordinance abol ished the American system, and that the State had triumphed. It is true that we were cheated in the compromise. The tariff is not the question which has brought us up to our present attitude. We are giving a list of the causes to the world-to the Southern States. Let them not quarrel with us now, when we are brought up to a dissolution of the Union, by the discussion of debatable and doctrinal points. The Whig party, throughout all the States, have been pro tective tariff men, and they cling to that old issue with all the passion incident to the pride of human opinions. Are we to go off now, when other Southern States are bringing their people up to the true mark-are we to go off on debatable and doctrinal points? Are we to go back to the consideration of this question, of this great controversy; go back to that party's politics around which so many passions cluster? Names, sir, are much. Opinions, prejudiced passions, cluster around names. Our people have come up to this great act. I am willing in this issue to rest disunion upon the questim of slavery. It is the great central point from which we are now proceeding. I believe, sir, that the reference to other States in this address is all correct. The gentleman from Chesterfield says that a certain construction of one act of the Pennsylvania code is denied by the citizens of that State. I myself have very great doubts about the propriety of the fugitive slave law, The Constitution was, in the first place, a compact between the several States, and in the second a treaty between the sections; and, I believe the fugitive slave law was a treaty between sections. It was the act of sovereign States as sections; and I believe, therefore, and have very great doubts whether it ought not to have been left to the execution of the several States, and, failing of enforcement, I believe it should have been regarded as casus belli. I go for the address because I believe it does present succinctly and conspicuously what are the main primary causes.

Mr. GREGG. If this address was to be a declaration of the immediate causes which produced the secession of South Carolina, what the gentleman had said might be applicable, but its title does not say so. Another document has been submitted to this body-an Address to the Southern States. This is inconsistent with the other. In the latter address all the causes are stated in full. If we wish to find the immediate cause of the secession of South Carolina, the immediate cause of all is the election of Lincoln.

the statutes of Virginia do not contain a paragraph Mr. ÎNGLIS. Will the gentleman inform us whether relating to kidnapping, precisely similar to that of Pennsylvania?

A VOICE. It is the case with Georgia.

Mr. KEITT. It may be so, sir, but I do not know. Mr. INGLIS. I say, Mr. President, I make no attack upon this report; but I propose to amend it by striking out the word "fifteen" and inserting "many" in

stead; and then to strike out the sentence which coatains the enumeration of States. It will not disturb

the order to omit that.

Mr. DARGAN. I confess my difficulty results from the same sources as the gentleman from Richland Let me express also my earnest conviction of the eminent propriety of obtaining a concurrence and symmetry in the declaration of the causes which led to the secession of South Carolina, and in the sentiments enunciated in the Address to the Southern

States; and as the Address to the Southern States, which was read here to-day, was made the special order for to-morrow, I move that this document be also made the special order at the same time and in connection with that subject.

Mr. MIDDLETON. They are very different matters -the one an address to the Southern people and the other an address to the world.

Mr. DARGAN. The subject-matter is the same.

The PRESIDENT. The question will be on making the report of the Committee declaring Secession the special order for one o'clock to-morrow, in connection with the report of the Committee on Slaveholding States upon the same subject.

The question was taken and the motion was agreed to.

On Monday, December 24th, 1860, the Convention proceeded to consider both the Address and the Declaration, when further debate ensued.

Many verbal amendments having been made to the latter,

Mr. J. J. P. Smith moved to adopt the former for the present, and table the latter. A DELEGATE. I second the motion, and call for the previous question.

Mr. LOUIS WARDLAW. I trust that this Convention is not going to act hastily. Whatever is done should be done well. This address will reach no one of the Southern States before the elections, unless it be the State of Georgia. There is, therefore, no special need of hurrying the reference. There is not one single sentence of that address to which I do not heartily subscribe. It is an able and admirable exposition of the structure of our Government and its general operation. And yet I do not think it is exactly that which an address to our Southern sisters should be. I think it treats too much upon some subjects, and does not touch others that are very important. From the beginning I have been very anxious that these two papers should be consistent one with the other, and contain all those matters which we confess should operate either upon the opinion of the Southern people or the opinion of the world. Now, sir, my objection to the address to the Southern people is that it does not dilate as it should upon matters connected with the immediate cause of our secession, but on matters connected with slavery. My objection to the other address is, that it dwells too much upon those fugitive slave laws and those personal liberty bills, which give it too much the appearance of special pleading. The address which we have under consideration does not set off to the Southern people, as it should, our defenceless condition. Already our adversaries have the House of Representatives; they will soon have the Senate, and then they can make the Judiciary what they please, and thus have entire power over the Government. It does not set forth, as I think it should, that the election of Lincoln is, in fact, an edict of emancipation. It does not set forth what would be the deleterious effects of emancipation; that emancipation would be destruction to the blacks and degradation to the whites. Nor does this address set forth the shameless hypocrisy of the North, who, whilst they cry out against what they call the sin of slavery, do not choose to relieve themselves of that which they assert is an evil by withdrawing from the Confederacy. When these addresses go forth, they go forth as solemn State papers, by which we must be able to stand. For this reason, every word should be most carefully considered, and nothing superfluous shonld be contained in them; nothing important should be omitted. Mr. MEMMINGER next took the floor and defended the address to the nations of the world, which was reported by himself. After reciting its points and the principles it enunciated, he said: We show by law of compact that we are entitled to leave this Government. My friend from Abbeville says, in this regard, he does not exactly approve this document. Allow me to say to the honorable gentlemen that when you take the position that you have a right to break your faith, to destroy an agreement which you have made, to tear off your seal from the document to which it is affixed, you are bound to justify your self fully to all the nations of the world; for there is nothing that casts such a stain upon the escutcheon of a nation as a breach of faith. Therefore the document shows fully that both in measure and in spirit our co-States have broken the Constitution and the Union. Not only in letter has this been done, but also in spirit. The common agent which should have acted for our common good has been converted into an instrument for our destruction. And now as a consummating act a sectiora. resident has been! elected, whose chief recommendation was that he desires to see slavery abolished. The great objection that we raise is not to Abraham Lincoln himself, but because he is the representative of a hostile opinion, destructive of every interest of the South.

Mr. RHETT next spoke in explanation of the Address to the Southern States, which was reported by himself. This committee, he said, determined that. whilst setting forth the immediate cause which induced South Carolina to secede, it was not improper to go into previous causes which led to that result. The secession of South Carolina is not an event of a day. It is not any thing produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the fugitive slave low. It has been a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years. The election of Lincoln and Hamlin was the last straw on the back of the camel. But it was not the

only one. The back was nearly broken before. The point upon which I differ from my friend is this: He says he thought it expedient for us to put this great question before all the world upon this simple matter of wrongs on the question of slavery, and that ques tion turned upon the fugitive slave law. Now, in regard to the fugitive slave law, I myself doubt its constitutionality, and I doubted it on the floor of the Senate, when I was a member of that body. The States, acting in their sovereign capacity, should be responsible for the renditio . fugitive slaves. That was our best security. This report has proceeded upon the elaborate discussion of a constitutional question, about which the very ablest men in this State have doubted. When we go before the world, if we put it upon mere matter of this kind, we do not do justice to our cause. Sir, to whom are we to speak? Is it simply to the North? We are about to sunder our relations with that section, and I trust forever. Our treaties. I suppose, will be with the nations of Europe. Do you suppose the nations of Europe will have any sympathy with us, or confidence, or affec tion, because of the violation of the fugitive slave law? Germany, and France, and England, what do they all say? Sir, in setting up our independence we are not to narrow it down simply to the question of slavery, We do not do ourselves justice. The aggression upon slavery is the last consequence of a great cause, and that great cause is the dissolution of the Constitution of the United States by the agents of the North. It is that which led them to the ag gressions upon the taxing power. It is that which led to the aggressions upon the appropriation power. It is that which led to the aggressions on slavery in the District of Columbia. And now the great cause is, that we do not live in a free Government. Mr. MEMMINGER. The gentleman who has just taken his seat is not as familiar with this document as I am, or he would have been saved the necessity of a good deal he has said. I entirely concur in the opinion that the Constitution of the United States requires the rendition of slaves by the States and not by the General Government; and if any one will read this report he will perceive that that is precisely the ground upon which it proceeds. We there complain that the States have not fulfilled their constitutional obligations-not that the Federal Government has not done its duty. We there complain that when the Federal Government undertakes to do that which the States had obligated themselves to do, they interfere to prevent its faithful execution.

Judge WITHERS said: I have not much to say to this Convention, but the first thing which I desire to submit to them is this: that the addresses which are now upon your table, and which are the subject-matter of a motion for further reference to the two committees reporting them, are, in my understanding, diplomatic papers. I profess not to be much of a diplomat myself, yet I profess to have a desire that this Convention shall confine itself to the object which it prescribes to itself.

What is the object of the Address to the Southern People? Is it not to conciliate the Southern States towards the purposes of a Southern Confederacy; and, as far as we can, to persuade them to enter into a compact with South Carolina? Is that the object of the Address to the Slaveholding States ? If not, why should it be issued?

It is said in the discussion that the Address to the Slaveholding States should descant upon the taxing power and the power to lay duties upon imports, as well as the expenditures of money in undue proportion upon the part of the Federal Government among the Free States, as matters of grievances of the greatest importance; that such topics ought to be found in this paper setting forth the causes of Secession. Well, in an Address to the People of the Slaveholding States is it expedient to dwell and insist upon a topic which will not find favor with all the Southern States? I submit to the experience of the able gentleman who prepared that address to say whether, if we declared that we separated from the Confederacy because of the tariff of protection to domestic manufactures, he will find that, be it ever so true, a sentiment corresponding to public opinion in Louisiana, Missouri, or Kentucky?

All this matter of the tariff has been enacted while the Confederacy existed, and with South Carolina as a party to the transaction. When it begun in 1816, who was it voted for a tariff highly protective to domestic manufactures? Did not that great man whom we all reverence, both living and dead-I mean Mr. Calhoun-vote for this measure? Did not the Representative in the House from the Congressional

In regard to expenditures by the Federal Government of its income, we all know very well that the great balk has gone within the Northern States-that there have been, on the part of the Federal Government, favorite

States.

When we complain in the aggregate, or in general terms, when we say that the grievances of South Carolina are found in the fact that the Treasury has been depleted by illegal means, and in undue proportion administered to the North, I question whether we are quite safe in alleging that as a grievance of South Carolina, without qualificastitution on the part of its own general agent in that respect. But let us not forget to confess the truth under any and all circumstances. What have we ourselves been doing? And in the city of Charleston, too, where have you bought your supplies, and with whom do you trade? Where has the great surplus of your money been necessarily spent? Where has it gone to? Has it not gone to these people who have received the Federal money? Goverument and individuals have sought the same market. Why? Because nobody else could furnish the articles each wanted. Can you say, therefore, that the Federal Government is to be blamed for spending a large amount of money in the non-slaveholding States? Where was the Federal Government obliged to get its necessary support for the army and navy? Where could the Federal Government fill up the ranks of its army and navy? Will you not allow the Government to buy of its own citizens, as we have all done? If by the cunning of these men in the non-laveholding States they have been able to present to the Government inducements to obtain their supplies, can we complain? Where else could they have been procured? So far, the Government has been obliged to spend its money among the people of the North and Northwest for bacon, lard, and all the supplies of the army and navy. I submit these views for the purpose of drawing the attention of the Convention to the fact that we may go too far in this document, and use assertions too strong.

tion. There has been an unfaithful execution of the Con

concur fully. I heard something said here questioning the In respect to the argument of the fugitive slave law, I Constitutionality of the fugitive slave law, as it is called. This is a difficult question. In the case of Prigg and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, all the Judges of the United States Court but two declared that Congress, and Congress alone, could provide legislation to execute the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States.

Immediately after that decision the astute Legislatures of the New England States seized upon that decision and passed their liberty laws, invoking the doctrine announced in the case of Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Could any man say that South Carolina should separate from the United States in consequence of the Congress of the United States passing such a law? A like law was passed in 1793. Did our people object to it then? I confess I have a reverence for antiquity. I profess to have a veneration of the men of 1793-Christopher Gadsden, John Rutledge, the Pinckneys, and others. I profess to believe that they were as patriotic as I profess to be. If we made no objection at that time to the power of Congress to pass a fugitive slave law, under the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, I hold it would be unsafe for the Convention of South Carolina to say that that is

a cause for which she separates from the United States. It was a matter, as long ago as 1643, of stipulation between Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and another colony, that they should deliver each other's fugitive slaves. It was a matter between the colonies that each colony should deliver fugitives. As long ago as that period Congress did exercise this power, and we did acquiesce and never voted against it. If I were to stand here and declare the various causes which led me to subscribe my name to the Act of Secession, I should insist on some other considerations besides those suggested by this address. I would have said that when a citizen of Maryland went to Pennsylvania to recover his fugitive under an act of Congress they murdered him, and his murderer* escaped from justice in the court of Pennsylvania. Then was the time for Maryland to have dehave stood up for the rights of that slaveholder. If I chose further to afflict this Convention I could bring before them a long catalogue of grievances. I think if every member of the Convention should draw up an indictment against the people of the unfaithful confederate States, and you might have any number of addresses upon that subject, you would probably find no two very nearly alike. Since, therefore, every one's taste and judgment cannot be answered, if there be no substantial objection to the addresses before us, as I think there is not, it is proper to vote for them, and I shall do so.

The papers were both adopted.

A third report was made to the Convention by Judge Withers from the Committee on ReAmerica, which should be included, to make lations with the Slaveholding States of North the catalogue complete :

states of North America," beg leave to report that they The committee on "relations with the slaveholding have carefully considered the three several propositions contained in the resolutions referred to them, which were submitted in convention by three several members from St. Phillip's and St. Michael's. All the resolutions referred to the committee look to the purpose of confederate relations with our sister states of the South, having common interests with us, and every canse, as we trust, to indulge towards us common sympathies and to contract cordial relations. In such a purpose the committee entirely and unanimously concur, and they recommend that every proper measure be adopted to accomplish such an end. Upon this subject so auch unanimity prevails, and has long prevailed in this state, that an argument thereupon would be wholly superfluous. All seem to agree that the first step proper to confederation we seek, is the appointment of commissionbe taken for the purpose of promoting and securing the ers, by the authority of this convention, to such states of the South as may call conventions to consider and deter mine their future political relations.

The committee advise that such steps be taken by this convention, hoping and believing that our sister states of the South will correctly interpret our action in taking the initiative as arising, by no means, from any presumptuous arrogance, but from the advance position which circumstances have given to this state in the line of procedure for the great design of maintaining the rights, the security and the very existence of the slaveholding South.

It has been a subject of anxious consideration with

basis of a temporary or provisional government to the the committee whether the commissioners, whose appointment they recommend, should be instructed to tender any

states to which they may be accredited.

The instrument called the constitution of the United

States of America, has been suggested as a suitable and proper basis to be offered for a provisional government.

The suggestion has been commended to the committee by various considerations, which cannot now be set forth in full or at large. Among these are:

That the said instrument was the work of minds of the first order, in strength and accomplishment.

views and careful examinations of details. That it was most carefully constructed by comprehensive

That experience has proved it to be a good form of govpatriotic to cause it to be fairly and honestly construed ernment for those sufficiently virtuous, intelligent and and impartially administered.

That the settled opinion of this state has never been adverse to that plan of government of confederated states, on is attributable to the false glosses, and dangerous misinter account of anything in its structure; but the dissatisfaction pretation, and perversion of sundry of its provisions, even

* In 1847.