ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN--HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE EVENT--THE
OBJECTS AIMED AT BY HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY IDENTICAL IN THE DISCUSSION
OF EVENTS OF THE LATE WAR--NORTHERN EVASION OF THE REAL QUESTION--THE
SOUTH DID NOT ATTEMPT REVOLUTION--SECESSION A JUSTIFIABLE RIGHT
EXERCISED BY SOVEREIGN STATES--BRIEF REVIEW OF THE QUESTION--WHAT THE
FEDERALIST SAYS--CHIEF-JUSTICE MARSHALL--MR. MADISON--COERCION NOT
JUSTIFIED AT THE NORTH PREVIOUS TO THE LATE WAR--REMARKS OF JOHN
QUINCY ADAMS--OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN--OF HORACE GREELEY--SUCCESSFUL
PERVERSION OF TRUTH BY THE NORTH--PROVOCATIONS TO SECESSION BY THE
SOUTH--AGGRESSIONS BY THE NORTH--ITS PUNIC FAITH--LOSS OF THE BALANCE
OF POWER--PATIENCE OF THE SOUTH--REMARKS OF HON. C. C. CLAY--WHAT THE
ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN MEANT--HIS ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY--REVELATIONS
OF THE OBJECTS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY--WENDELL PHILLIPS--NO SECURITY
FOR THE SOUTH IN THE UNION--MEETING OF CONGRESS--MR. DAVIS' ASSURANCE
TO PRESIDENT BUCHANAN--CONCILIATORY COURSE OF MR. DAVIS--HIS
CONSISTENT DEVOTION TO THE UNION, AND EFFORTS TO SAVE IT--FORESEES WAR
AS THE RESULT OF SECESSION, AND URGES THE EXHAUSTION OF EVERY
EXPEDIENT TO AVERT IT--THE CRITTENDEN AMENDMENT--HOPES OF ITS
ADOPTION--DAVIS WILLING TO ACCEPT IT IN SPITE OF ITS INJUSTICE TO THE
SOUTH--REPUBLICAN SENATORS DECLINE ALL CONCILIATORY MEASURES--THE
CLARKE AMENDMENT--WHERE RESTS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF DISUNION?--
STATEMENTS OF MESSRS. DOUGLAS AND COX--SECESSION OF THE COTTON
STATES--A LETTER FROM JEFFERSON DAVIS TO R. B. RHETT, JR.--MR. DAVIS'
FAREWELL TO THE SENATE--HIS REASONS FOR WITHDRAWING--RETURNS TO
MISSISSIPPI--MAJOR-GENERAL OF STATE FORCES--ORGANIZATION OF THE
CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT--MR. DAVIS PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES.
As had been foreseen, and, indeed, as was the inevitable sequence of the
disruption of the Democratic party, Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the
Republican party, was, in November, 1860, elected President of the United
States. This was the supreme and sufficient incitement to the adoption of
the dreaded resort of disunion. As the _occasion_ which finally brought
the South to the attitude of resistance, the event acquires vast
historical importance.
When it is conceded that Mr. Lincoln was elected in accordance with the
_forms_ of the Constitution, having received a majority of electoral
votes; that the mere ceremony of election was attended by no unusual
circumstances, we concede every possible ground upon which can be based an
argument denying its ample justification of the course pursued by the
South. Such an argument, however, leads to a wholly untenable conclusion,
and may be easily exposed in its hypocritical evasion of the real
question. We are here required to note the distinction between _cause_ and
_occasion_. As the final consummation of tendencies, long indicating the
result of disunion, this event has an appropriate place in the
recapitulation of those influences, and can be rightly estimated only in
connection with their operation.
Trite observations upon the influence of passion and prejudice, over
contemporary judgment, are not necessary to a due conception of the
obstacles which, for the present, exclude candor from the discussion of
the late movement for Southern independence. In the face of the disastrous
overthrow of that movement, the wrecked hopes and fortunes of those who
participated in it, discussion is chiefly serviceable, as it throws
additional light upon the development of those eternal principles in whose
ceaseless struggles men are only temporary agents.
History and biography are here most intimately blended; beginning from
the same stand-point, they encounter common difficulties, and aim to
explore the same general grounds of observation. So far as a verdict--from
whatever tribunal, whether rendered at the bar of justice or in the award
of popular opinion, when the embers of recent strife are still fiercely
glowing--can affect the dispassionate judgment of History, the Southern
people can not be separated, either in fact or in sentiment, from
Jefferson Davis. He was the illustrious compatriot of six millions of
freemen, who struck for nationality and independence, and lost--as did
Greece and Poland before them; or he and they were alike insurgents,
equally guilty of the crime of treason.
With an adroitness which does credit to the characteristic charlatanism of
the North, an infinite variety of special questions and side issues have
been interwoven with the narrative of the late war, for the obvious
purpose of confounding the judgment of mankind regarding the great
question which really constitutes the gravamen of the controversy.
Conspicuous among these efforts, from both audacity and plausibility, are
appeals to the sympathies of the world, in consideration of the abolition
of slavery, which it is well known was merely an incident, and not the
avowed design of the war.
Persistent in its introduction of the _moral_ question of slavery, the
North seeks to shield itself from the reproach justly visited upon its
perpetration of an atrocious political crime, by an insolent intrusion of
a false claim to the championship of humanity. Whatever may be the
decision of Time upon the merits of slavery, it is in vain for the North
to seek escape from its responsibility for an institution, protected and
sustained by a government which was the joint creation of Southern and
Northern hands.
The attempted dissolution of the Union by the South was a movement
involving moral and political considerations, not unlike those incidental
to revolutions in general, yet presenting certain peculiar
characteristics, traceable to the inherent and distinctive features of the
American political system. These latter considerations constitute a vital
part of its justification. The South did not appeal only to the
inalienable right of revolution, which is the natural guarantee of
resistance to wrong and oppression. Nor did the States, severally, as they
assumed to sever their connection with the Union, announce a purpose of
constitutional revolution, or adopt a course inviting or justifying
violence. Mr. Davis and those who coöperated with him, neither by the acts
of secession, nor the subsequent confederation of the States under a new
government, could have committed _treason_ against Mr. Lincoln, since they
were not his subjects. Nor yet were they traitors to the Government of the
United States, since the States of which they were citizens had rescinded
the grant of powers voluntarily made by them to that Government, and begun
to exercise them in conjunction with other powers which they had withheld
by express reservation.
It is impossible to conceive a movement, contemplating such important
political changes, more entirely unattended by displays of violence,
passion, and disorder. A simple assertion, with due solemnity, by each
State, of its sovereignty--a heritage which it had never surrendered, but
which had been respected by innumerable forms of recognition in the
history of the Union--and the exercise of those attributes of sovereignty,
which are too palpable to require that they shall be indicated, was the
peaceable method resorted to of terminating a political alliance which had
become injurious to the highest interests of one of the parties. Could
there have been a more becoming and dignified exercise of the vaunted
right of self-government? It is that right to which America is so
conspicuously committed, and which has been such an inexhaustible theme
for the tawdry rhetoric of Northern eloquence.
Even in the insolence of its triumph, the North feels the necessity of at
least a decent pretext for its destruction of the cardinal feature in the
American system of government--the sovereignty of the States. With
habitual want of candor, Northern writers pretend that the Constitution of
the United States does not affirm the sovereignty of the States, and that,
therefore, secession was treason against that Constitution to which they
had subscribed; in other words, the created does not give authority to the
creator--_i. e._, the Constitution, which the States created, does not
accredit sovereignty to the States, and, therefore, the States are not
sovereign. It is not pretended that the States were not, each of them,
originally independent powers, since they were so recognized by Great
Britain, in the plainest terms, at the termination of the first
revolution. Nor is it asserted that the union of the States, under the
title of United States, was the occasion of any surrender of their
individual sovereignty, as it was then declared that "each State retains
its sovereignty, freedom, and independence." A conclusive demonstration of
the retention of sovereignty by the States is seen in the entire failure
of the Constitution, either by direct assertion or by implication, to
claim its surrender to the Union.
If the sovereignty of the States be conceded, the South stands justified
as having exercised an unquestionable right. It was never formally denied,
even at the North, until Mr. Webster, in his debate with Mr. Calhoun,
affirmed the doctrine of the supremacy of the Union, to which conclusion
the Northern masses sprung with alacrity, as an available justification
for compelling the submission of the South to the outrages which they had
already commenced.
Volumes of testimony have been adduced, proving the theory of State
sovereignty to have been the overwhelmingly predominant belief among the
statesmen most prominent in the establishment of the Union, and in shaping
the policy of the Government in its earlier history. Argument proved an
unavailing offset to the stern decrees of the sword, and is quite
unnecessary so long as the unanswerable logic of Calhoun, Davis, and a
score of Southern statesmen remains upon the national records--a perpetual
challenge, as yet unaccepted, to the boasted intellect of the North, and a
significant warning of the final adjudication of the centuries. We shall
intrude no argument of our own in support of State sovereignty, upon which
rests the vindication of the South and her leaders. Before us are the
apposite and conclusive assumptions of men who have been the revered
sources of political inspiration among Americans.
The _Federalist_, that most powerful vindication of the Constitution, and
earnest plea for its adoption by the States, assumes that it was a
"compact," to which "the States, as distinct and independent sovereigns,"
were the parties. Yet this doctrine, the basis upon which rests the august
handiwork of Madison and Hamilton, the "architects of the Constitution,"
when applied by Davis and his compatriots, becomes treason! Such is the
extremity to which despotism, in its wretched plea of expediency, is
driven; and the candid, enlightened American of to-day realizes, in his
country, a land in which "truth is treason, and history is rebellion."
Chief-Justice Marshall, the great judicial luminary of America, and an
authority not usually summoned to the support of doctrines hostile to the
assumptions of Federal power, gave most emphatic testimony to the
propriety of the States' Rights view of the relations of State and Federal
authority. In the Virginia Convention which ratified the Constitution, he
said: "The State governments did not derive their powers from the General
Government. But each government derived its powers from the people, and
each was to act according to the powers given it. Would any gentleman deny
this? He demanded, if powers not given were retained by implication? Could
any man say, no? Could any man say that this power was not retained by the
States, since it was not given away?" The view so earnestly urged by
Marshall, was not only avowed generally, but Virginia, Massachusetts, and
Pennsylvania insisted upon a written declaration, in the Constitution, of
the principle that certain attributes of sovereignty, which they did not
delegate to the Union, were retained by the States.
Mr. Madison, whose great abilities were taxed to the utmost to secure the
ratification of the Constitution by Virginia, vigorously and earnestly
defended it against the allegation that it created a consolidated
government. With the utmost difficulty, he secured a majority of ten
votes, in the Virginia Convention, in favor of the Constitution, which his
rival, Patrick Henry, denounced as destructive of State sovereignty.
Defining the expression, "We, the people," Mr. Madison said: "The parties
to it were the people, but not the people as composing one great society,
but the people as composing '_thirteen sovereignties_.'" To quote Mr.
Madison again: "If it were a consolidated government, the assent of a
majority of the people would be sufficient to establish it. But it was to
be binding on the people of a State only by their own separate consent."
Under the influence of these arguments, and others of the same import from
Mr. Madison, whom she thought, from his close relations to the
Constitution, high authority upon all questions pertaining to its
character, Virginia finally acceded to the Union. It is especially
noteworthy, however, that Virginia, when becoming a party to the
Constitution, expressly affirmed, in the most solemn manner, the right to
"resume" her grants of power to the Federal Government.
In deference to the accumulated evidence upon this subject, came the
unqualified statement, from eminent Northern authority,[14] that, "This
right [of secession] must be considered an ingredient in the original
composition of the General Government, which, though not expressed, was
mutually understood."
But whatever may be thought of the prescriptive and inherent right of
sovereignty, exercised by the South in withdrawing from the Union, as
deducible from the peculiar nature of the American system, and as
expounded by the founders of that system, there can be no question as to
its entire accordance with the _spirit_ of American polity. Authority is
abundant in support of the assertion that, not even in the North, previous
to the inception of the present revolution, was the idea of a constrained
connection with the Union entertained. From every source of Northern
opinion has come indignant repudiation of a coerced association of
communities, originally united by a common pledge of fealty to the right
of self-government.
Upon this subject Mr. John Quincy Adams spoke in language of
characteristic fervor: "The indissoluble link of union between the people
of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in
the _right_, but in the _heart_. If the day should ever come (may heaven
avert it!) when the affections of the people of these States shall be
alienated from each other--when the fraternal spirit shall give way to
cold indifference, or collision of interest shall fester into hatred, the
bands of political association will not long hold together parties no
longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly
sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited
States to part in friendship from each other than to be held together by
constraint."
Even Mr. Lincoln, whose statesmanship is not likely to be commemorated for
its profundity or scholarship, fully comprehended the exaggerated
reverence of the American mind for the "sacred right of self-government."
Now that his homely phrases are dignified by the Northern masses with the
sanctity of the utterances of Deity, assuredly there should be no
apprehension that his opinions may not be deemed conclusive. In 1848, Mr.
Lincoln said: "Any people whatever have the right to abolish the existing
government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most
valuable, a most sacred right."
A brave affirmation was this of the doctrine of the Declaration of
Independence, that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent
of the governed;" and one which would have commanded the united applause
of the North, then and now, had the application concerned Hungary, Poland,
Greece, or Mexico. But, with reference to the South, there was a most
important modification of this admirable principle of equity and humanity.
When asked, "Why not let the South go?" Abraham Lincoln, _the President_,
in 1861, said: "_Let the South go! Where, then, shall we get our
revenue?_" And the united North reëchoed: "_Let the South go! Where, then,
shall we look for the bounties and monopolies which have so enriched us at
the expense of those improvident, unsuspecting Southerners? Where shall we
find again such patient victims of spoliation?_"
Mr. Horace Greeley frequently and emphatically, previous to the war,
affirmed the right of changing its political association asserted by the
South. Three days after the election of Mr. Lincoln, in November, 1860,
his paper, the New York _Tribune_, said: "If the Cotton States shall
become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we
insist on letting them go in peace.... We must ever resist the right of
any State to remain in the Union, and nullify or defy the laws thereof.
_To withdraw from the Union is quite another matter; and whenever any
considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we
shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in._ We hope never
to live in a Republic whereof one section is pinned to another by
bayonets." On the 17th of December, 1860, the _Tribune_ said: "If it [the
Declaration of Independence] justifies the secession of three millions of
colonists in 1776, _we do not see why it would not justify the secession
of five millions of Southerners from the Federal Union in 1861_."
Such are a few illustrations, to which might be added innumerable
quotations, of the same import, from the most prominent sources of
Northern opinion. Never has there been a question so capable of positive
solution and easy comprehension, when subjected to the test of candid
investigation, and never so successful a purpose to exclude the
illumination of facts by persistent and ingenious misrepresentation. The
North has reason for its extravagant exultation at the skill and audacity
with which the brazen front of hypocrisy, for a time, at least, has
successfully sustained, in the name of humanity and liberty, the most
monstrous imposition and transparent counterfeit of virtue ever designed
upon an intelligent age.
To the triumphant historical vindication of the South, there remains only
the essential condition of a clear and truthful statement of the
provocations which impelled her to adopt that long-deferred remedy, which
is the last refuge of a people whose liberties are imperiled. Secession,
however strong in its prescriptive or implied justification as a
principle, was not to be undertaken from caprice, or trivial causes of
dissatisfaction.
Abuses, numerous, serious, and consecutive, were required before disunion
became either desirable or acceptable to the South. The native
conservatism of the Southern character renders it peculiarly averse to
agitation; to this were added social features, the safety of which would
be greatly imperiled by civil war, and thus a train of influences tended
to make Southern soil, of all others, the least favorable to the growth of
revolutionary principles.
In the development of this volume, we have glanced at the progress of
those sectional differences, at various periods precipitated by the
insolent aggressions of Abolitionism, which steadily depreciated the
value of the Union in Southern estimation. Continued aggressions by her
enemies; their Punic faith, illustrated in a series of violated pledges,
and habitual disregard of the conditions of the covenant which bound South
and North together; petty outrages, taunts and insults, emanating from
every possible source of public expression at the North, for many years
had banished fraternal feeling and precluded those interchanges of comity
between the sections which were the indispensable requisites to national
harmony. It is undeniable, that for years previous to secession, the
sentimental attachment to the Union, which was the distinctive
characteristic of Southern patriotism--unlike the coarse, utilitarian
estimate of the Union as a source of pecuniary profit, which constituted
its value to the North--had been greatly impaired. Since 1850, and to a
considerable extent during the preceding decade, the most sagacious
statesmen of the South contemplated disunion as an event almost
inevitable, unless averted by a contingency of very improbable occurrence.
There must be an awakening by the North to a more just appreciation of its
constitutional and patriotic obligations, or an unmanly submission by the
South, to a condition of degrading inferiority, in a government to whose
construction, prosperity, and distinction, she had contributed more than a
proportionate share of influence.
Chief among the considerations which admonished the South of the perils
which environed her situation in the Union, was the total destruction of
that sectional balance, which had been wisely adjusted by its founders, as
the safeguard of the weaker against the stronger influence. Having in mind
the wise saying of Aristotle, that "the weak always desire what is equal
and just, but the powerful pay no regard to it," the statesmen of 1787
designedly shaped the chart of government with a view to the preservation
of equality. The struggle between the weaker element, naturally contending
in behalf of the equilibrium, and the stronger striving for its overthrow,
was, at an early period, distinctly foreshadowed. With characteristic
prevision, Alexander Hamilton, probably the foremost statesman of his day,
foretold the nature of this contest over the principle of equality. Said
that sagacious publicist: "The truth is, it is a contest for power, not
for liberty."
This contest, indeed, so long waged, was, many years since, decided
overwhelmingly against the South. In 1850, the Northern majority in the
House of Representatives, the popular branch of the government, had
increased from a majority, in 1790, of five votes, to fifty-four. Years
before, the legislation of Congress assumed that sectional bias, which was
undeviatingly adhered to for the purpose, and with ample success, of the
material depression of the South. Under the baleful influences of hostile
legislation, of tariffs aimed directly at her commercial prosperity, of
bounties for fostering multifarious Northern interests, her position in
the Union was helpless and deplorable in the extreme. Yet, like a
rock-bound Prometheus, with the insidious elements of destruction gnawing
at her vitals, the South suffered herself to be chained by an influence of
sentiment, of association, and reminiscence to the Union, fully conscious
of the growing rapacity of her despoiler and of her own hopeless decline.
Her infatuation was indeed marvelous, in trusting to the dawning of
justice and generosity in a fierce, vindictive, and remorseless sectional
majority.
The alarming portents of ultimately complete material prostration, to be
consummated by these perversions of the purposes of the Union, were
terribly significant, in view of the venom which actuated the enemies of
the South. The sectional balance was hopelessly gone; Southern material
prosperity destroyed by sectional legislation; not a check, originally
provided by the Constitution for the protection of the weaker section, but
had been virtually obliterated; Northern perfidy illustrated in the
violation of every compact which, in operation, proved favorable to the
South, while the latter was held to a rigid fidelity in all agreements
favorable to her enemies; the nullification, by the legislatures of half
the Northern States, of Federal laws for the protection of Southern
property, are a few of those grievances which presented to the South the
hard and inexorable alternative of resistance, or abject submission to
endless insult and outrage.
A Southern Senator,[15] announcing the secession of his State, and his own
consequent withdrawal from the Senate, stated the question in a form,
which even then had the authority of history.
"Not a decade, nor scarce a lustrum, has elapsed (since Alabama became
a State) that has not been strongly marked by proofs of the growth and
power of that antislavery spirit of the Northern people, which seeks
the overthrow of that domestic institution of the South, which is not
only the chief source of her prosperity, but the very basis of her
social order and State polity. It is to-day the master-spirit of the
Northern States, and had before the secession of Alabama, of
Mississippi, of Florida, or of South Carolina, severed most of the
bonds of the Union. It denied us Christian communion, because it could
not endure what it calls the moral leprosy of slave-holding; it
refused us permission to sojourn, or even to pass through the North
with our property; it claimed freedom for the slave, if brought by
his master into a Northern State; it violated the Constitution, and
treaties, and laws of Congress, because designed to protect that
property; it refused us any share of lands acquired mainly by our
diplomacy, and blood, and treasure; it refused our property any
shelter or security beneath the flag of a common government; it robbed
us of our property, and refused to restore it; it refused to deliver
criminals against our laws, who fled to the North with our property or
our blood upon their hands; it threatened us by solemn legislative
acts, with ignominious punishment, if we pursued our property into a
Northern State; it murdered Southern men when seeking the recovery of
their property on Northern soil; it invaded the borders of Southern
States, poisoned their wells, burnt their dwellings, and murdered
their people; it denounced us by deliberate resolves of popular
meetings, of party conventions, and of religious, and even legislative
assemblies, as habitual violators of the laws of God and the rights of
humanity; it exerted all the moral and physical agencies that human
ingenuity can devise, or diabolical malice can employ, to heap odium
and infamy upon us, and to make us a by-word of hissing and of scorn
throughout the civilized world."
There was no room for uncertainty as to the significance of the election
of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, in 1860, by a party exclusively
sectional in organization, and upon a platform, which virtually declared
the Union, as then constituted, in opposition to justice, humanity, and
civilization.
The real danger to the South, involved in this election, was that it was a
_sectional_ triumph--a victory of North over South, in a contest where the
South risked every thing, the North nothing. From time immemorial sincere
patriots of both sections had deprecated the formation of sectional
parties, organized upon geographical interests, or upon ideas confined to
limited portions of the Union. Washington, in his farewell injunction,
admonished his countrymen of the deplorable results which must follow the
presentation of such issues.
The Chicago platform was more than a menace to the South; it was a
defiance of law, a declaration of war upon the Constitution. The election
of Lincoln was both a legal and moral severance of the bonds of Union.
While he received the united vote of the North, save New Jersey, he did
not receive one electoral vote from the South. His shaping of his
administration was consistent with the character of the party which
elected him. All his constitutional advisers were Northern men or Southern
Abolitionists; social outlaws in their own section, in consequence of
their notorious personal depravity, and infidelity to their immediate
fellow-citizens. Of like character were the subordinate appointments of
the Federal Government in Southern communities.
Nor was there reason to doubt the policy of the Government under its new
management. Mr. Lincoln had been sufficiently communicative of his own
bitter hostility to Southern institutions. In fact, with much show of
justice, his admirers claimed for him the original suggestion of the idea
of an "irrepressible conflict," afterwards so elaborately pronounced by
William H. Seward. Public announcements, from prominent speakers of the
successful party, amply revealed the feast to which the South was invited.
Wendell Phillips, the most able, eloquent, and sagacious of the original
Abolitionists, thus pointedly defined the situation: "No man has a right
to be surprised at this state of things. It is just what we have attempted
to bring about. It is the first sectional party ever organized in this
country. It does not know its own face, and calls itself national; but it
is not national--it is sectional. The Republican party is a party of the
North pledged against the South."
Such was the complexion to which political affairs were brought by the
election of Abraham Lincoln. There remained hardly a hope, even for future
security or domestic tranquillity to the South, except in withdrawal from
an association, in which she had become an inferior and an outcast--an
object of oppression, outrage, and contumely. From a relentless Abolition
majority she could expect no favors; and the Northern Democracy, so long
her ally, for common purposes of party, had cowered before the storm of
fanaticism, and repudiated the first demand made upon its fidelity to
principle.
Congress assembled on the first Monday of December, 1860, a few weeks
subsequent to the Presidential election. Never had that body met under
circumstances of such gravity. Universal foreboding of peril to the nation
was mingled with hope of such action, as would avert the impending
calamities of disunion and civil war. There were few indications, at the
opening of the session, of conciliatory sentiments; from the
representatives of both sections came open defiance, and Northern members
of both houses were more than ever bold in the utterance of insult and
menace. Before the opening of the session, President Buchanan received
from Mr. Davis the most satisfactory assurances of his coöperation with
the administration in a pacific policy, having for its object the
settlement of the national difficulties upon terms promotive of the peace
of the country, and assuring the security of the South.[16] To such a
settlement the efforts of Mr. Davis were addressed so long as there was
the slightest ground for the indulgence of hope.
This session of Congress, the last which was held previous to the
commencement of civil war, is chiefly interesting as the historical record
of those patriotic efforts which were made to save the Union, and as
furnishing incontestible proof of the guilt of those who, by their
persistent refusal of all conciliatory propositions, are justly
responsible for the calamities which were to befall the country. Happily
for the reputation of Mr. Davis, the proof is authentic and conclusive in
his favor upon these important questions. There is no portion of his
career in which statesmanship, patriotism, and a noble appreciation of the
claims of humanity shine forth more conspicuously. So overwhelming is the
evidence that, in these last days of the Union, he was false to none of
these high considerations, that the most mendacious assailants of himself
and the cause he lately represented have not yet ventured to call it in
question.
A disposition is frequently evinced to plead for him immunity from the
responsibility of his position, as the leader of the Confederate movement,
upon the score of his consistent Unionism, manifested in the prevailing
conservatism of his course as a politician. He needs no such palliation.
His devotion to the Union of the American fathers was as unquestionable as
was that of Washington. His patriotism was illustrated by every mode of
exemplification in the service of country. To substantiate his attachment
to that association of States, designed by the fathers, sublime in its
objects of mutual fidelity, generous sympathies, justice, and equality, no
elaborate statement is required, nor could formal vindication strengthen
its defenses.[17] He never arrayed himself against such a Union, but,
abhorring that perverted instrument of sectional aggression, which the
Government had become, he did accompany and lead his fellow-citizens in
their exercise of the highest privilege of freemen.
He was always prepared to follow the principles of States' Rights to their
logical consequences, and was yet consistent in his attachment to the
Union. Thus he was a firm believer in the absolute sovereignty of the
States, and of the enjoyment, by the States, of all the attributes of
sovereignty, including, necessarily, the right of secession. He had never
urged the expediency of secession, though, upon repeated occasions, he had
foreshadowed its probable necessity in the future, as the only remedy
remaining to the South in certain contingencies. In the Senate, in 1850,
he thus alluded to the possibility of a successful organization of a
sectional party: "The danger is one of our own times, and it is that
sectional division of the people which has created the necessity of
looking to the question of the balance of power, and which carries with
it, when disturbed, the danger of disunion."
In 1859, again, he proclaimed, in unequivocal terms, his course in the
event of the success of a party indorsing the Rochester pronunciamento of
Mr. Seward. Yet his course, subsequent to the election of Mr. Lincoln,
was directed entirely in the interest of moderation. Having little hope of
concession from the enemies of the South, in the moment of their
overwhelming victory, he yet anxiously, earnestly entered that last
struggle for the Constitution, before it passed into the keeping of
iconoclasts, who were pledged to its destruction.
His zeal in behalf of pacification was actuated by considerations of
humanity, no less ennobling than his impulse of disinterested patriotism.
Regarding a long and bloody war as the certain result of dissolution, he
anxiously sought to avert that calamitous result, and stood pledged to the
acceptance of any basis of settlement which should guarantee the safety
and honor of the South. At no time, however, did he advocate submission.
His language in the Senate is explicit. Speaking of the secession of
Mississippi, he said: "I, however, may be permitted to say, that I do
think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I conferred
with her people before that act was taken, counseled them then that, if
the state of things which they apprehended should exist when the
convention met, they should take the action which they have now adopted."
During the session, numerous efforts at compromise were made, in every
instance emanating from Southern Representatives or Northern Democrats,
the dominant party of the North declining all tenders of pacification, and
offering no terms of conciliation in return. It is unnecessary to trace
the progress of these abortive efforts, which, in the main, received the
support of feeble minorities, and had, from their inception, no prospect
of adoption.
There was one proposition, and probably only one, which embodied a
competent basis of settlement, and was entitled to favor. This was called
the "Crittenden Compromise," and originated with the venerable Kentucky
Senator, by whose name it is designated. For a time it seemed that the
demonstrations of popular sentiment in its favor, especially the
well-ascertained readiness of a large majority of the Southern people to
accept it, and its exceedingly practical nature, as a _final_ settlement
of the slavery question, would eventually secure its adoption by Congress.
The result was a disappointment of this patriotic expectation, and a
conclusive demonstration of the purpose of the Republican party to consent
to no settlement which the South could accept.
An examination of the Crittenden proposition will reveal a most striking
illustration of the ever-present spirit of accommodation, in matters
affecting the safety of the Union, which, even in its last hours, was
characteristic of the leaders and people of the South, and of the narrow,
selfish, and exacting sectionalism of the North. In reality, it was little
short of a surrender, in its ample concessions, to the encroachments of
Abolitionism.
The resolutions introduced by Mr. Crittenden, in the Senate, on the 18th
of December, 1860, contemplated amendments to the Constitution having the
following objects: The prohibition of slavery in all Territories north of
the old Missouri Compromise line, and providing protection for it south of
that line; a denial of the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia, or in ports, arsenels, dock-yards, or wherever else
the Federal Government exercised jurisdiction; remuneration to owners of
escaped slaves by communities in which the Federal laws, providing
rendition of slaves, might be violently obstructed. Such were the material
features of the "Crittenden Compromise."
It will be seen at a glance how absurd was the misnomer of "compromise"
applied to so one-sided a settlement. The South was required, by its
provisions, to abandon the sacred right of protection to her property,
guaranteed by the Constitution and unequivocally re-affirmed by the
highest judicial tribunal in the land. The Supreme Court, in the Dred
Scott case, had already decided the right to take slaves into all the
Territories, while the Crittenden proposition prohibited it entirely in
the major portion of the common Territory, and merely tolerated it in the
residue. The Constitution, as expounded by the Supreme Court, guaranteed
the right of introduction and protection of slavery in all the
Territories, in whatever latitude, as the common property of the States.
The Crittenden amendment proposed to confine this right to Territory south
of 36° 30', prohibiting, in the meanwhile, slavery _forever_ north of that
line, and in regions where its legal existence had been emphatically
affirmed by that august tribunal, the Supreme Court. If adopted, it would
have yielded every thing to Abolition rapacity, save a mere abstraction.
Of all the vast territory yet remaining to be hereafter divided into
States, only in New Mexico did it propose even to tolerate slavery, and in
that locality the laws of nature precluded its permanent establishment.
A few days after its introduction in the Senate, the Crittenden amendment
was proposed by its author to a special committee of thirteen, created on
motion of Senator Powell, of Kentucky, for the consideration of all
questions pertaining to the pending national difficulties. This committee
was composed of the most eminent and influential Senators, embracing five
leading Republicans, five Southern Senators, and Messrs. Bright, Bigler,
and Douglas, on behalf of the Northern Democracy. Mr. Davis, originally
appointed, at first declined to serve, but finally consented, in
compliance with the urgent requests of other Senators. At the first
meeting of the committee, 21st December, it was "resolved that no
proposition shall be reported as adopted, unless sustained by a majority
of each of the classes of the committee; Senators of the Republican party
to constitute one class, and Senators of the other parties to constitute
the other class."
This resolution was necessary, in consequence of the obvious futility of
any settlement which did not meet the approval of a majority of the
Republican Senators. In this Committee the Crittenden proposition was
defeated. Not one of the Republican Senators voted for it, and Messrs.
Davis and Toombs likewise voted against it when it was ascertained that it
would not receive the sanction of a majority of the Republican Senators.
Despite its unfairness as a measure of settlement, and its great injustice
to the South, Mr. Davis would have accepted it, as would a large majority
of Southern Senators, as a _finality_, if the Republican Senators had
tendered it. This, however, the latter were determined not to do, nor did
a single Republican Senator, at any time during the session, express even
a desire that any action, conciliatory to the South, should be
adopted.[18] Insolent, dictatorial, and defiant, they proclaimed their
purpose, at all hazards, to assert the authority of the Government, and
their acts clearly indicated their stern purpose to refuse every
proposition contemplating concession or compromise. In substitution of the
Crittenden adjustment, they voted solidly for the amendment of Senator
Clarke, of New Hampshire, which denied the necessity of amendments to the
Constitution, which ought to be obeyed rather than amended, and declared
that the remedy for present difficulties was to be sought in a stern
enforcement of the laws, rather than in assurances to peculiar ideas and
guarantees to peculiar interests. This palpable defiance, and emphatic
avowal of a purpose to concede nothing to Southern demands, was indorsed
by the action of Republican caucusses of both houses of Congress, by
resolutions of State Legislatures, and by tenders of men and means to
compel the submission of the South. The entire Republican party were
clearly committed to the purpose, avowed by Mr. Salmon P. Chase, in a
letter from the Peace Congress, to Portsmouth, Ohio, to "use the power
while they had it, and prevent a settlement."[19]
On the 31st December, 1860, the Committee of Thirteen reported to the
Senate their inability to "agree upon any general plan of adjustment," and
thus, with the arrival of the new year, had vanished the last hope of
preserving the peace of the country. The failure of the Crittenden
proposition was decisive of the question of pacification; no other plan of
adjustment, that was presented, having either its merits or its practical
features.
Southern resistance came none too soon for Northern power, hate, and
lust, but far too late for the precious goal of independence. Delay had
been fatal, and the golden opportunity long since lost. But there was
still time to emulate the glorious examples of the past. With marvelous
calmness and dauntless intrepidity, a heroic race prepared an exhibition
of noble devotion and willing sacrifice, the contemplation of which
revives the memories of Thermopylæ.
Comparatively of little moment, now, is the question, whether the
acceptance of this basis of adjustment by the South would have been
consistent with discretion. In the end the result, in all likelihood,
would have been the same. Had a settlement been reached in 1861, Southern
liberties must eventually have perished, through the influences of
corruption and the demoralization engendered by continued submission to
wrong, no less effectually than by their overthrow in that gallant
struggle of arms, which terminated with such fatal results. But there
still remains the question of responsibility for those horrors of civil
strife, which the failure of the Crittenden amendment soon precipitated
upon the country. Those crimson spots which stain the subsequent history
of the Republic, are traceable to no parricidal hand raised by the South.
No historical question has received more satisfactory decision than this;
and the South is acquitted even by the testimony of her enemies. It is
unnecessary to give the evidence of Southern men, when there is such ample
testimony from those who deprecated and condemned the subsequent course of
the South.
Senator Douglas, on the 3d January, 1861, only three days after the report
of the Committee of Thirteen had been submitted, and within hearing of its
members, thus expressed himself in the course of an address to the
Senate:
"If you of the Republican side are not willing to accept this [a
proposition of his own] nor the proposition of the Senator from
Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden,] pray tell us what are you willing to do? I
address the inquiry to the Republicans alone, for the reason, that in
the Committee of Thirteen, a few days ago, every member from the
South, including those from the Cotton States [Messrs. Toombs and
Davis,] expressed their readiness to accept the proposition of my
venerable friend from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] as a final settlement
of the controversy, if tendered and sustained by the Republican
members. Hence, the sole responsibility of our disagreement, and the
only difficulty in the way of an amicable adjustment, is with the
Republican party."
Again, on the 2d March, 1861, Mr. Douglas re-affirmed this important
statement. Said he:
"The Senator has said that if the Crittenden proposition could have
been passed early in the session, it would have saved all the States
except South Carolina. I firmly believe it would. While the Crittenden
proposition was not in accordance with my cherished views, I avowed my
readiness and eagerness to accept it, in order to save the Union, if
we could unite upon it. No man has labored harder than I have to get
it passed. I can confirm the Senator's declaration that Senator Davis
himself, when on the Committee of Thirteen, was ready at all times to
compromise on the Crittenden proposition. I will go further, and say
that Mr. Toombs was also ready to do so."
Hon. S. S. Cox, for several years an able and eloquent member of Congress
from Ohio, has made a most interesting statement upon this subject:
The vote on the Crittenden proposition was well defined, but is not so
well understood. From the frequency of inquiries since the war as to
this latter vote, the people were eager to know upon whom to fix the
responsibility of its failure. It may as well be stated that all other
propositions, whether of the Peace Convention or the Border State
_project_, or the measures of the committees, were comparatively of no
moment; for the Crittenden proposition was the only one which could
have arrested the struggle. It would have received a larger vote than
any other. It would have had more effect in moderating Southern
excitement. Even Davis, Toombs, and others of the Gulf States, would
have accepted it. I have talked with Mr. Crittenden frequently on this
point. Not only has he confirmed the public declarations of Douglas
and Pugh, and the speech of Toombs himself, to this effect, but he
said it was so understood in committee. At one time, while the
committee was in session, he said: "Mr. Toombs, will this compromise,
as a remedy for all wrongs and apprehensions, be acceptable to you?"
Mr. Toombs, with some profanity, replied: "Not by a good deal; but my
State will accept it, and I will follow my State to ----." And he did.
I will not open the question whether it was wise then to offer
accommodations. It may not be profitable now to ask whether the
millions of young men whose bodies are maimed, or whose bones are
decaying under the sod of the South, and the heavy load of public debt
under which we sweat and toil, have their compensation in black
liberty. Nor will I discuss whether the blacks have been bettered by
their precipitate freedom, passing, as so many have, from slavery,
through starvation and suffering, to death. There is no comfort in the
reflection that the negroes will be exterminated with the
extermination of slavery. The real point is, could not this Union have
been made permanent by timely settlement, instead of cemented by
fraternal blood and military rule? By an equitable partition of the
territory this was possible. We had then 1,200,000 square miles. The
Crittenden proposition would have given the North 900,000 of these
square miles, and applied the Chicago doctrines to that quantity. It
would have left the remaining fourth substantially to be carved out
as free or slave States, at the option of the people when the States
were admitted. This proposition the radicals denounced. It has been
stated, to rid the Republicans of the odium of not averting the war
when that was possible, that the Northern members tendered to the
Southern the Crittenden compromise, which the South rejected. This is
untrue. It was tendered by Southern Senators and Northern Democrats to
the Republicans. It was voted upon but once in the House, when it
received eighty votes against one hundred and thirteen. These eighty
votes were exclusively Democrats and Southern Americans, like Gilmer,
Vance, and others. Mr. Briggs, of New York, was the only one not a
Democrat who voted for it. He had been an old Whig, and never a
Republican. The Republican roll, beginning with Adams and ending with
Woodruff, was a unit against it. Intermingled with them was one
Southern extremist (General Hindman) who desired no settlement. There
were many Southern men who did not vote, believing that unless the
Republicans, who were just acceding to power, favored it, its adoption
would be a delusion.
The plan adopted by the Republican Senators to defeat it was by
amendment and postponement. On the 14th and 15th of January they cast
all their votes against its being taken up; and on the 16th, when it
came up, Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, moved to strike it out, and
insert something which he knew would neither be successful nor
acceptable. The vote on Clark's amendment was 25 to 23; every "aye"
being a Republican, and every "no," except Kennedy and Crittenden
(Americans), being Democrats.
When this result was announced universal gloom prevailed. The people
favored this compromise. Petitions by thousands of citizens were
showered upon Congress for its passage. Had it received a majority
only, they would have rallied and sustained those who desired peace
and union. One more earnest appeal was made to the Republicans.
General Cameron answered it by moving a reconsideration. His motion
came up on the 18th, when he voted against his own motion. It was
carried, however, over the votes of the Republicans, although Wigfall
voted with them. When it was again up on the second of March, 1861,
the Southern States were nearly all gone. Even then it was lost by one
vote only. But on that occasion all the Democrats were for, and all
the Republicans against it. The truth is, there was nothing but sneers
and skepticism from the Republicans at any settlement. They broke down
every proposition. They took the elements of conciliation out of the
Peace Convention before it assembled. Senators Harlan and Chandler
were especially active in preparing that convention for a failure. If
every Southern man and every Northern Democrat had voted for this
proposition, it would have required some nine Republicans for the
requisite two-thirds. Where were they? Dreaming with Mr. Seward of a
sixty days' struggle, or arranging for the division of the patronage
of administration. The only Southern Senators who seemed against any
settlement were Iverson and Wigfall; that no man will challenge if he
will refer to the _Globe_ (1st part, Thirty-fifth Congress, page 270)
for the testimony of Douglas and Pugh, and to Mr. Bigler's Bucks
County speech, September 17, 1863. The latter knew it to be true when
he said that--
"When the struggle was at its height in Georgia, between Robert
Toombs for secession, and A. H. Stephens against it, had those men
in the Committee of Thirteen, who are now so blameless in their
own estimation, given us their votes, or even three of them,
Stephens would have defeated Toombs, and secession would have been
prostrated. I heard Mr. Toombs say to Mr. Douglas that the result
in Georgia was staked on the action of the Committee of Thirteen.
If it accepted the Crittenden proposition, Stephens would defeat
him; if not, he would carry the State out by 40,000 majority. The
three votes from the Republican side would have carried it at any
time; but union and peace in the balance against the Chicago
platform were sure to be found wanting."
If other testimony were wanting, I would ask a suspension of judgment
until those facts, better known to Southern men, transpire. The
intercourse about to be reëstablished between the sections will
cumulate the proof. It will also bring to the light many facts showing
that, while President Buchanan was working for the Peace Conference,
while Virginia had been gained to our side with her ablest men, there
were even then in the Cabinet those who not only encouraged revolt,
but foiled by letter and speech the efforts of the Unionists at
Washington and Richmond. These letters and acts are referred to in the
recent speech of General Blair. They will be, and should be brought
into the sunshine, if only to vindicate the true Union men of that
dark hour, and to condemn those who have since made so much pretension
with so much zealotry, coupled with unexampled cruelty and tyranny.
In the light of subsequent events that policy was developed. It was
the destruction of slavery at the peril of war and disunion; or, as
Senator Douglas expressed it, "a disruption of the Union, believing it
would draw after it, as an inevitable consequence, civil war, servile
insurrections, and finally the utter extermination of slavery in all
the Southern States."
While these fruitless efforts at compromise were in progress at
Washington, public sentiment in the South, especially in the Cotton
States, was rapidly reaching a point of exasperation, which refused to
brook longer delay in the vain hope of justice from the exultant and
unyielding North. In several of the States, so excited was popular
feeling, that within a few weeks what was originally merely a purpose of
resistance, intensified into a determination of absolute national
independence and permanent separation. South Carolina, on the 20th
December, 1860, adopted her ordinance of secession, and thus bravely gave
the example, which other States speedily followed.
The work of secession, so thoroughly started by the opening of the new
year, was not accomplished without a severe struggle in several of the
Cotton States, in which contest, those who advocated unconditional
separation were greatly assisted by the defiant position of the Republican
party. The more sagacious Southern leaders foresaw the inevitable failure
of the movement of separation, unless it should be sustained by an
extensive coöperation among the Southern States. To secure the united
action of the Cotton States, at least, was essential to give the movement
strength and dignity. Mr. Davis, who advocated secession only in the event
of the failure to obtain reasonable guarantees, and had never proposed to
abandon the Union without an effort to save it, was a most earnest and
influential advocate of the policy of coöperation. Of great historical
importance is the fact, that the counsels of himself and those who acted
with him, were adopted in preference to a more hasty policy, which,
however ample the provocation to immediate action, would have deprived the
South of the potent justification of having forborne until "endurance
ceased to be a virtue."
In a letter written a few days after the election of Mr. Lincoln, he thus
expressed his views:
WARREN COUNTY, MISS., NOV. 10, 1860.
Hon. R. B. RHETT, JR.--_Dear Sir_: I had the honor to receive, last
night, yours of the 27th ult., and hasten to reply to the inquiries
propounded. Reports of the election leave little doubt that the event
you anticipated has occurred, that electors have been chosen, securing
the election of Lincoln, and I will answer on that supposition.
My home is so isolated that I have had no intercourse with those who
might have aided me in forming an opinion as to the effect produced on
the mind of our people by the result of the recent election, and the
impressions which I communicate are founded upon antecedent
expressions.
1. I doubt not that the Governor of Mississippi has convoked the
Legislature to assemble within the present month, to decide upon the
course which the State should adopt in the present emergency. Whether
the Legislature will direct the call of a convention of the State, or
appoint delegates to a convention of such Southern States as may be
willing to consult together for the adoption of a Southern plan of
action, is doubtful.
2. If a convention of the State were assembled, the proposition to
secede from the Union, independently of support from neighboring
States, would probably fail.
3. If South Carolina should first secede, and she alone should take
such action, the position of Mississippi would not probably be changed
by that fact. A powerful obstacle to the separate action of
Mississippi is the want of a port; from which follows the consequence
that her trade, being still conducted through the ports of the Union,
her revenue would be diverted from her own support to that of a
foreign government; and being geographically unconnected with South
Carolina, an alliance with her would not vary that state of the case.
[_Sic._]
4. The propriety of separate secession by South Carolina depends so
much upon collateral questions that I find it difficult to respond to
your last inquiry, for the want of knowledge which would enable me to
estimate the value of the elements involved in the issue, though
exterior to your State. Georgia is necessary to connect you with
Alabama, and thus to make effectual the coöperation of Mississippi. If
Georgia would be lost by immediate action, but could be gained by
delay, it seems clear to me that you should wait. If the secession of
South Carolina should be followed by an attempt to coerce her back
into the Union, that act of usurpation, folly, and wickedness would
enlist every true Southern man for her defense. If it were attempted
to blockade her ports and destroy her trade, a like result would be
produced, and the commercial world would probably be added to her
allies. It is probable that neither of those measures would be adopted
by any administration, but that Federal ships would be sent to collect
the duties on imports outside of the bar; that the commercial nations
would feel little interest in that; and the Southern States would have
little power to counteract it.
The planting States have a common interest of such magnitude, that
their union, sooner or later, for the protection of that interest, is
certain. United they will have ample power for their own protection,
and their exports will make for them allies of all commercial and
manufacturing powers.
The new States have a heterogeneous population, and will be slower and
less unanimous than those in which there is less of the Northern
element in the body politic, but interest controls the policy of
States, and finally all the planting communities must reach the same
conclusion. _My opinion is, therefore, as it has been, in favor of
seeking to bring those States into coöperation before asking for a
popular decision upon a new policy and relation to the nations of the
earth._ If South Carolina should resolve to secede before that
coöperation can be obtained, to go out leaving Georgia, and Alabama,
and Louisiana in the Union, and without any reason to suppose they
will follow her, there appears to me to be no advantage in waiting
until the Government has passed into hostile hands, and men have
become familiarized to that injurious and offensive perversion of the
General Government from the ends for which it was established. I have
written with the freedom and carelessness of private correspondence,
and regret that I could not give more precise information.
Very respectfully, yours, etc.,
JEFFERSON DAVIS.
Mr. Davis remained in the Senate, a friend of peace, and, until the last
moment, laboring for adjustment, when he received the summons of
Mississippi, forbidding the longer exercise of the trust which she had
given to his keeping. Mississippi seceded on the 9th of January, 1861. Mr.
Davis, receiving formal announcement of the event, withdrew on the 21st,
after pronouncing an impressive valedictory to the Senate. Its dignified,
courteous, and statesman-like character has challenged the unqualified
eulogy of the enlightened world.
SPEECH OF HON. JEFFERSON DAVIS, ON WITHDRAWING FROM THE U. S. SENATE.
JAN. 21, 1861.
MR. DAVIS. I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the
Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of
Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people, in convention
assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under
these circumstances, of course, my functions are terminated here. It
has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate
to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little
more. The occasion does not invite me to go into argument; and my
physical condition would not permit me to do so, if otherwise; and yet
it seems to become me to say something on the part of a State I here
represent, on an occasion so solemn as this.
It is known to Senators who have served with me here, that I have, for
many years, advocated, as an essential attribute of State sovereignty,
the right of a State to secede from the Union. Therefore, if I had not
believed there was justifiable cause; if I had thought that
Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an
existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the Government,
because of my allegiance to the State of which I am a citizen, have
been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I
do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I
conferred with her people before that act was taken, counseled them
then that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist
when the convention met, they should take the action which they have
now adopted.
I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with the
advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union, and to
disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the
law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and secession, so often
confounded, are, indeed, antagonistic principles. Nullification is a
remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the
agent of the States. It is only to be justified when the agent has
violated his constitutional obligations, and a State, assuming to
judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and
appeals to the other States of the Union for a decision; but when the
States themselves, and when the people of the States, have so acted as
to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights,
then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in
its practical application.
A great man, who now reposes with his fathers, and who has often been
arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, advocated the doctrine of
nullification because it preserved the Union. It was because of his
deep-seated attachment to the Union--his determination to find some
remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound
South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the
doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful--to be
within the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only
to be a means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of the States
for their judgment.
Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a
time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a
better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the
inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one
from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the
grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.
I, therefore, say I concur in the action of the people of Mississippi,
believing it to be necessary and proper, and should have been bound by
their action if my belief had been otherwise; and this brings me to
the important point which I wish, on this last occasion, to present to
the Senate. It is by this confounding of nullification and secession,
that the name of a great man, whose ashes now mingle with his mother
earth, has been evoked to justify coercion against a seceded State.
The phrase, "to execute the laws," was an expression which General
Jackson applied to the case of a State refusing to obey the laws while
yet a member of the Union. That is not the case which is now
presented. The laws are to be executed over the United States, and
upon the people of the United States. They have no relation to any
foreign country. It is a perversion of terms--at least it is a great
misapprehension of the case--which cites that expression for
application to a State which has withdrawn from the Union. You may
make war on a foreign State. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, they
may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but
there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the
limits of a seceded State. A State, finding herself in the condition
in which Mississippi has judged she is--in which her safety requires
that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the
Union--surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be many),
deprives herself of the advantages (and they are known to be great),
severs all the ties of affection (and they are close and enduring),
which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every
benefit--taking upon herself every burden--she claims to be exempt
from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her
limits.
I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before
the bar of the Senate, and when the doctrine of coercion was rife, and
to be applied against her, because of the rescue of a fugitive slave
in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. Not in a
spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influenced, in my
opinion, because the case is my own, I refer to that time and that
occasion, as containing the opinion which I then entertained, and on
which my present conduct is based. I then said that if Massachusetts,
following her through a stated line of conduct, choose to take the
last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go,
and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but
will say to her, God speed, in memory of the kind associations which
once existed between her and the other States.
It has been a conviction of pressing necessity--it has been a belief
that we are to be deprived, in the Union, of the rights which our
fathers bequeathed to us--which has brought Mississippi into her
present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are
created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her
social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has
been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.
The Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the
circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were
declaring their independence; the people of those communities were
asserting that no man was born, to use the language of Mr. Jefferson,
booted and spurred, to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were
created equal--meaning the men of the political community; that there
was no divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to
govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended
to families; but that all stations were equally within the grasp of
each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they
announced; these were the purposes for which they made their
declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation was
directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how happened it,
that, among the items of arraignment against George III, was, that he
endeavored to do just what the North has been endeavoring of late to
do, to stir up insurrection among our slaves. Had the Declaration
announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the prince to
be arraigned for raising up insurrection among them? And how was this
to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the colonies to
sever their connection with the mother country? When our Constitution
was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable; for there we
find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they
were not put upon the footing of equality with white men--not even
upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was
concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be
represented in the numerical proportion of three-fifths.
Then, Senators, we recur to the compact which binds us together; we
recur to the principles upon which our Government was founded; and
when you deny them, and when you deny to us the right to withdraw from
a government, which, thus perverted, threatens to be destructive of
our rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim
our independence, and take the hazard. This is done, not in hostility
to others--not to injure any section of the country--not even for our
own pecuniary benefit; but from the high and solemn motive of
defending and protecting the rights we inherited, and which it is our
duty to transmit unshorn to our children.
I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling of my
constituents toward yours. I am sure I feel no hostility toward you,
Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever
sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I can not now
say, in the presence of my God, I wish you well; and such, I am sure,
is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you
represent. I, therefore, feel that I but express their desire, when I
say I hope, and they hope, for peaceable relations with you, though we
must part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as
they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring
disaster on every portion of the country; and if you will have it
thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from
the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and
thus, putting our trust in God, and in our firm hearts and strong
arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may.
In the course of my service here, associated, at different times, with
a great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have
served long; there have been points of collision, but whatever of
offense there has been to me, I leave here--I carry with me no hostile
remembrance. Whatever offense I have given, which has not been
redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have,
Senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you my apology for any
pain which, in the heat of discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence
unincumbered of the remembrance of any injury received, and having
discharged the duty of making the only reparation in my power for any
injury offered.
Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement which the
occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid you a
final adieu.
A frequent accusation alleged against Mr. Davis and other Southern
Senators who adopted his course of a formal withdrawal from the Senate, is
that they thus gave the Republican party control of the Senate, and
voluntarily surrendered its power to the hostile administration soon to be
inaugurated. It is a sufficient answer to this statement that the mere
admission that the administration was hostile to Southern interests, and
menacing to Southern safety and honor, or even that the South had good
reason for so believing, is to fix the responsibility of disunion
elsewhere than upon the Southern leaders.
To have retained his seat under such circumstances would have been
altogether inconsistent with Mr. Davis' conception of the nature of the
position. He was committed, by public announcement, to a very different
view of the obligations of the representative of a State in the Federal
Congress. Holding it to be a point of honor not to occupy such a relation,
with the object of hostility to the Government, years ago he announced, in
connection with an allusion to a calumnious insinuation, that he would
answer in monosyllables the man who would charge him with being a
disunionist.
Entertaining his view of the character of the American political system,
of which the foundation was the doctrine of a paramount allegiance of the
citizen to his State, when Mississippi withdrew from the Union, he had no
other alternative than to vacate the position which he held by her
commission, and which was, at once, the sign of the equality and
sovereignty of the States, and of the adherence of each to the league by
which she was united to the others. To represent a State adhering to the
Union, and use the position to make war upon the Government, or to retain
a seat in Congress when the State had, by its sovereign fiat, revoked its
grants, and withdrawn from the league, were offenses belonging to the last
stage of decadence in political morality and personal honor.
Retiring from the Senate, Mr. Davis returned, within a few days
thereafter, to his residence in Mississippi. The State was not unmindful
of the necessity of preparations for a war which, though not deemed
inevitable, was yet extremely probable. Mr. Davis was honored by an
appointment to the command of the militia of the State, with the rank of
Major-General. His retirement upon his plantation thus promised to be of
short duration, but before he could assume the responsibilities which
Mississippi, in this reiteration of her confidence, had conferred, the
voice of millions invoked his guidance of their destinies in the hazardous
experiment of independent national existence.
Secession, in its rapid progress, confirmed the threadbare theory of the
progressive tendency of revolutionary movements. Acquiring impetus as it
advanced, before the first of February, 1861, six States had declared
themselves no longer members of the Union.[20] Representatives from these
States met, in convention, at Montgomery, Alabama, on 4th February, 1861,
for the purpose of forming a provisional government. On the 8th February,
this body adopted a constitution, and proclaimed an addition to the family
of nations, under the title of THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.
The next day the Congress of the Confederate States announced its choice
of the two highest constitutional officers of the new Government:
President, JEFFERSON DAVIS, of Mississippi.
Vice-President, ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, of Georgia.