the rebellious people within them, citi- Constitution never contemplated using zens of the United States, pledged to and answerable to her authority. The assumption involved in the phrase, "coercion of a State," was the cause of much unnecessary difficulty.

that army against a State. A State exercising the sovereign functions of Secession is beyond the reach of the Federal Government, unless we woo her with the voice of fraternity, and bring her back to the enticements of affection. He should have brought his opinion to one conclusion or another, and to-day our country would have been safer than it is."*

Jefferson Davis, also, on the floor of the Senate, rebuked the diplomatic uncertainty of the paper. It was, in his view, neither one thing nor the other, neither fish nor flesh, a kind of political No public document ever fell more medley, a Federal head ill assorted heavily on the ear of the people of the with a State Rights tail. "It had," said United States, and the friends of our he, "all the characteristics of a diplo- National Union throughout the world, matic paper, for diplomacy is said to ab- than this Message. At a moment when, hor certainty, as nature abhors a vacu- if ever, strength and resolution were um; and it was not within the power needed in the Executive, he voluntarily of man to reach any fixed conclusion came forward to announce the weakness from that Message. When the country of his position. The lame and impotent was agitated, when opinions were being conclusion was utterly at war with the formed, when we were drifting beyond premises. If there could be no destructhe power ever to return, this was not tion, there surely ought to be preserwhat we had a right to expect from the vation. If the body could not die, it Chief Magistrate. One policy or the certainly was entitled to live. If the other he ought to have taken. If a Fed- States ought not to go, and yet would cralist, if believing this to be a govern- go, they should be made to stay. Why, ment of force, if believing it to be a con- it might have been asked, should that solidated mass and not a confederation Constitution, founded by the wisdom of of States, he should have said: No State our ancestors, firmly knit in the affechas a right to secede; every State is tions of the people, well adapted to subordinate to the Federal Government, maintain their common interests, preand the Federal Government must em- servative of principles of society and power me with physical means to reduce government-the beneficent fruits of to subjugation the States asserting such which we were just beginning to ena right. If not, if a State Rights man joy-be so tamely relinquished? Jackand a Democrat, as it has been for many son, when a similar question arose in years my pride to acknowledge our ven- his administration, took no counsel erable Chief Magistrate fo be, then an- from parliamentary fears, but actively other line of policy should have been employed the means at hand to stay the taken. The Constitution gave no power evil. It was not his humor to present to the Federal Government to coerce a to his countrymen a scene of disaster, State; the Constitution gave an army for and tell them they had no means of esthe purposes of common defence, and to * Speech of Jefferson Davis on the State of the Union, preserve domestic tranquillity; but the in the Senate, January 10,861.

caping from it. He took care that the the Constitution. He recommended an Southern forts should be well manned, "Explanatory Amendment" of that inand that the navy should be on hand to strument to be made in due form, origiprotect the national property and inter- nating either with Congress or the State ests. He, in the spirit of his military Legislatures, which should be confined policy at New Orleans, went forth to to the final settlement of the true conmeet the enemy on the road, knowing struction of the Constitution on three that when he was once seated and estab- special points, namely: "an express lished in our territory, the work of ex- recognition of the right of property in pulsion would be a thousand-fold more slaves in the States where it now exists difficult. Mr. Buchanan, when it came or may hereafter exist; the duty of to his turn to act, mildly announced, with protecting this right in all the common an uncertainty strongly indicative of his territories throughout their territorial convictions, "It is not believed that existence, and until they shall be admitany attempt will be made to expel the United States from this property (the forts, arsenals, etc., in South Carolina) by force; but if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive. In such a contingency, the responsibility for consequences would rightfully rest upon the heads of the assailants." To act on the defensive with the interpretation are violations of the Constitution, and given to the word by President Buchanan's Administration, was, in fact, not to act at all; for it was a policy which suffered the enemy to grow so powerful in his means of assault, that any adequate action, as was proved .at Sumter, would, for a time, become impossible. Not to protect the public property, was to lose it. Every hour's inaction was a premium on rebellion.

It is but justice, however, to say, that whatever weakness was displayed by President Buchanan-and nothing could well be more culpable than weakness of any kind or degree in the Executive in such an emergency-yet that he apparently had some hopes of a peaceful adjustment of all difficulties by a resort to the remedy offered in extreme cases by

ted as States into the Union, with or without slavery, as their Constitutions may prescribe; a like recognition of the right of the master to have his slave, who has escaped from one State to another, restored and delivered up' to him, and of the validity of the fugitive slave law enacted for this purpose, together with a declaration, that all State laws impairing or defeating this right,

are consequently null and void. Such an Explanatory Amendment (he added) would, it is believed, forever terminate the existing dissensions, and restore peace and harmony among the States."

The Convention of South Carolina met according to appointment, on the 17th of December, at Columbia, but the small pox prevailing there, was immediately adjourned to Charleston, where it held its sessions in Institute Hall. General D. F. Jamison, a gentleman of intelligence and literary cultivation, from the Barnwell District, was chosen President. "We have entered," said he, in taking his seat, "on a great work, and God, who holds in his hands the destinies of nations, only knows what may be the results."

and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the 23d day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General As

ments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."

Though meeting but a fortnight after tion assembled, do declare and ordain, the delivery of President Buchanan's Message, the Convention did not appear at all governed in its deliberations by the conciliatory terms of that remarkable document. The neglect was not complimentary to the politician whom Southern votes had raised to power, and who was now destined to experience the ingrati-sembly of this State ratifying amend tude of the party which he had served but too devotedly. The last months in office of James Buchanan teach a lesson which should not be lost upon rising politicians. It is, that subservience to party may secure a position for a time, but that, of all tyrannies and exactions, The Ordinance was accompanied by a its unfeeling despotism is the most insup- "Declaration of Causes which induced portable. When its end is gained, and the secession." In this the public was new servants are needed for other pur-treated to a brief disquisition on the poses, the old are thrown away, neglected doctrine of State Rights, the Governand despised. But to the true patriot who sees only his country and her just cause, the statesman superior to party, there is no termination of his honorable career but with life. Washington was never out of office in the thoughts and affections of his countrymen; nor were Marshall, Webster, Jackson, and Henry Clay, who thought it better to be right than President.

ment of the United States being regarded as a compact between independent powers which might be broken up by any one of the partners, on the failure of any other to fulfil his obligations, the aggrieved party being entitled to determine for himself "the fact of failure with all its consequences." In accordance with this convenient principle, utterly ignoring the powers of Congress, Two days after the meeting of the the uses of the Executive, and the judgConvention, the act of secession was ments of the Supreme Court, South . passed by the unanimous vote of its one Carolina, deciding the case for herself, hundred and sixty-nine members. It proceeded to arraign no less than fourwas entitled "An Ordinance to dissolve teen of the States for their "deliberate the union between the State of South refusal for years past to fulfil their ConCarolina and other States united with stitutional obligations." Having proved her under the compact entitled the Con- to her own satisfaction, that the Fugitive stitution of the United States of Ameri- Slave clause in the fourth article of the ca," and in a single sentence, pretending Constitution had been thus in a greater to repeal the solemn acts adopting and or less degree violated, she pronounced ratifying the Constitution of the United this summary judgment: "Thus the States, declared the separation :-"We, Constitutional compact has been delibthe people of South Carolina, in Conven-erately broken and disregarded by the

APPEALS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

35

non-slaveholding States; and the conse- to be worth giving to the world in a quence follows, that South Carolina is Declaration of Independence by South released from her obligation." Having Carolina were that an interference with by this easy demonstration argued her- the sacred institution of slavery by the self out of the Union, this free and in- Republican party was to be dreaded. In dependent State condescended to a fur- vain had she just been told by President ther enumeration of grievances, all of Buchanan that the fugitive slave law had which, it is noticeable, related to this one always been maintained and that the new topic of interference, real or supposed, President, even if he desired to do so, with slavery. Among other points of would be unable to rule contrary to the this nature, it was asserted that a geo- provisions of the Constitution. graphical line had been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have been united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to Slavery." To this was added, without any show of proof, "He is to be intrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that 'government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. . . On the 4th of March next, this party will take possession of the government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunal shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States." To this extraordinary statement, which if it had been true, it is needless to say, would have rendered the success of the Republican party impossible, was added the still more startling declaration, fact it was called, "that the public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief."

From this document then it appears that the only ostensible reasons thought

Another document, however, an “Address to the People of the Slaveholding States," was put forth by the Convention, at the same time, which varied somewhat the grounds of appeal. It dwelt upon the resemblance between the present position of the Southern States towards the Government at Washington and that of the colonies toward Great Britain at the period of the War of Independence. With an unparalleled hardihood of assertion it maintained that the Constitution being overthrown, the government of the United States was "no longer a free government but a despotism;" that the Northern majority in Congress controlling Southern interests was in effect the same with the ancient no-representation in Parliament; that the taxation of that body found its parallel in the tariffs of our own day, and as Great Britain would have expended the sums which she proposed to exact, at home, so the South was impoverished by paying duties which were lavished upon the North; in fact, that the cities of the South were "provincialized" under the operation. The dangers to the institution of slavery in the States were then insisted upon as inevitably flowing from the will of a people who thought then selves bound to exclude it, if possible, from the virgin. soil of the Territories. "If," was the ar

gument, "African slavery in the South-petual conflict-and chronic starvation ern States be the evil their political keeps down the natural increase of popcombinations affirm it to be, the requisi-ulation-and a man is worked out in tions of an inexorable logic must lead eight years-and the law ordains that them to emancipation." On such gra- children shall be worked only ten hours tuitous suppositions, in advance of any a day-and the sabre and bayonet are acts of aggression, while the Government the instruments of order-be it so. It is was subservient to their policy and the their affair, not ours. We prefer, howSupreme Court was pronouncing its decis- ever, our system of industry, by which ions in their favor, it was thought fitting labor and capital are identified in interto declare :-" We but imitate the policy est, and capital, therefore, protects labor, of our fathers in dissolving a Union with by which our population doubles every nonslaveholding confederates, and seek- twenty years; by which starvation is uning a confederation with slaveholding known and abundance crowns the land States." by which order is preserved by an unpaid police and the most fertile regions of the world, where the Caucasian cannot labor, are brought into usefulness by the labor of the African, and the whole world is blessed by our own productions. All we demand of other people is to be let alone to work out our own high destinies. United together, and we must be the most independent as we are the most important amongst the nations of the world. United together, and we require no other instrument to conquer peace than our beneficent productions. United together, and we must be a great, free, and prosperous people, whose renown must spread throughout the civilized world, and pass down, we trust, to the remotest ages." With a renewal of the appeal thus flippantly and confidently sent forth the address ended:-" We ask you to join us in framing a confederacy of slaveholding States." The South, subduing all interests to one devouring passion, were acting under the impulse of the "inexorable logic" which they fancied was driving on to "the inevitable. conflict" the people of the North.

That there might be no doubt of the principles upon which the secession was organized, the demand for sympathy was enforced with the appeal "to be one of a great slaveholding confederacy stretching its arms over a territory larger than any power in Europe possesses." Nor was this urged as a simple concession to a state of things already existing,-something to be accepted of necessity; but that state was put forward as a ground of glory and rejoicing. Comparing the enforced servitude of the South with the free labor of other countries, preference was given to the former. As a clear indication of an important element in the future struggle, which subsequently engaged the attention of President Lincoln in one of his Messages, we give the very words of the passage in the South Carolina Address:-"We rejoice that other nations should be satisfied with their institutions. Self-complacency is a great element of happiness with nations as with individuals. We are satisfied with If they prefer a system of industry in which capital and labor are in per

ours.