SOUTH CAROLINA.

ted to the "Confederate" Congress a message | met at Montgomery, Alabama, February concerning the secession of Missouri. It was 4th, 1861, to organize a Southern Confeder accompanied by a letter from Governor acy. Each State had a representation equal Jackson, and also by an act dissolving the to the number of members of the Thirtyunion with the United States, and an sixth Congress. The original members were: act ratifying the Constitution of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States; also, the Convention between the Commissioners of Missouri and the Commissioners of the Confederate States. Congress unanimously ratified the Convention entered into between the Hon. R. M. T. Hunter for the rebel Government and the Commissioners for Missouri.

Inter-State Commissioners.

The seceding States, as part of their plan of operation, appointed Commissioners to visit other slaveholding States. They were as follows, as announced in the newspapers:

SOUTH, CAROLINA.

To Alabama, A. P. Calhoun.

To Georgia, James L. Orr, Ex-M.C.
To Florida, L. W. Spratt.

To Mississippi, M. L. Bonham, Ex-M. C.
To Louisiana, J. L. Manning.

To Arkansas, A. C. Spain.

To Texas, J. B. Kershaw.

To Virginia, John S. Preston.

To South Carolina, C. E. Hooker.

To Alabama, Jos. W. Matthews, Ex-Gov.
To Georgia, William L. Harris.

To Louisiana, Wirt Adams.

To Texas, H. H. Miller.
To Arkansas, George R. Fall.
To Florida, E. M. Yerger.

To Tennessee, T. J. Wharton, Att'y-Gen.
To Kentucky, W. S. Featherstone, Ex-M.C.
To North Carolina, Jacob Thompson, Ex-
M. C.

To Virginia, Fulton Anderson.
To Maryland, A. H. Handy, Judge.
To Delaware, Henry Dickinson.
To Missouri,

Russell.

Southern Congress. (See p. 400.) This body, composed of Deputies elected by the Conventions of the Seceding States,

Robert W. Barnwell, Ex-U. S. Senator.
R. Barnwell Rhett,
James Chesnut, Jr.,

66

66

66

Lawrence M. Keitt, Ex-M. C.
William W. Boyce, 66
Wm. Porcher Miles, "
C. G. Memminger.
Thomas J. Withers.

3d. Each State is erected into a distinct judicial district, The Justifying Causes of Secession.

the judge having all the powers heretofore vested in the district and circuit courts; and the several district judges together compose the supreme bench-a majority of them constituting a quorum.

In justification of the passage of an ordi4th Wherever the word "Union" occurs in the United Carolina adopted two papers, one reported nance of Secession, the Convention of South States Constitution the word " Confederacy" is substituted.

Hence, they refused to pay the taxes laid by the British parliament.

States. During this time, their advance in wealth, prosperity and power, has been with scarcely a parallel in the history of the world. The great object of their Union, was And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern defence against external aggressions; which object is now States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a miattained, from their mere progress in power. Thirty-one nority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is millions of people, with a commerce and navigation which useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they explore every sea, and with agricultural productions which are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exare necessary to every civilized people, command the friend-actly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in ship of the world. But unfortunately, our internal peace the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty has not grown with our external prosperity. Discontont years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States, and contention have moved in the bosom of the Confed- have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of eracy, for the last thirty-five years. During this time, the North. The people of the South have been taxed by South Carolina has twice called her people together in sol- duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inemu Convention, to take into consideration, the aggressions consistent with revenue-to promote, by prohibitions, and unconstitutional wrongs, perpetrated by the people of Northern interests in the productions of their mines and the North on the people of the South. These wrongs, were manufactures. submitted to by the people of the South, under the hope There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern and expectation, that they would be final. But such hope towards the Northern States, which our ancestors refused and expectation, have proved to be vain. Instead of pro- to bear towards Great Britain. Our ancestors not only ducing forbearance, our acquiescence has only instigated to taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them, new forms of aggressions and outrage; and South Carolina, were expended amongst them. Had they submitted to the having again assembled her people in Convention, has this pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected day dissolved her connection with the States, constituting from them, would have been expended in other parts of the United States. the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which drove them on to Revolution. Yet this British policy, has been fully realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three-fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of tho United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated. In 1740, there were five ship yards in South Carolina, to build ships to carry on our direct trade with Europe. Between 1740 and 1779, there were built in these yards, twenty-five square rigged vessels, besides a great number of sloops and schooners, to carry on our coast and West India trade. In the half century immediately preceding the Revolution, from 1725 to 1775, the population of South Carolina, increased sevenfold.

The one great evil, from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. The Government of the United States, is no longer the Government of Confederated Republics, but of a consolidated Democracy. It is no longer a free Government, but a Despotism. It is, in fact, such a Government as Great Britain attempted to set over our Fathers; and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years' struggle for independence.

The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle, self-government, and self-taxation, the criterion of selfgovernment Where the interests of two people united to gether under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies, were different and antagonistic. Great Britain was desirous of carrying out the policy of all nations towards their Colonies, of making then tributary to her wealth and power. She had vast and complicated relations with the whole world. Her policy towards her North American Colonies, was to identify them with her in all these complicated relations; and to make them bear, in common with the rest of the Empire, the full burden of her obligations and necessities. She had a vast public debt; she had an European policy and an Asiatic policy, which had occasioned the accumulation of her public debt; and which kept her in continual wars. The North American Colonies saw their interests, political and commercial, sacrificed by such a policy. Their interests required, that they should not be identified with the burdens and wars of the mother country. They had been settled under Charters, which gave them self-government; at least so far as their property was concerned. They had taxed themselves, and had never been taxed by the Government of Great Britain. To make them a part of a consolidated Empire, the Parliament of Great Britain determined to assume the power of legislating for the Colonies in all cases whatsoever. Our ancestors resisted the pretension. They refused to be a part of the consolidated Government of Great Britain.

The Southern States, now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British parliament. "The General Welfare," is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation, this General Welfare" requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern States, are compelled to meet the very despotism, their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.

No man can for a moment believe, that our ancestors intended to establish over their posterity, exactly the same sort of Government they had overthrown. The great object of the Constitution of the United States, in its intern operation, was, doubtless, to secure the great end of the Revolution-a limited free Government- a Government limited to those matters only, which were general and common to all portions of the United States. All sectional or local interests, were to be left to the States. By no other arrangement, would they obtain free Government, by a Constitution common to so vast a Confederacy. Yet by gradual and steady encroachments on the part of the people of the North, and acquiescence on the part of the South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away; and the Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of limitless powers in its operations.

It is not at all surprising, such being the character of the Government of the United States, that it should assume to possess power over all the institutions of the country. The agitations on the subject of slavery, are the natural results of the consolidation of the Government. Responsibility, follows power; and if the people of the North, have the power by Congress-"to promote the general welfare of the United States," by any means they deem expedientwhy should they not assail and overthrow the institution of slavery in the South? They are responsible for its continuance or existence, in proportion to their power. A majority in Congress, according to their interested and perThe consolidation of the Government of Great Britain verted views, is omnipotent. The inducements to act upon over the Colonies, was attempted to be carried out by the the subject of slavery, under such circumstances, were so taxes. The British parliament undertook to tax the Colo- imperious, as to amount almost to a moral necessity. To nies, to promote British interests. Our fathers, resisted this make, however, their numerical power available to rule pretension. They claimed the right of self-taxation through the Union, the North must consolidate their power. It their Colonial Legislatures. They were not represented in would not be united, on any matter common to the whole the British parliament, and, therefore, could not rightly be Union-in other words, on any constitutional subjecttaxed by its legislation. The British Government, how- for on such subjects divisions are as likely to exist in the ever, offered them a representation in parliament; but it North as in the South. Slavery was strictly, a sectional was not sufficient to enable them to protect themselves interest. If this could be made the criterion of parties at from the majority, and they refused the offer. Between the North, the North could be united in its power; and taxation without any representation, and taxation without thus carry out its measures of sectional ambition, ena representation adequate to protection, there was no differ-croachment, and aggrandizement. To build up their secence. In neither case would the Colonies tax themselves. tional predominance in the Union, the Constitution must

framed the Constitution, to shew, that the Southern States would have formed any other Union; and still less, that they would have formed a Union with more powerful nonslaveholding States, having majority in both branches of the Legislature of the Government. They were guilty of no such folly. Time and the progress of things, have totally altered the relations between the Northern and Southern States, since the Union was established. That identity of feelings, interests and institutions, which once existed, is gone. They are now divided, between agriculturaland manufacturing, and commercial States; between slaveholding, and non-slaveholding States. Their institutions and industrial pursuits, have made them, totally different peoples. That Equality in the Government between the two sections of the Union which once existed, no longer exists. We but imitate the policy of our fathers in dissolving a union with non-slaveholding confererates, and seeking a confederation with slaveholding States.

be first abolished by constructions; but that being done, the consolidation of the North, to rule the South, by the tariff and slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things. The Constitution of the United States, was an experiment. The experiment consisted, in uniting under one Government, peoples living in different climates, and having different pursuits and in titutions. It matters not, how carefully the limitations of such a Government be laid down in the Constitution,-its success must at least depend, upon the good faith of the parties to the constitutional compact, in enforcing them. It is not in the power of human language, to exclude false inferences, constructions and perversions, in any Constitution; and when vast sectional interests are to be subserved, involving the appropriation of countless millions of money, it has not been the usual experience of mankind, that words on parchments can arrest power. The Constitution of the United States, irrespective of the interposition of the States, rested on the assumption, that power would yield to faith,-that integrity would be Experience has proved, that slaveholding States cannot stronger than interest; and that thus, the limitations of be safe, in subjection to non-slaveholding States. Indeed, the Constitution would be observed. The experiment, has no people can ever expect to preserve its rights and liberbeen fairly made. The Southern States, from the com- ties, unless these be in its own custody. To plunder and mencement of the Government, have striven to keep it, oppress, where plunder and oppression can be practiced within the orbit prescribed by the Constitution. The ex- with impunity, seems to be the natural order of things. periment, has failed. The whole Constitution, by the con- The fairest portions of the world elsewhere, have been structions of the Northern people, has been absorbed by its turned into wildernesses; and the most civilized and prospreamble. In their reckless lust for power, they seem perous communities, have been impoverished and ruined by unable to comprehend that seeming paradox-that the anti-slavery fanaticism. The people of the North have not more power is given to the General Government, the weaker left us in doubt, as to their designs and policy. United as it becomes. Its strength, consists in the limitation of its a section in the late Presidential election, they have elected agency to objects of common interest to all sections. To as the exponent of their policy, one who has openly deextend the scope of its power over sectional or local inter-clared, that all the States of the United States, must be ests, is to raise up against it, opposition and resistance. In made free States or slave States. It is true, that amongst all such matters, the General Government must necessarily those who aided in his election, there are various shades of be a despotism, because all sectional or local interests must anti-slavery hostility. But if African slavery in the Southever be represented by a minority in the councils of the ern States, be the evil their political combination affirms it General Government-having no power to protect itself to be, the requisitions of an inexorable logic, must lead against the rule of the majority. The majority, constitu- them to emancipation. If it is right, to preclude or abolish ted from those who do not represent these sectional or slavery in a Territory,-why should it be allowed to remain local interests, will control and govern them. A free in the States? The one is not at all more unconstitutional people, cannot submit to such a Government. And the than the other, according to the decisions of the Supreme more it enlarges the sphere of its power, the greater Court of the United States. And when it is considered, must be the dissatisfaction it must produce, and the, that the Northern States will soon have the power to make weaker it must become. On the contrary, the more it ab- that Court what they please, and that the Constitution stains from usurpel powers, and the more faithfully it ad- never has been any barrier whatever to their exercise of heres to the limitations of the Constitution, the stronger it power-what check can there be, in the unrestrained counis made. The Northern people have had neither the sels of the North, to emancipation? There is sympathy in wisdom nor the faith to perceive, that to observe the limi- association, which carries men along without principle; tations of the Constitution was the only way to its perpe- but when there is principle-and that principle is fortified tuity. by long-existing prejudices and feelings, association is omnipotent in party influences. In spite of all disclaimers and professions, there can be but one end by the submission of the South, to the rule of a sectional anti-slavery government at Washington; and that end, directly or indirectly, must be-the emancipation of the slaves of the South. The hypocrisy of thirty years-the faithlessness of their whole course from the commencement of our union with them, shew that the people of the non-slaveholding North, are not, and cannot be safe associates of the slaveholding South, under a common Government. Not only their fanaticism, but their erroneous views of the principles of free governments, render it doubtful whether, if separated from the South, they can maintain a free government amongst themselves. Numbers with them, is the great element of free government. A majority, is infallible and omnipotent. The right divine to rule in kings," is only transferred to their majority. The very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to restrain the majority. Constitutions, therefore, according to their theory, must be most unrighteous inventions, restricting liberty. None ought to exist; but the body politic ought simply to have a political organization, to bring out and enforce the will of the majority. This theory may be harmless in a small community, having identity of interests and pursuits; but over a vast State-still more, over a vast Confederacy, having various and conflicting interests and pursuits, it is a remorseless despotism. In resisting it, as applicable to ourselves, we are vindicating the great cause of free government, more important, perhaps, to the world, than the existence of all the United States. Nor in resisting it, do we intend to depart from the safe instrumentality, the system of government we have established with them, requires. In separating from them, we invade no rights--no interest of theirs. We violate, no obligation or duty to them. As separate, independent States in Convention, we made the Constitution of the United States with them; and as separate independent States, each State acting for itself, we adopted it. South Carolina acting in her sovereign capacity, now thinks proper to secede from the Union. She did not part with her Sovereignty, in adopting the Con

Under such a Government, there must, of course, be many and endless "irrepressible conflicts," between the two great sections of the Union. The same faithlessness which has abolished the Constitution of the United States, will not fail to carry out the sectional purposes for which it has been abolished. There must be conflict; and the weaker section of the Union can only find peace and liberty, in an independence of the North. The repeated efforts made by South Carolina, in a wise conservatism, to arrest the progress of the General Government in its fatal progress to consolidation, have been unsupported, and she has been denounced as faithless to the obligations of the Constitution, by the very men and States, who were destroying it by their usurpations. It is now too late, to reform or restore the Government of the United States. All confidence in the North, is lost by the South. The faithlessness of the North for a half century, has opened a gulf of separation | between the North and the South which no promises nor engagements can fill.

It cannot be believed, that our ancestors would have assented to any Union whatever with the people of the North, if the feelings and opinions now existing amongst them, had existed when the Constitution was framed. There was then, no Tariff-no fanaticism concerning negroes. It was the delegates from New England, who proposed in the Convention which framed the Constitution, to the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, that if they would agree to give Congress the power of regulating commerce by a majority, that they would support the extension of the African Slave Trade for twenty years. African slavery, existed in all the States, but one. The idea, that the Southern States would be made to pay that tribute to their Northern confederates, which they had refused to pay to Great Britain; or that the institution of African slavery, would be made the grand basis of a sectional organization of the North to rule the South, never crossed the imaginations of our ancestors. The Union of the Constitution, was a union of slaveholding States. It rests on slavery, by prescribing Representation in Congress, for three-fifths of our slaves. There is nothing in the proceedings of the Convention which

stitution. The last thing, a State can be presumed to have surrendered, is her Sovereignty. Her Sovereignty, is her life. Nothing but a clear, express grant, can alienate it. Inference is inadmissible. Yet it is not at all surprising, that those who have construed away all the limitations of that Constitution, should also by construction, claim the anuihilation of the Sovereignty of the States. Having abolished barriers to their omnipotence, by their faithless constructions in the operations of the General Government, it is most natural that they should endeavor to do the same towards us, in the States. The truth is, they, having violated the express provisions of the Constitution, it is at an end, as a compact. It is morally obligatory only on those, who choose to accept its perverted terms. South Carolina, deeming the compact not only violated in particular features, but virtually abolished by her Northern confederates, withdraws herself as a party, from its obligations. The right do do so, is denied by her Northern confederates. They desire to establish a sectional despotism, not only omnipotent in Congress, but omnipotent over the States; and as if to manifest the imperious necessity of our secession, they threaten us with the sword, to coerce submission to their rule.

The latter paper is as follows:

DECLARATION OF THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES WHICH INDUCE AND
JUSTIFY THE SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA FROM THE
FEDERAL UNION.

The people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A. D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the constitution of the United States by the federal government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the states, fully justified this state in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding states, she fore bore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.

In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted on the 4th of July, 1.76, in a declaration by the colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do."

They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dissolved.”

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen states proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments--legislative, executive and judicial. For purposes of defence, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778 they entered into a league known as the articles of confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring in the first article, "that each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this confed eration, expressly delegated to the United States in Con gress assembled."

Citizens of the slaveholding States of the United States! Circumstances beyond our control, have placed us in the van of the great controversy between the Northern and Southern States. We would have preferred, that other States should have assumed the position we now occupy. Independent ourselves, we disclaim any design or desire, to lead the counsels of the other Southern States. Providence has cast our lot together, by extending over us an identity of pursuits, interests and institutions. South Carolina, desires no destiny, separate from yours. To be one of a great Slaveholding Confederacy, stretching its arms over a territory larger than any power in Europe possesseswith a population, four times greater than that of the whole United States, when they achieved their independence of the British Empire-with productions, which make our existence more important to the world, than that of any other people inhibiting it—with common institutions to defendi, and common dangers to encounter-we ask your sympathy and confederation. Whilst constituting a por tion of the United States, it has been your statesmanship which has guided it, in its mighty strides to power and expansion. In the field, as in the cabinet, you have led the way to its renown and grandeur. You have loved the Union, in whose service your great statesmen have labored, and your great soldiers have fought and conquered-not for the material benefits it conferred, but with the faith of a generous and devoted chivalry. You have long lingered in hope over the shattered remains of a broken Constitution. Compromise after compromise, formed by your concessions, has been trampled under foot, by your Northern confederates, All fraternity of feeling between the North and the South is lost, or has been converted into hate; and we, of the South, are at last driven together, by the stern destiny which controls the existence of nations. Your bitter experience, of the faithlessness and rapacity of your Northern confederates, may have been necessary, to evolve those great principles of free government, upon which the liberties of the world depend, and to prepare you for the grand mission of vindicating and re-establishing them. We rolce, that other nations should be satisfied with their institutions. Contentment, is a great element of happies, with nations as with individuals. We, are satisfied with ours. If they prefer a system of industry, in which capital and labor are in perpetual conflict--and chronic starvation keeps down the natural increase of population-and a man is worked out in eight years--and the law ordains, that children shall be worked only ten hours a day-and the sabre and bayonet are the instruments of order-be it so. It is their affair, not ours. We prefer, Thus were established the two great principles asserted however, our system of industry, by which labor and cap-by the colonies, namely: the right of a state to govern ital are identified in interest, and capital, therefore, pro- itself; and the right of a people to abolish a government tects labor-by which our population doubles every twenty when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was years-by which starvation is unknown, aud abundance instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of crowns the land-by which order is preserved by an unpaid these principles, was the fact that each colony became, police, and many fertile regions of the world, where the and was recognized by the mother country as a FREE, White man cannot labor, are brought into usefulness by SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE. the labor of the African, and the whole world is blessed by our productions. All we demand of other peoples is, to be let alone, to work out our own high destinies.ber, 1787, these deputies recommended for the adoption of Luited together, and we must be the most independent, as we are among the most important of the nations of the world. United together, and we require no other instru- The parties to whom this constitution was submitted, ment to conquer peace, than our beneficent productions. were the several sovereign states; they were to agree or United together, and we must be a great, free and prosper-disagree, and when nine of them agreed, the compact was ous people, whose renown must spread throughout the to take effect among those concurring; and the general civilized world, and pass down, we trust, to the remotest government, as the common agent, was then to be invested We ask you to join us, in forming a Confederacy of with their authority. Slaveholding States.

Under this confederation the war of the revolution was carried on, and on the 3d September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definitive treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the colonies in the following terms:

"Article I.-His Britanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATÉS; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, proprietary and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

In 1787, deputies were appointed by the states to revise the articles of confederation, and on the 17th of Septem

the states, the articles of union known as the Constitution of the United States.

If only nine of the thirteen states had concurred, tho