tection to private property forbade the enactment of a law which took away a man's property in slaves when he removed them to the Territories; and that the clause in the Constitution upon which the North relied merely conferred power to make regulations concerning the use and disposition of the property which the United States had in lands and chattels, and gave no power of general legislation. A compromise was the doctrine of squatter sovereignty formulated by Stephen A. Douglas, according to which the people of each Territory had the absolute right to determine whether slavery should be allowed or forbidden, and Congress had no power to interfere with them.16 The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott Case, decided by a majority of six to two that Congress had no power to forbid slavery in the Territories. The dissenting opinion of Judge Curtis, however, was claimed by the North to be correct; and it was, in accordance with his views, asserted that this ruling was no part of the decision of the Court, since by sustaining a plea to the jurisdiction, the case had been decided before the question arose.17 Abraham Lincoln had vigorously repudiated the decision; and there was little doubt but that the North would refuse to respect it and seek to have it overruled. Thus stood the question at the time of the election of Lincoln to the presidency.

§ 36. History of Secession.

The election by the Northern States, for President, of a northern man who had said that the Union could not "endure permanently half slave, half free,"1 and had publicly declared his refusal to acquiesce in the opinion in the Dred Scott Case, that slavery could not be constitutionally excluded from the Territories, convinced the South that new safeguards were necessary for the preservation of their peculiar institution. Renewed threats of a dissolution of the Union were received in such a manner by the North as to make it clear that a majority of the people were resolved to submit to no further aggressions by the slave power. The success of South Carolina more than a quarter of a century be

16 Debates between Lincoln and Douglas, passim.

17 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How., 293. This case is discussed at length, infra.

§ 36. 1 Lincoln's Speech before the Republican State Convention at Springfield, Ill., June 17, 1858.

fore made it seem probable that official action on the part of the slave States would compel concessions. The result of the presidential election had proved that nothing else could do so. A junto of members of Congress from the South, in co-operation with the other leaders of their constituents, planned a demonstration which they resolved should be more imposing, and they expected would be no less effective, than the work of Calhoun and Hayne. On December 14th, 1860, they issued a public address to their constituents, in which they said " that the honor, safety, and independence of the Southern people require the organization of a Southern Confederacy, a result to be obtained only by sepa rate State secession." 2

The Palmetto State, the location of which, surrounded by slave States, made invasion from the North difficult, again took the lead. On December 20th, a convention of the people of South Carolina unanimously adopted the following ordinance of secession:

"An ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.'

"We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the Twenty-third of May, in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all other Acts and parts of Acts of the General Constitution, are hereby repealed, and the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."

Action by a convention rather than by the legislature was due to the fact that, as the people through a convention had originally ratified the Constitution, it might have been contended. that the legislature had no such authority. The people, however, were considered the sovereign power of the State. The ordinance was followed by a declaration of independence drawn with studied imitation of the original, to which it referred in its preamble, and

2 This was signed by about half the members of the Southern delegations in both houses, including Jefferson Davis, Slidell, Benjamin and Wigfall

(Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. iii, p. 178).

8 See the language of Madison, quoted supra, § 19.

from which was copied its conclusion. The body set forth the doctrine that the Constitution was a compact, a breach of which by one party dissolved the others from their obligations. It recited those clauses inserted by way of compromise in the Constitution for the protection of the right of property in man; and emphasized the provision for the return of fugitive slaves. As infractions were set forth the enactment by fifteen Northern States of personal-liberty laws, which interfered with the operation of the Fugitive Slave law; the refusal of their officers to enforce, and of their people to obey, this constitutional mandate; the denial of the right of transit for slaves; and the refusal of two State executives to deliver, on demand of the executives of Southern States, persons accused of having committed crimes in connection with attempts at forcible emancipation. Complaint was made of the formation of a sectional party, which, "aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens," had elected President a man whose opinions and purposes were hostile to slavery.

"It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory; that the judicial tribunals shall become sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States."

In conclusion it was declared that the Union was dissolved; and South Carolina had resumed her position among "the nations of the world as a free, sovereign, and independent State." 4

The day following the action of the South Carolina convention, the representatives of that State retired from their seats in Congress. On January 5th, 1861, a caucus of the senators of seven Southern States recommended to their constituents immediate secession and the organization of a new Confederacy.5

4 This was the work of R. B. Rhett (Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. iii, p. 204). It is printed at length by Preston, Documents Illustrative of American History, p. 305.

The following resolutions were adopted by the Senators of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. Messrs. Toombs, of Georgia, and Sebastian, of

Arkansas, were absent from the meeting: "Resolved, That, in our opinion, each of the States should, as soon as may be, secede from the Union. Resolved, That provision should be made for a convention to organize a confederacy of the seceding States: the convention to meet not later than the 15th of February, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama.

The second State to secede was Mississippi, which adopted an ordinance of secession, January 9th, 1861. Florida followed on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th, and Louisiaina on the 28th. Each of these States acted through conventions, and in none was the vote unanimous. In Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana, propositions to submit the question to a direct popular vote were defeated. The Texas convention passed an ordinance of secession February 1st, and on the 7th submitted it to the people, a majority of whom adopted it on the 23d. All these, like South Carolina, were separated from the free by the border slave States, upon whom they relied to preserve neutrality

at least, and to protect them from the North pending the negotiations for the compromise which they expected to obtain. They were fortified, moreover, by an opinion given by the AttorneyGeneral, Judge Jere. S. Black, to President Buchanan, that under existing laws the President could not use force against them, except to defend attacks upon the property of the government, and that the United States had no power under the Constitution to wage war upon one of the States of which they were composed. In case of war they knew that the border States must be at first the battle-ground; and, many of them believed, what was said by one of their leaders, that their citizens might "go home, raise cotton and make money," leaving the discomforts of the situation to their less fortunate allies.8 The border slave States-Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri - understood the perils of their situation; and one at least of them, Missouri, had some time before made preparations to maintain neutrality in case of hostilities between the States who surrounded her.9 Such of their legislatures as were then in session, early in 1861, either declared neutrality or recommended such a compromise as the others were anxious to obtain.10 Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, although not on the border, were more exposed than those nearer the centre of the slave States, and accordingly hesitated. The convention of Arkansas defeated the ordinance of secession, March 18th, by a majority of four; submitted the question to a vote of the people

7 Opinion of Attorney-General Black, Nov. 20, 1860; 9 Op. A. G. 516. It is said by Jefferson Davis, that two members of the Supreme Court, Judge Campbell of Louisiana, and Judge Nelson of New York, expressed a similar view to President Lincoln. (Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, vol. i, pp. 267, 268). See also Campbell's address to the Southern Historical Society. The soundness of these views will be considered elsewhere.

This remark, which was attributed to Howell Cobb of Georgia, had considerable influence in turning Kentucky towards the Northern side (Shaler's Kentucky, p. 249).

9 In 1855 and 1856, Missouri legislated to provide means for raising fifty thousand volunteers, to be used, it was said by the promoter, in "preventing our Northern and Southern brethren from flying at each other's throats, as they probably will do at the next presidential election in 1856, or passing that, certainly in 1860, unless the border States take action such as this to keep the peace." (Carr's Missouri, pp. 300, 301).

10 McPherson, History of the Rebellion, pp. 4-11. The separate action of each of these States is described in a subsequent part of this section.