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'Spread all her canvas to the breeze,
Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the God of storms,
The lightning and the gale.'"'

Mr. Mullins, of Marion, followed. He said:

"South Carolina had tried coöperation, but had exhausted that policy. The State of Virginia had discredited the cause which our commissioner went there to advocate, although she treated him, personally, with respect; but she had as much as said there were no indignities which could drive her to take the leadership for Southern rights. If we wait for coöperation, slavery and State rights would be abandoned, State sovereignty and the cause of the South lost forever, and we would be subjected to a dominion the parallel to which was that of the poor Indian under the British East India Company. When they had pledged themselves to take the State out of the Union, and placed it on record, then he was willing to send a commissioner to Georgia, or any other Southern State, to announce our determination, and to submit the question whether they would join us or not. We have it from high authority that the representative of one of the imperial powers of Europe, in view of the prospective separation of one or more of the Southern States from the present confederacy, has made propositions in advance for the establishment of such relations between it and the Government about to be established in this State, as will insure to that power such a supply of cotton for the future as their increasing demand for that article will require: this information is perfectly authentic."

Mr. Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, had for many years been the editor of a leading agricultural monthly, and had thus acquired a very decided influence over the planters of the South. A devotee of slavery, he had hastened to Columbia, on the call of the legislature, to do his utmost for secession. He was serenaded on the evening of November 7, and in response he said:

"The question now before the country he had studied for years. It had been the one great idea of his life. The defence of the South, he verily believed, was to be secured only through the lead of South Carolina. As old as he was, he had come here to join them in that lead. He wished Virginia was as ready as

South Carolina, but, unfortunately, she was not; but, circumstances being different, it was perhaps better that Virginia and all other border States remain quiescent for a time, to serve as guard against the North. The first drop of blood spilled on the soil of South Carolina would bring Virginia and every Southern State with them. By remaining in the Union for a time, she would not only prevent coercive legislation in Congress, but any attempt for our subjugation.

"There was no fear of Carolina remaining alone. She would soon be followed by other States. Virginia and half a dozen more were just as good and strong, and able to repel the enemy as if they had the whole of the slaveholding States to act with them. Even if California remained alone-not that he thought it probable, but supposing so it was his conviction that she would be able to defend herself against any power brought against her."

Secession without waiting for the other Cotton States was decided upon.

The leading Federal officers in South Carolina resigned their positions. A bill calling a convention, with the distinct purpose of secession, passed the State Senate on the 9th of November, and the House on the 12th. December 6 was the day appointed for the election of delegates; the convention to meet on the 17th of that month. Whereupon, Gov. Hammond resigned his seat in the U. S. Senate, as his colleague, Mr. Chesnut, had already done.

The action of South Carolina met with quick response in most of the slave States, the various governors calling the legislatures in special session to act on the question of secession. Governor Samuel Houston [Tex.] was one, however, who refused to issue such a call, whereupon sixty of the legislators did so unconstitutionally, the governor weakly submitting to the usurpation, and shortly afterwards resigning his office. Governor Beriah Magoffin [Ky.] also refused to assemble the legislature to take action on the issue, and issued a public address in which he appealed to the other Southern States as follows:

"To South Carolina, and such other States as may wish to secede from the Union, I would say: The geography of this

country would not admit of a division; the mouth and sources of the Mississippi River cannot be separated without the horrors of civil war. We cannot sustain you in this movement merely on account of the election of Lincoln. Do not precipitate us, by premature action, into a revolution or civil war, the consequences of which will be most frightful to all of us. It may yet be avoided. There is still hope, faint though it be. Kentucky is a border State, and has suffered more than all of you. She claims that, standing upon the same sound platform, you will sympathize with her, and stand by her, and not desert her in her exposed, perilous border position. She has a right to claim that her voice, and the voice of reason, and moderation, and patriotism, shall be heard and heeded by you. If you secede, your representatives will go out of Congress, and leave us at the mercy of a Black Republican Government. Mr. Lincoln will have no check. He can appoint his cabinet, and have it confirmed. The Congress will then be Republican, and he will be able to pass such laws as he may suggest. The Supreme Court will be powerless to protect us. We implore you to stand by us, and by our friends in the free States; and let us all, the bold, the true, and just men in the free and the slave States, with a united front, stand by each other, by our principles, by our rights, our equality, our honor, and by the Union under the Constitution. I believe this is the only way to save it; and we can do it.

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The South Carolina convention met at Columbia on December 17, and unanimously passed a resolution of secession. Owing to an epidemic of small-pox in the capital, the convention adjourned to Charleston, where it assembled the next day in "Secession Hall." On December 20 a formal Ordinance of Secession was unanimously passed, and a Declaration of Causes therefor was adopted, among which was chiefly named the failure of the Northern States to fulfil their constitutional obligations in the matter of slavery, particularly the return of fugitives. This failure, the declaration said, absolved South Carolina, as a contracting party to the Union under the Constitution, from its obligations to the rest of the Union, and the State therefore had the right to secede from the contract, there being no common arbiter between the States.

The convention resolved that a commissioner be sent

to each slave State, with a copy of the secession ordinance, with a view to hasten coöperation on the part of those States; also, that three commissioners be sent to Washington, with a copy of the same, to be laid before the President, to treat for the delivery of the United States property in South Carolina over to the State, on the subject of the public debt, etc.

On January 9, 1861, the Mississippi legislature passed an Ordinance of Secession by 84 yeas to 15 nays. On the 10th the Florida convention took similar action by a vote of 62 yeas to 7 nays. On the 11th the Alabama convention voted for secession by 61 yeas to 39 nays.

On the 19th, after an animated debate in which Alexander H. Stephens and Herschel V. Johnson, who had been the candidate on the Douglas ticket for VicePresident, opposed the measure, the Georgia convention passed an Ordinance of Secession by 208 yeas to 89 nays. The opponents of the ordinance accepted the decision of the convention, and Mr. Stephens was chosen later as Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy.

On the 26th the Louisiana convention passed an Ordinance of Secession by 103 yeas to 17 nays. It was charged that there had been fraud in the election of delegates to the convention, and the claim was made that the Union men were in a majority throughout the State. Accordingly it was proposed to submit the ordinance to the vote of the people. This proposition was voted down by 84 yeas to 45 nays.

In Texas, a State convention, called by the legislature, which, as we have seen, had met in unconstitutional assembly, passed an Ordinance of Secession on February 1, by a vote of 166 yeas to 7 nays. This was submitted to a popular vote and was ratified by a large majority.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Missouri held conventions in which the Union men were in a majority, and the secession of these States was thus postponed. The later secession of Missouri was the work of persons unauthorized by the Confederacy, and, though recognized by the Confederacy, was not legally valid even according to the theory of secession.

The Tennessee and Kentucky legislatures, being strongly Unionist, refused to call conventions.

Gov. Thomas H. Hicks, of Maryland, refused to convene the legislature of his State on the subject.

The legislature of Delaware, when urged by a commissioner from Mississippi to pass an Ordinance of Secession, gave the proposition an "unqualified disapproval."

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While State after State was thus departing from the Union, President Buchanan made but the feeblest efforts to restrain them.

Shortly before the election of Lincoln, Winfield Scott, commanding general of the army, wrote to the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, expressing the fear that the slave States would, before seceding, attempt to get possession of the nine Federal forts within their borders, and therefore declaring it necessary to have these forts "immediately so garrisoned as to make any attempt to take any one of them by surprise or coup de main ridiculous." No action was taken on his rec

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