Republican party was seated in power the government would be divorced from slavery. The mails would be used to disseminate seditious writings and servile insurrections would follow. Slavery would become a burden instead of a blessing to the South, and the border States in a few years would be compelled to throw their influence into the Northern scale. The slaves would be concentrated in the more southerly slaveholding States, and in less than twenty years would far outnumber the white population. Then universal emancipation would be decreed by the federal government, and such a deadly contest between the two races would follow as had never been known in the world's history. However unreasonable this fear it was a real terror to many Southern men. They looked forward with grave anxiety to the time when the slave population would outnumber the white. And these dangers were depicted in lurid colors in Alabama when it seceded.1 The loyal people of Missouri and other border States complained that the cotton States were to blame for the secession movement now in progress, and that these States had no right to take them out of the Union against their will, to which Iverson replied that the border States had no right to keep the cotton States in the Union against their will. As the States were sovereign and independent and had the right to decide these questions for themselves, let those who wished to remain in the Union remain there. But the border States were short-sighted, and unlike those of the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic they did not understand the great revolution going on. The cotton States clearly foresaw what was coming in the Union: universal emancipation, and an attempt to turn loose 1 Smith's Alabama Debates, 1861, 201, et seq. 2 See Vol. III, p. 43. SLAVERY TO BE PROTECTED. 609 upon society at the South a mass of corruption which emancipation would engender. The border States could get along without slavery; a subject which was discussed exhaustively in Kentucky in 1849.1 But the cotton States were obliged, he said, to have African slaves to cultivate their cotton, their rice and their sugar.2 The slave was property and his protection was essential to the prosperity of the South; a dogma repeated from colonial times till the abolition of slavery. The cotton States had voted for Breckinridge and Lane at the Presidential election of 1860, because they stood for congressional protection to slave property in the territories.3 The small party in the South opposed to that principle had supported Douglas, but in the Southern States it was so small as to be contemptible. Southern men who supported the Bell and Everett ticket favored congressional protection to slavery, but a large portion of them were ardent supporters of the secession movement and especially because they had lost all hope of getting protection for slavery if they remained in the Union. Legislation or an amendment to the Constitution which fell short of permanent protection for slavery would not be accepted by the South. But the South was satisfied that there was no prospect of getting such legislation, therefore, Crittenden's resolutions were unnecessary and useless. If the North yielded and gave the Southern States addi 1 See my Constitutional History of the American People, 17761850, Vol. II, 1-170. 2 Discussed at length in the Alabama Convention, 1861; Smith's Debates, 194-211. 3 Platform Breckinridge Democratic Convention, Baltimore, June 11-28, 1860. 4 Douglas had carried but one slave-holding State, Missouri, having nine electoral votes, and giving him 58,801 popular votes. Republican party was seated in power the government would be divorced from slavery. The mails would be used to disseminate seditious writings and servile insurrections would follow. Slavery would become a burden instead of a blessing to the South, and the border States in a few years would be compelled to throw their influence into the Northern scale. The slaves would be concentrated in the more southerly slaveholding States, and in less than twenty years would far outnumber the white population. Then universal emancipation would be decreed by the federal government, and such a deadly contest between the two races would follow as had never been known in the world's history. However unreasonable this fear it was a real terror to many Southern men. They looked forward with grave anxiety to the time when the slave population would outnumber the white. And these dangers were depicted in lurid colors in Alabama when it seceded.1 The loyal people of Missouri2 and other border States complained that the cotton States were to blame for the secession movement now in progress, and that these States had no right to take them out of the Union against their will, to which Iverson replied that the border States had no right to keep the cotton States in the Union against their will. As the States were sovereign and independent and had the right to decide these questions for themselves, let those who wished to remain in the Union remain there. But the border States were short-sighted, and unlike those of the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic they did not understand the great revolution going on. The cotton States clearly foresaw what was coming in the Union: universal emancipation, and an attempt to turn loose 1 Smith's Alabama Debates, 1861, 201, et seq. 2 See Vol. III, p. 43. SLAVERY TO BE PROTECTED. 609 upon society at the South a mass of corruption which emancipation would engender. The border States could get along without slavery; a subject which was discussed exhaustively in Kentucky in 1849.1 But the cotton States were obliged, he said, to have African slaves to cultivate their cotton, their rice and their sugar.2 The slave was property and his protection was essential to the prosperity of the South; a dogma repeated from colonial times till the abolition of slavery. The cotton States had voted for Breckinridge and Lane at the Presidential election of 1860, because they stood for congressional protection to slave property in the territories. The small party in the South opposed to that principle had supported Douglas, but in the Southern States it was so small as to be contemptible. Southern men who supported the Bell and Everett ticket favored congressional protection to slavery, but a large portion of them were ardent supporters of the secession movement and especially because they had lost all hope of getting protection for slavery if they remained in the Union. Legislation or an amendment to the Constitution which fell short of permanent protection for slavery would not be accepted by the South. But the South was satisfied that there was no prospect of getting such legislation, therefore, Crittenden's resolutions were unnecessary and useless. If the North yielded and gave the Southern States addi 1 See my Constitutional History of the American People, 17761850, Vol. II, 1-170. 2 Discussed at length in the Alabama Convention, 1861; Smith's Debates, 194-211. 3 Platform Breckinridge Democratic Convention, Baltimore, June 11-28, 1860. 4 Douglas had carried but one slave-holding State, Missouri, having nine electoral votes, and giving him 58,801 popular votes. 610 THE SECESSION MOVEMENT. tional constitutional guarantees, the grant would spring only from an apprehension that the South was going to dissolve the Union; a concession made under such circumstances would be of little value to the South. Northern pledges would be valueless as long as a vitiated public sentiment toward slavery existed in the heart and minds of Northern people. The doctrine of the irrepressible conflict was taught at the North from every pulpit, every popular assembly, every schoolhouse. This Northern sentiment was beyond reform. The Union, therefore, was doomed. It was twenty-five years since the anti-slavery agitation began; then the abolitionist could muster but seven thousand votes, now they had increased to one million eight hundred and fifty thousand votes.1 Through all these years the South had threatened to dissolve the Union if its expostulations continued to be ignored, and though it had been in control of the Federal government and its patronage, it had not been able to restrain the growth of the anti-slavery vote. The secession movement included the States west of the Mississippi. If the border States desired any influence or part in the new Confederacy they must leave the Union quickly and send delegates to join in forming a constitution and organizing a government for the protec tion of slavery. It was not impossible that this would be done before they arrived. If the cotton States alone formed the Confederacy they might reopen the African slave trade and thus destroy the great monopoly of the 1 The vote for James G. Birney, 1840, was 7,059; in 1844, 62,300; for Martin Van Buren, 1848, 29,263; John P. Hale, 1852, 156,149; John C. Freemont, 1856, 1,341,264; Abraham Lincoln, 1860, 1,865, 2 See Vol. III, p. 47. |