and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying Amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the Union.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." Now, as further evidence of the reasons and motives by which the extremest men of the South were governed, in advising the people of their States, respectively, to secede, I call your special attention to the speech made by Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, in the Senate of the United States, on the 7th of January, 1861, more than two weeks after South Carolina had passed her Ordinance, and two days after, you say, the conspiracy, of which he was a prominent member, was organized in Washington, with a view to overthrow the Federal Government, and to establish, in its stead, a Slavery Oligarchy. Let us look into this speech. I will read such portions only as present its substance upon the points we have under immediate consideration. In speaking of the action of the people of South Carolina, and the Secessionists of the South generally, in this assemblage of the Ambassadors of the States, on that occasion, he said: “Inasmuch, sir, as I have labored earnestly, honestly, sincerely with these men to avert this necessity, so long as I deemed it possible, and inasmuch as I heartily approve their present conduct of resistance, I deem it my duty to state their case to the Senate, to the country, and to the civilized world. "Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new Government, they have demanded no new Constitution. Look to their records at home and here, from the beginning of this strife until its consummation in the disruption of the Union, and they have not demanded a single thing, except that you shall abide by the Constitution of the United States; that Constitutional rights shall be respected, and that justice shall be done. Sirs, they have stood by your Constitution; they have stood by all its requirements; they have performed all of its duties unselfishly, uncalculatingly, disinterestedly, until a Party sprang up in this Country which endangered their social system-a Party which they arraign, and which they charge before the American people and all mankind with having made proclamation of outlawry against thousands of millions of their property in the Territories of the United States; with having aided and abetted insurrection from within and invasion from without, with the view of subverting their Institutions, and desolating their homes and their firesides. I shall proceed to vindicate the justice of their demands, the patriotism of their conduct. I will show the injustice which they suffer, and the rightfulness of their resistance. "The discontented States of this Union have demanded nothing but clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged Constitutional rights-rights affirmed by the highest judicial Tribunals of their Country; rights older than the Constitution; rights which are planted upon the immutable principles of natural justice; rights which have been affirmed by the good and the wise of all countries and of all centuries. We demand no power to injure any man. We demand no right to injure our Confederate States. We demand no right to interfere with their Institutions, either by word or deed. We have no right to disturb their peace, their tranquillity, their security. We have demanded of them simply, solely-nothing else—to give us equality, security, and tranquillity. Give us these, and peace restores itself. "I will now read my own demands, acting under my |