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INTERESTING

DEBATE.

95

What

within the limits of South Carolina. you have done to-day has extinguished the authority of every man in Carolina deriving authority from the General Government. I am in favor of this body making such provisional arrangements as may be necessary, in the interval which may exist between this moment and the time when the Legislature may act. I am not, however, to be implicated as sanctioning the idea that there is no lawful authority, within the limits of the State, except the General Government.

Mr. Gregg After South Carolina abrogated the Constitution of the United States, are its laws still in force? I think not. All the laws of Congress fall instantly to the ground, on the act of secession.

Mr. Cheves-As an immense chasm will be made in the law, and as it is necessary, to avoid inconvenience to the people, we must make some temporary arrangements to carry on the government.

Mr. Gregg-There is no law on the subject of the collection of the duties in South Carolina now. We have now accomplished the

work after forty years.

Mr. Haynes-The Congress of the United States is no longer our government. It will be for our Legislature to say what laws of the United States shall be continued, and what not. The simple act of secession does not abrogate all the laws. We have a great many laws on our statute books, which were passed by the Governor and the Privy Council. Mr. Gregg-The Congressional laws for the collection of revenue, are for the support of the Federal Government at Washington, and all our Post-Office laws fall, on our dissolution with that Government.

Mr Miles-We have to deal with facts and stern realities. We must prevent confusion, anarchy and the derangement of our Government affairs. Things must, for the present, remain in statu quo, or confusion will arise. Mr. Hayne-Sudden action is injurious. Mr. Chestnut-Two questions are involved -power and duty. We must preserve our people, not only from inconvenience but chaotic condition. We must revivify such laws as will best preserve us from calamities. As to duty, if you turn the ship of State adrift what will become of the officers ?

Mr. Maseyck-There is no duty for the Collector of the port to do. The Post-office has been swept off. My opinion is that the present system of postal arrangement is a nuisance. The public can be better served by private parties between cities like Philadelphia and New York for one cent instead of three, and between less important, ten or more cents.

Mr. Calhoun-We have pulled a temple down that has been built three-quarters of a century. We must clear the rubbish away to reconstruct another. We are now houseless and homeless, and we must secure ourselves against storms.

Mr. Dunkin-If that ordinance be passed, things will go on in the Custom-house and Post-office exactly as now, until other arrangements can be made by this Convention. There is nothing in the ordinance to affect the dignity, honor, and welfare of the State of South Carolina. We must keep the wheels of the Government going. The Constitution of the United States is not entirely abrogated by the ordinance. What is legal tender in the payment of debts? Is it not gold and silver of the United States? In the case of clearing and entry of vessels, we are very liable to have the same confiscated.

Mr. Carroll-The present revenue would be continued till an act of the Legislature authorized otherwise.

Mr. Brown-There is no longer communication with the Government from which we are just separated.

Mr. Dunkin―The spirit of the ordinance must be temporarily sustained till we treat with the General Government.

Mr. Gregg-The President of the United States has thrown down the gauntlet in his Message. He has said that it was his duty to collect the revenue, and that he would do it. On one side, the Federal Government claims the right and declares its intention to execute the powers of collecting revenue in our ports; on the other side we have declared that we are free. I desire no compromise. Is it necessary to maintain the 15 to 40 per cent. duties imposed by the Congress of the United States? Should these duties continue to be levied, our people will suffer a terrible calamity. For carrying the mails, let the present contracts

be assumed by South Carolina instead of the this State, to exercise the office to which I have been United States.

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Mr. Maseyck said in regard to the mail, all restrictions must be removed. Let us appoint our own officers. Let the Collector of the port battle with the difficulties as they come.

At 3:40 P. M., the Convention took a recess, to meet at Institute Hall at 6 o'clock, for the purpose of signing the ordinance.

As the Convention was leaving St. Andrew's Hall, the chimes of St. Michael's Episcopal Church pealed forth "Old Lang Syne,"

and other tunes.

Further Acts.

appointed, and will, to the best of my ability, discharge the duty of the office, and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of this State, so help me

God."

As the Convention sat, on all important occasions, in secret session, much of its proceedings are veiled in mystery. By a special vote a reporter was rejected, and a resolution not to have the proceedings printed, passed with only three negative votes.

The Declaration of
Causes

The Declaration of Causes was not definitively accepted until the evening session of Monday, December 24th. It was amended, verbally, in several cases, and, as adopted, reads as follows:

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

Done in Convention, December 24, 1860.

"The State of South Carolina, having determined to resume her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the causes which have led to this act.

The Declaration of
Causes.

pendent States, they have full power to levy war, to

"In the year 1765, that portion of the British EmOn the 21st, Mr. Rhett, pire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make Chairman of the Commit-laws for the government of that portion composed tee on an address on the of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for causes of the Secession of the State, reportthe right of self-government ensued, which resulted ed. The Commissioners were elected "to on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration by the Colonies, that they are, and of right ought to be, free treat with the United States," viz:-Ex-Govand independent States, and that, as free and indeernor J. H. Adams, Ex-Congressman J. L. Orr and Mr. R. W. Barnwell, who were authorized to proceed immediately to Washington, to enter upon negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the relations between the United States and the "sovereign" State of South Carolina, including the transfer of the forts, &c. A Committee reported a modification of the Constitution of the State,* so far as to substitute a new oath of allegiance, viz :

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conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.'

They further solemnly declared, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of

*See page 48, "A queer case." The modification of the oath was in defiance of the State Constitution, which positively stipulated that no part of that instrument should be altered, "unless a bill to alter the same shall have been read three times, &c., and agreed to by two-thirds of both branches, &c.; neither shall any alteration take place until the bill, as agreed to, be published three months previous to a new election," &c., &c. The delegates doubtless assumed the principle that desperate emergencies require desperate resorts. The entire proceedings of the Convention were illegal according to the Con stitution of the State.

DECLARATION

OF

CAUSES.

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The Declaration of
Causes.

the people to alter or abolished for the adoption of the States it, and to institute a new gov the articles of union known as ernment.' Deeming the Gov- the Constitution of the United ernment of Great Britain to have become destructive States. of these ends, they declared that the Colonies are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the States of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally disBolved.'

"In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments-legislative, executive, and judicial. For purposes of defence, they united their arms and their counsels: and, in 1778, they entered into a league, known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to intrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first article, that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not, by this confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

"Under this confederation the war of the Revolu

The Declaration of
Causes.

"The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed, the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then to be invested with their authority.

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If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact,

two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they exercised the functions of an independent nation.

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By this Constitution, certain duties were charged on the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But, to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respect

tion was carried on, and, on the 3d of September, ively, or to the people. On the 23d of May, 1788, 173, the contest ended, and a definitive treaty was South Carolina, by a convention of her people, passsigned by Great Britain, in which she acknowledgeded an ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and the independence of the Colonies in the following afterward altered her own constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

terms:

"Article 1.-His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and independent States; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, proprietary and territorial rights of the same and every

part thereof.'

"Thus was established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely, the right of a State to govern itself, and the right of a people to abolish

a government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles was the fact, that each colony became and was recognized by the mother country as a free, sovereign, and independent State.

"In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the State to revise the articles of confederation, and on the 17th of September, 1787, these Deputies recommend

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Thus was established, by compact between the States, a government, with defined objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant, and to so much more only as was necessary to execute the power granted. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

is subject to the two great principles asserted in "We hold that the government thus established the Declaration of Independence, and we hold further that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely, the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual -that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement entirely releases the obligation of the other, and that, where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure with all its consequences.

"In the present case that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fifteen of the States have

The Declaration of
Causes.

past to fulfill their constitutional
obligations, and we refer to

The Declaration of
Causes.

deliberately refused for years | union, establish justice, insure
domestic tranquility, provide
for the common defence, pro-
tect the general welfare, and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'

their own statutes for the proof.
"The Constitution of the United States, in its 4th
article, provides as follows:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'

"This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and the State of Virginia had previously declared her estimate of its value by making it the condition of her cession of the Territory which now compose the States north of the Ohio River. "The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for the rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

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"These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights; by giving them the right to represent, and burdening them with direct taxes for threefifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years, and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

"We affirm that these ends for which this government was instituted have been defeated, and the government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. These States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions, and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloin the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assist ed thousands of our slaves to leave their homes, and those who remain have been incited by emissaries,

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the Northern States to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connec-books and pictures to servile insurrection. ticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the acts of Congress, or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from the service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law for the rendition of fugitive slaves in conformity with her constitutional undertaking; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render imperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals, and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the nonslaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from its obligations.

The ends for which this Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be to form a more perfect

"For twenty-five years, this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common government. Observ ing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that article establishing the executive department the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have 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. 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 ex

tinction.

"This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship persons, who, by the su preme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens, and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and safety.

"On the 4th of March next, this party will take

The Declaration of
Causes.

TELEGRAPHIC DISPATCHES.

possession of the Government. | levy war, conclude peace con-
tract alliances, establish com-
merce, and to do all other acts

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

"The guarantees of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government or self-protection, and

the Federal Government will have become their

enemies.

“Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief.

"We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates in convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world as a free, sovereign, and independent State, with full power to

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The Declaration of
Causes.

and things which independent States may of right do.

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'And, for the support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

In the course of the day's proceedings many very able speeches were made, eliminating points in the Declaration. Among others Messrs. Rhett and Keitt declared the Fugitive Slave law to be unconstitutional, and Mr. Meminger confessed the question to be legally embarrassing.*

December 24th Gov. Pickens, agreeably to the ordinance of secession, issued his proclamation declaring to the world that "South Carolina is, and has a right to be a separate, sovreign, free, and independent State, and, as such, has a right to levy war, conclude peace, negotiate treaties, leagues or covenants, and to do all acts whatever that rightfully appertain to a free and independent State."

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WE cannot more vividly | describe the effect of the news of South Carolina's secession than to reproduce a few of the telegraphic dispatches which fairly blazed over the wires from the Southern States:

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ANDERSON. THE PORTS OF

"MOBILE, Dec. 20. "The secession of South Carolina was celebrated here this afternoon by the firing of a hundred guns,

*For assuming the identical position of Mr. Rhett and his followers, the Northern States are declared, with singular want of consistency, to have heaped wrongs and indignations upon the South.

The case is analagous to that referred to, (page 27, note,) wherein the South declares negroes human beings to obtain their Congressionsl representation, and denies that they are human beings when it requires the Constitution to regard them as chattels thus illustrating the adage that a mule may be a horse, when the king has no horse.

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