CHAP. XLII.] ABSTRACT OF MR. DAVIS'S MESSAGE. 155 vated lands covered with a prosperous people. During the same period the white slaveholding population had increased from one million and a quarter to more than eight millions and a half; and the productions of the South, to which slave labor was and is indispensable, formed three fourths of the exports of the whole United States, and had become absolutely necessary to the wants of civilized man. With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imPeril arising to the periled, the South had been driven to protect slave institution. itself. Conventions had been held to determine how best it might meet such an alarming crisis in its history. The Slave States determine to secede. Ever since 1798 there had existed a party, almost uninterruptedly in the majority, based upon the creed that each state is in the last resort the sole judge, as well of its wrongs as of the mode and measures of redress. The Democratic party of the United States had again and again affirmed its adhesion to those principles. In the exercise of that right, the people of the Confederate States, in their Conventions, determined that it was necessary for them to revoke their delegation of powers to the federal government. They therefore passed ordinances resuming their sovereign rights, and dissolving their connection with the Union. They then entered into a new compact, by new articles of confederation with each other, and organized a new government, complete in all its parts. They attempt a peaceable compromise. Mr. Davis continued-that one of his first desires and acts had been to endeavor to obtain a just and equitable settlement between the Confederacy and the United States, and that he had therefore selected three distinguished citizens, who repaired to Washington. He affirmed that the crooked paths of diplomacy can scarcely furnish an example so It is perfidiously wanting in courtesy, in candor, and directness as was the course of the United States government repelled. toward these commissioners. While they were assured, through an intermediary of high position, of the peaceful intentions of that government, it was in secrecy preparing an expedition for hostile operations against South Carolina; that at length they were informed that the President of the United States had determined to hold no interview with them whatever-to refuse even to listen to any proposals they had to make. Mr. Davis then related the circumstances under which Fort Sumter had been reduced, describing in tures Fort Sumter, detail the treacherous manoeuvre of which he declared the United States government had been guilty. He paid a tribute of respect to that noble state -South Carolina-the eminent soldierly qualities of whose people had been conspicuously displayed. He showed how that, for months, they had refrained from capturing the fortress, and how they had evinced a chivalrous regard for the brave but unfortunate officer who had been compelled by them to lower his flag. South Carolina cap Scarcely had the President of the United States learned and war is declared of the failure of his schemes in relation to against them. Fort Sumter, when he issued a declaration of war against the Confederacy. This it was which had prompted Mr. Davis to convoke the Congress. Not without a sentiment of contempt he proceeded to analyze that extraordinary production," that "singular document," selecting from it such expressions as were likely to wound the pride of the South, and particularly drawing atten tion to the fact that Lincoln had called "for an army of 75,000 men, whose first service was to capture our forts;" that, though this was a usurpation of a power exclusively granted to the Congress of that country by its Constitution, it was not for the executive of the Confederacy CHAP. XLII.] The South obliged to defend itself. ABSTRACT OF MR. DAVIS'S MESSAGE. 157 to question that point, but to prepare for defense. He therefore had called on the Confederated States for volunteers, and had issued a procla mation inviting applications for letters of marque and reprisal; and though the authority of Congress was necessary to these measures, he entertained no doubt that that body would concur in his opinion of their advantage. aded. Referring to the proclamation of the President of the Its ports are block- United States announcing the blockade of the Southern ports, he almost doubted its authenticity, and inferred that, if it had been issued at all, it could only have been under the sudden influence of passion. He denounced it as a mere paper blockade, so manifestly a violation of the law of nations that it would seem incredible that it could have been issued by authority. Its threat to punish as pirates all persons who should molest a vessel of the United States under letters of . marque issued by the Confederate government, he believed, would not be sanctioned by the people of the United States. It seeks foreign recognition, He then informed the Congress that commissioners had been sent to various European governments asking for recognition. He offered congrat ulations on the fact that Virginia had at length joined the Confederacy. He could not doubt that "ere you shall have been many weeks in session, the slaveholding states of the late Union will respond to the call of honor and affection, and, by uniting their fortunes with ours, promote our common interests, and secure our common safety." Directing attention then to the reports of the Secretary of War and of the Navy, and congratulating the Confederacy on the patriotic devotion of its people, assuring them of the smiles of Providence on their efforts, Mr. Davis concludes with these remarks: "All we ask is to be let alone-that those who never and desires to be let alone. held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we willwe must resist to the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned, the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity and commerce that can not but be mutually beneficial. So long as this pretension is maintained, with a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with its protection the just cause, we will continue to struggle for our inherent right to freedom, independence, and self-gov. ernment." Such is the purport of this long and very able state Davis's shorter ex- paper. Davis, however, on a subsequent ocposition. casion, and with much more brevity, forcibly declared, in a dozen words, the motives of the Confeder ates: "We left the Union simply to get rid of the rule of majorities." He is obliged to deal tion. It has been mentioned (vol. i., p. 533) that, in his inaugural address, Davis made no allusion to with the slave ques- slavery, hoping by that omission to find favor in the eyes of Europe; and, in truth, he succeeded in that. But the Southern people, who had been taught by their clergy to regard the institution of slavery as "just and holy," thought that such silence implied shame. They looked upon his precaution as need less, and were far from being satisfied with his course. On this occasion he therefore brought the slave question into its proper and prominent position. But the commissioners, or other diplomatic agents who were sent to Europe, were careful not to provoke the religious or political disfavor of the governments from whom they sought recognition. Thus Messrs. Yancey, Mann, and Rost, in communications had How the foreign commissioners deal with Lord John Russell (August, 1861), aswith that question. sured him that the real cause of secession CHAP. XLII.] TREATMENT OF STATE RIGHTS. 159 was not Slavery, but the Tariff, which kept out English goods. He stated this in a dispatch to Lord Lyons, the English minister at Washington. In other communications they threw the odium of the protection of slavery on the United States government. They declared that "the object of the war (on the part of the North), as of ficially announced, was, not to free the slave, but to keep him in subjection to his owner, and to control his labor, through the legislative channels which the Lincoln gov. ernment designed to force upon the master." The obvi They fail to impose Ous insincerity of such declarations doubtless incited Lord Russell to express his apprehensions that it was the intention of the Confederacy to reopen the African slave-trade; and the offense which these audacious misrepresentations offered to his understanding, perhaps, led him eventually to reply, "Lord Russell presents his compliments to Mr. Yancey, Mr. Rost, and Mr. Mann. He had the honor to receive their letters and inclosures of the 27th and 30th of November, but in the present state of affairs he must decline to enter into any official communication with them." on England. Treatment of state Davis, in his message, thus found a justification for se cession and civil war in the principle of rights in the Con- state rights. Not without curiosity may federacy. we examine how that anarchical principle was dealt with by him in his subsequent acts of govern ment. It is the testimony of a member of the Confeder ate Congress, Mr. Foote, that "Posterity will hardly be lieve the statement, and yet it is absolutely true, that the ultra-secessionists, who professed to have brought on the war chiefly to maintain the right of separate state secession, were the first to deny the existence of any such right when certain movements were understood to be in prog ress in North Carolina looking to peaceful secession from the Confederate States themselves; and these persons |