RHS 201

D. C. Ellison, Instructor

Incident at Harper's Ferry: It's Aftermath

Assignment: After reviewing the documents below prepare a written answer to the question: "Why did the South secede from the Union following the election of 1860?" Your answer should be no more than one sheet of paper in length.

I. Background Material

Document No. 1. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Sec. 6. That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory...has hertofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, or her, or their agent or attorney...may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid...for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court..., whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case...in a summary manner.... In no trial or hearing, under this act, shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first section mentioned shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons, by any process issued by any court....

Sect. 7. That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant...from arresting such a fugitive...or shall rescue or attempt to rescue such fugitive...or shall aid, abet, or assist such person...to escape from such claimant...or shall harbor or conceal such figitive...shall, for either of said offences be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months...

Document No. 2. Speech of the Hon. Charles Sumner in the Senate, May 19,-20, 1856.

...Mr. President,...the Nebraska Bill, on its very face, openly cleared the way for slavery, and it is not wrong to presume that its originators intended the natural consequences of such an act, and sought in this way to extend slavery. Of course, they did. And this is the first stage in the Crime against Kansas.

But this was speedily followed by other developments. The bare-faced scheme was soon whispered, that Kansas must be a slave State. In conformity with this idea was the Government of this unhappy Territory organized in all its departments; and thus did the President, by whose complicity the prohibition o9f slavery had been overthrown, oend himself to a new complicity....The Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, Associate Justices, Attorney, and Marshall..., nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, where all commended as friendly to slavery....With such auspices the conspiracy proceeded. Even in advance of the Nebraska Bill , secret societies were organized in Missouri, ostensibly to protect her institutions, and afterwards...these were multiplied throughout the western counties of that state, before any counter-movement from the North. It was confidently anticipated that, by the activity of these societies, and the interest of slave-holders everywhere, with the advantage derived from the neighborhood of Missouri, and the influence of the Territorial Government, slavery might be introduced into Kansas, quietly but surely, without arousing a conflict --that the crocidile egg might be stealthily dropped in the sun-burnt soil, there to be hatched unobserved until it sent forth its reptile monster.

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Document No. 3 Speech by William H. Seward at Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 25, 1858.

...Our country is a theatre which exhibits in full operation two radically different political systems: the one resting on the basis of servile labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of free men.

...Hitherto the two systems have existed in different States, but side by side within the American Union. This has happened because the Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results.

Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will sooner or later become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation...

Document No. 4. The National Intelligencer, Washington, D.c. Tues., Oct. 18, 1859

BALTIMORE, OCT. 17 - The following dispatch has just been received from Frederick, but, as it seems very improbable, it should be received with great caution until confirmed:

FREDERICIK, OCT. 17 A.M. - There is an insurrection at Harper's Ferry. A band of armed Abolitionists have full possession of the United States Arsenal. The express train was fired into twice, and one of the railroad hands - a negro - killed while trying to get the train through the town. The insurgents arrested two men who came into town with a load of wheat, took the wagon, loaded it with rifles, and sent them into Maryland. The band is composed of a gang of about two hundred and fifty whites, followed by a band of negroes, who are now fighting.

Document No. 5. The National Intelligencer, Washington, D.C., October 18, 2:30 A.M.

HARPER'S FERRY, 2:30 A.M., The Town has been taken possession of by the military from...

Document No. 6. The National Intelligencer, Sat., Dec. 17, 1859

...Another private letter from JOHN E. COOK, written before his conviction, has just been published. It is addressed to his wife and child....The following are extracts....:

You know that in the scheme which has resulted in the death of most of my companions, and which has made be a prisoner, that I was actuated only by the tenderest feelings of sympathy and humanity. I had been led to believe, as had my comrads, that...the masses of the slaves...were groaning beneath the yoke of oppression....It had been represented to me and my comrads that when once the banner of freedom should be raised they would flock to it by thousands...I gave heart and hand to a work which I deemed a noble and holy cause. The result has proved that we were deceived; that the masses of the slaves did not wish for freedom. There was no rallying beneath our banner. Wee were left to meet the conflict all alone....Twelve of my comrads are sleeping now with the damp mould over them, and five are inmates of these prison walls. We have been deceived, but found out our error when too late....

II. The Northern Reaction

Document No. 8. THE BALTIMORE WEEKLY SUN, Oct. 22, 1859

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The whole movement - in its origin, its mode of demonstration, the absurd pretences developed in documents found upon the prisoners and the dead, the weakness of the parties in the attempt to carry out their apparent design, and their miserable end - is degraded beneath sympathy, and excites nothing but contempt as a miserable caricature of insurrectionary ambition. Yet it is impossible to contemplate the inevitable fate which these deluded fanatics have brought upon themselves, without a sentiment of commiseration towards them, as the victims of that social and political error with which a large proportion of the northern mid is indoctrinated and imbued. These poor wretches have only carried out to its practical absurdity a theory which is gradually diffusing itself, under the false pretence of a political sentiment among the people, and presumes to invite co-operation even in the Southern states.

Document No. 9 THE LIBERATOR (BOSTON), Nov. 4, 1859

At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society held in Boston Nov. 1st, the following Resolution was Adopted: "Resolved that it is recommended to the friends of impartial freedom...incase of the execution of Capt. John Brown now on trial..., to observe that tragical event, ON THE DAY OF ITS OCCURRENCE, in such manner as by them may be deemed most appropriate in their various localities - whether by public meetings and addresses...or any other justifiable mode of action- for the furtherance of the Anti-Slavery cause, and renewedly to consecrate themselves to the patriotic and Christian work of effecting the abolition of that most dangerous, unnatural, cruel and impious system of slavery....

Document No. 10 THE BUFFALO COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, Reprinted in The National Intelligencer, Nov. 1, 1859.

...it is impossible to close the book of Old John Brown's life without a sign of pitiful admiration for the blind heroism, the stupid zeal, he has manifested during all the four or five stormy years since he left his farm in Montgomery County, in this State, to resist by violence the introduction of slavery into Kansas. He was one of the few brave men among the horde who went out to Kansas... He believed in it, and it is fair to suppose that he had become a monomaniac on the subject....

We are sorry to see in the Democratic press a pitiful attempt to make political capital out of these events, and to represent the crimes of a crazy fanatic as the sins of a party....

Document No. 11 THE EASTERN TIMES (Me. Dem.), Reprtinted in The national Intelligencer, Nov. 1, 1859

...that any sane men of any party deliberately counselled that movement, with a view permanently to embarrass the South or to strengthen Northern sentiment, is too preposterous to be believed...Still, Republicanism cannot escape its share of responsibility....That the Republican party have designed to encourage such acts we do not charge; but that their speeches, their doctrines, and their actions have stimulated them we have no sort of doubt. And...we charge an equal amount of responsibility upon the hotspurs of the South....Northern fanaticism and abolitionism are today being nourished and fattened on the untenable demands of the South....Forbearance is neede don both sides....

Document No.12 THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT, reprinted in The Libertor, Nov 4, 1859

...The extraordinary course of some Northern newspapers in attempting to fasten the late miserable affair upon the leaders of the Republican party is simply absurd and contemptible. Nor will the respectable press at the South, or sensible men anywhere thank them for any such course, for if it be true that a party which is numerically the strongest in the country is indeed favorable to a servile insurrection, then the days of slavery are indeed numbered, and when the negroes are once convinced of the fact, there will be little peace or safety at the South.

III. The Southern Reaction

Document No. 13 THE RICHMOND ENQUIRER, Fri., Oct. 21, 1859

The "irrepressible conflict" was initiated at Harper's Ferry, and though there, for the time suppressed, yet no man is able to say when or where it will begin again or where it will end. The extent of this iniquitous plot cannot be estimated by the number of men detected and killed or captures...; the localities from when these men came - ...New England,...Iowa,...Ohio,...Kansas - show an extent of country embracing the whole Northern section of the Union, as involved in the attempt at instigating servile insurrection in Virginia. Alarming as is the fact that so extended a conspiracy has been detected, a yet more serious cirumstance is presented in the amount of pecuniary means at the disposal of these leaders.

..."tents, blankets, spades, and about fifteen hudred Sharps Rifles with ammunition." From when came the money to buy these things?..."Fifteen hundred Sharps Rigles and ammunition," must have cost $15,000.

Document No. 14 "GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE TO THE LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA, Dec. 5, 1859

...our peace has been disturbed; our citizens...imprisoned, robbed and murdered; the sanctity of their dwellings...violated; their persons...outraged; their property...seized by force of arms....

This was no result of ordinary crimes.... It was an extraordinary and actual invasion, by a sectional organization....

Sudden, surprising, shocking as this invasion has been, it is not more so than the rapidity and rancor of the causes which have prompted and put it in motion....Causes and influences lie behind it.... For a series of years social and sectional difference have been growing up unhappily...

Document No. 15.___CORRESPONDENCE OF THE BALTIMORE AMERICAN in THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER, Dec. 3, 1898. "INTELLIGENCE FROM CHARLESTOWN

After an absence of five weeks, I yesterday returned to this excited and panic-stricken town; and, although the panic portion of the programme has died out, the excitement has rather increased. There is no falling off in the number of miraculous stories of armed invaders, mysterious despatches, and wonderful combinations against the peace and good order of the old Commonwealth...The panic among the women and children is, however, more intense, especially in the rural portions of the country...

Martial law has not been proclaimed here yet, though I cannot see what additional rigors could be enforced on this most unfortunate people. Even the citizens of the town cannot pass through the suburbs without being arrested and carried off to headquarters. Persons coming into the town have to be detained an hour or more, and then marched by an armed guard to the presence of the military authorities to give an account of themselves. On leaving they have to obtain a pass, and run the gauntlet of a dozen sentinels to return to their homes again. Yesterday, as I entered the town, I saw the venerable Edward Ruffin, the famous Virginian agriculturalist, with his flowing locks, being marched to headquarters between two armed guards...

Document No. 16. The National Intelligencer, Mar. 17, 1860

VIRGINIA AND OHIO - Gov. Letcher laid before the Legislature of Virginia, on the 14th instant, a communication on the subject of the refusal of Gov. Dennison, of Ohio, to surrender, as fugitives from justice, Francis Meriam and Owen Brown, two of John Brown's ... conspirators. The ground of refusal appears to be that "no enactment of this State (Ohio) has clothed the Governor with authority to surrender to another State fugitives from its justice seeking refuge here." And it is urged that, under the power claimed by virtue of the Constitution of the Unitekd States, the conditions on which the requisition is based are defective in not stating with precision where the offence was committed. Governor Letcher cites a case in which, on the 22d of February last, Governor Dennison makes a requisition upon him for the surrender of a fugitive from justice. He concludes..." "If the course which has been pursued by the authorities of the States of Ohio and Iowa is to become the settled policy of the non-slaveholding States towards us, we must adopt such measures for protection against these gross outrages upon our rights as will be suited to the case. We must adopt retaliatory measures.... What these...shall be I leave to the wisdom of the General Assembly.

Document No. 17. Reprinted in The Richmond Enquirer, Tues., Nov 15, from an unspecified newspaper in Charleston, S.C., dated Nov. 7, 1859.

With all due reverence to the memory of our forefathers, I think the time has arrived in our history for a separation from the North....The Constitution...has been violated..., if the Union stands we have no security either for life or property..., emissaries are in our midst, sent here by a party which claims to have the good of the country at heart, but in fact are assassins..., there are papers in the South, supported by Aboliton money....We must separate unless we are willing to see our daughters and wives becomes the victims of a barbarous passion and worse insult.

With five millio9ns of negroes turned loose in the South, what would be the state of society? It would be worse than the "Reign of Terror."

IV. Southern State Declarations of Independence

Document No. 18. Georgia

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the

passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin.

It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the

North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the

total overthrow of the Government. The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the

navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the

maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects.

Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public

Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred

in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.

But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.

All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was

before us. We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the

conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this

power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections-- of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.

The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution. Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the Government from the beginning. Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787. That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country, and

therefore this case must stand on its own special circumstances. The Government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina, by treaty from France, and by treaty from

Spain. These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic. In all of these acquisitions the policy of the Government was uniform. It opened them to the settlement of all the

citizens of all the States of the Union. They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves). All were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous and otherwise capable of bearing the burdens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt

for themselves.

Under this equally just and beneficent policy law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked every step of the progress of these new communities until they entered as great and prosperous commonwealths into the sisterhood of American States. In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by

her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri. The venerable Madison at the time of its adoption declared it unconstitutional. Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction

and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States.

The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity. This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation.

The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party

resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the

North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by

its leaders and applauded by its followers.

With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.

For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the tribunals of justice. The majority of the people of the North in 1860 decided it in their own favor. We refuse to submit to that judgment,and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude us. We offer the practice of our Government for the first thirty years of its existence in complete refutation of the position that any such power is either necessary or proper to the execution of any other power in relation to the Territories. We offer the judgment of a large

minority of the people of the North, amounting to more than one-third, who united with the unanimous voice of the South against this usurpation; and, finally, we offer the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of our country, in our favor. This evidence ought to be conclusive that we have never surrendered this right. The conduct of our adversaries admonishes us that if we had surrendered it, it is time to resume it.

The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union. They are content if they can only injure us. The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another

shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property. Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations.

A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor. This provision and the one last referred to were our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States. Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the Constitution. In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision. This act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in the several States for its efficiency. The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens

whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty. Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete execution of this duty by Federal officers. This law, which their own bad faith rendered absolutely indispensible for the protection of constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and all conceivable modes of hostility. The Supreme Court unanimously, and their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its constitutionality in all of its provisions. Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding State in the Union. We have their convenants, we have their oaths to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal officer

with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments to elude, to resist, and defeat him. Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity. In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments. It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren.

The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations.

These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern

confederates.

These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved.

Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never

sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our

property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.

[Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861]

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