Of the Hon. A.H. STEPHENS, made at the Georgia State Convention, held
January, 1861, for the purpose of determining whether the State of Georgia
was to secede. Notwithstanding this remarkable speech of an extraordinary
man, the Convention decided on secession. Mr. Stephens was afterwards
elected Vice President of the so-called Confederacy. This distinction
shows the estimate of his powers, and adds force to the deliverance, the
prophetic declarations of which are now being fulfilled to the letter.
This step (of secession) once taken, can never be recalled; and all the
baleful and withering consequences that must follow, will rest on the
convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our
lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will
inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvests
shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war
sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the
horrors and desolations of war upon us; who, but this Convention will be
held responsible for it? and but him who shall have given his vote for
this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall
be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation,
and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for
the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now
propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment
what reason you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer
moments--what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in this
calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the
nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate
judges in the case? and what cause or one overt act can you name or point,
on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North
assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has
been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right has been
withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong
deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which
the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the
other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not
here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend
and lover of the South and her institutions; and for this reason I speak
thus plainly and faithfully--for yours, mine, and every other man's
interest--the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge;
and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now
stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the
South demanded the slave trade or importation of Africans for the
cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years?
When we asked a three-fifths representation in congress for our slaves was
it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from
justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor and allegiance, was
it not incorporated in the constitution, and again ratified and
strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. But do you reply that in
many instances they have violated this compact and have not been faithful
to their engagements? As individual and local communities they may have
done so; but not by the sanction of government for that has always been
true to Southern interest. Again, gentleman, look at another fact, when we
have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the
institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us
Louisiana, Florida, and Texas out of which four States have been carved
and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you by this
unwise and impolitic act do not destroy this hope and perhaps, by it lose
all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as
South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal
emancipation, which may reasonably be expected to follow. But, again,
gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to
the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet,
if we remain in it and are as united as we have been. We have had a
majority of the presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control
and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty
years of Southern presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the
executive department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had
eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North; although nearly
four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the Free States, yet a
majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have
required so as to guard against any interpretation of the constitution
unfavourable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard
our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the
presiding president (_pro. tem._) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four
to their eleven. Speakers of the house we have had twenty-three, and they
twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater
population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally
secured the speaker, because he, to a greater extent, shapes and controls
the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every
other department of the general government. Attorney-Generals we have had
fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had
eighty-six and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business
which demands diplomatic agents abroard is clearly from the Free States,
from their greater commercial interests, yet we have had the principal
embassies, so as to secure the world's markets for our cotton, tobacco,
and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the
higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the
soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks,
auditors, and comptrollers filling the executive department, the records
show for the last fifty years that of the three thousand thus employed, we
have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of
the white population of the republic. Again, look at another item, and
one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that
of revenue, or means of supporting government. From official documents we
learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the
support of government has uniformly been raised from the North. Pause now
while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these
important items. Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless
millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of
thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as
sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition--and for what? we ask again. Is
it for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common
ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on
the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity? And, as such, I must
declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by
the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands,
that it is the best and freest government--the most equal in its rights,
the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the
most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun
of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a
government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters
of a century--in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a
nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us,
with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and
rights unassailed--is the height of _madness_, _folly_, and _wickedness_,
to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.
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