Speech of John Tyler to the Virginia Secession Convention, March 13 & 14, 1861

In the Convention, March 13, 1861.

EX-PRESIDENT TYLER.—I am about to make, Mr. President, a very bold and daring adventure. The condition of my health might very well justify me to this convention in withholding from it any remarks upon the interesting subjects which were discussed yesterday. But, sir, I am acting under an impulse of duty—an impulse which I always obey, and which I shall attempt to carry out on the present occasion.

Mr. President, an aged man who had retired from the pursuits of busy life, surrounded by those comforts which should most properly surround one whose life had been spent in the

public service—with prattlers at his knee and a light illuminating his household for ever beaming around him—was startled from his quietude and repose by a voice which came from the legislative halls of his native State, admonishing him of danger to the country, and making a requisition for all of energy that still remained with him, either physical or mental, in the effort to rescue that country from the imminent peril that threatened it. It was the voice of Virginia, appealing, sir, to a son, who, from the early morning of manhood, she had nurtured and petted, even as a fond mother does her first born infant. At the age of twenty-one, having scarcely put on the toga virilis, he entered the public service of the State, cheered on his way by the approving smiles of those who had elected him a member of the Legislature; and his presence there was greeted by his brother members with an almost affectionate cordiality. The pathway of his life was lighted up by gracious smiles which he was continually receiving. Without anything of the spirit of boastfulness, which would ill become me, I might say that that aged man had sounded, in the language of Cardinal Wolsey, "all the shoals and depths of honor." The highest public stations which the State of Virginia held in her gift she had conferred upon him.

When I left the government, sixteen years ago, sir, it had not entered into my contemplation that I should ever afterwards appear in a public assembly. I left that government prosperous and happy. The voice which startled me in my retirement told me of feud, and discontent, and discord; of a tearing in twain of that beautiful flag which had floated so triumphantly over us in the days that had gone by, which I had never looked upon but my heart had throbbed with an emotion it is impossible for me to give utterance to. The Father of his Country had left behind an admonition to his children to avoid sectional feuds, but those feuds had arisen and had progressed until they had culminated into disunion. I had seen their beginning, sir, thirty years before, when the dark cloud which now overspreads the hemisphere just rose above the horizon, no bigger than a man's hand. It was the cloud of Abolitionism. Washington, looking to the probable contingency that has now arisen, warned us against sectionalism and sectional parties. With the tongue and the pen of an inspired prophet, he foretold what has befallen us. From the school-room where the youthful mind was impressed with doctrines in one section inimical to those of another; from the pulpit where traduction and abuse have been leveled at the very memories of the great dead who assisted to build up what was but yesterday a glorious government, desecrating the very altar itself, and pronouncing against us anathema and violent vituperation, bidding us "go forth from the communion table; you are miserable slaveholders, and we cannot partake with you in the feast of peace and religion." Such the anathema. And when all is made ready—the masses excited and stirred up with an undefinable love of human liberty—the politician, regardless of his country, and intent only upon his own elevation, steps forth upon the stage to control those masses and lead them to the disastrous point of sectionalism and separation.

Where is that Union now which we once so much loved? Where its beautiful flag, which waved over a land of wealth, of grandeur, and of beauty? Wrong, abuse, contumely, unconstitutional acts, looking to a higher law than the Constitution, thus setting men free from their obligations to society, have cut the ship of state loose from her moorings; and here she is, drifting without helm or compass amid rocks and whirlpools, her fragments floating in every direction—one part has gone South, while other parts, moored for this moment, will probably at the next, break loose from their insecure anchorage. I grieve over this state of things by day and by night. When I think of the manner in which all this has been brought about by a race of hungry, artful Catilines, who have misled the Northern mind solely for their own aggrandizement, my blood becomes so heated in my veins as to scald and burn them in its rapid flow.

I was told that in this hour of the country's danger my services were needed, and under the resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia, which I will very briefly advert to as containing my letter of instructions, I resolved, at peril to myself and at every possible personal inconvenience, to venture upon the task which my native State had imposed upon me. I have not felt myself at liberty to wander or depart from those instructions. One of them I will read:

"Whereas, it is the deliberate opinion of the General Assembly of Virginia that unless the unhappy controversy which now divides the States of this confederacy shall be satisfactorily adjusted, a permanent dissolution of the Union is inevitable, and the General Assembly, representing the wishes of the people of the Commonwealth, is desirous of employing every reasonable means to avert so dire a calamity, and determined to make a final effort to restore the Union and the Constitution in the spirit in which they were established by the fathers of the Republic."

An effort was to be made to restore the Union: not to enter into a sort of bargain, embracing only the Border States; not merely to enter into a covenant with those who have brought about this state of things through misleading the public mind of the North; nor yet to consult the interests of Virginia exclusively in any arrangement which might be made to restore the Constitution and the Union of the States but to bring back, if possible, the cotton States, thereby to restore the Union to what it was; to have the glorious old flag floating over one and all; to make the name of an American citizen, which had won respect in every part of the world, again a word of passport and of honor, as it had been before.

What could have carried me to Washington but the debt of gratitude which I felt I owed my State and my fellow-countrymen, and the deep solicitude which I experienced in this hour of the nation's peril? I confess to an additional motive of a personal character. If ever there lived a man ambitious of winning that true glory which can alone arise from the fulfillment of the whole duty of a patriot—that man now addresses you. I aspired to the glory of aiding to settle this controversy. I had worn the honors of office through each grade to the highest. I had been surrounded by the echoes of applause in the course of my journey through life; but to encircle my brow, Mr. President, with the wreath to be won by the restoration of this Union in all its plenitude, perfect as it was before the severance, would have been to me the proud crowning act of my life. That was the feeling that inspired my heart. You saw my address upon taking the chair of the convention. Mr. President, I can speak of it without vanity and without impropriety. You all saw it. Did it please you? Was it of a character to draw around Virginia the sympathies of her co-States? That was my sole object in uttering it.

I had hoped, in the manner of consultation, and from the spirit evinced at the opening of the Conference, that we were likely to accomplish the great object of Virginia had in view. Massachusetts came up and her daughter, Maine, along with her. We had all New England, and all the border States, until we reached Michigan. A voice could not be heard on the Pacific coast; it was uttered too late to reach California and Oregon in time—I wish, with all my heart they had been there. New York soon joined us.—But I found that many had come with no olive branch in their hands—nay, more—that with them the feeling of fraternity seemed to be gone. They had nothing to give—nothing to yield. The Constitution was enough for them. New York with her potent voice, would not yield one iota—not an “I” dotted nor a “T” crossed. “The Constitution must be maintained—we have nothing more to grant.” Such was, in substance, her language.

Notwithstanding all these discouragements, we went to work; and no man had more faithful colleagues than myself. We worked together and we tried every possible expedient to overrule this state of things. It was soon perfectly obvious that without a close approach to unanimity on the part of the Convention, no measures originated by us would be of any avail. Here you have a measure passed by a minority of that Convention—a measure which was defeated by a majority the night before, but which was afterwards passed by a minority, upon a reconsideration the next day, of nine to eight. The majority which passed it being a minority of the States represented in the Convention, of what value and consequence, then, is it? Why, sir, the gentlemen now in power have not yet recognized the sovereignty of the Southern States, and probably do not intend to recognize it.—I do not know, however, what they mean. If they could be lifted up to a lofty eminence of policy, I would say to them recognize it at once—go into co-partnership—not upon the restoration of the old Union, if that cannot be and which may have become impossible—but by originating a commercial treaty and forming an offensive and defensive alliance, secure to yourselves all that is left of the old Confederacy—even its remains would be valuable. But there is no feeling of this kind exhibited.

But to pursue the course of remark from which I have been diverted. What are you to do with this Peace Conference proposition?—What can you do with it? Do you propose as this Convention has the right to do, to send it forth to your sister States for ratification?—Why, sir, here is a majority of all the States that were in that Convention, already opposed to it. How are you to get it ratified? How can you ever get it ratified? Have you made your calculations? Taking out seven cotton states, do you know that it would take every remaining State in the Union to ratify such a measure? Two-thirds must recommend and three fourths are necessary to ratify it before you can incorporate it into the Constitution. The negative of one State defeats it. Of what possible use is it then? or why expend our breath or time about it? Congress, to whom it has been submitted, has not approved it.

My friend said the other day, in the speech to which I listened with so much interest, and in which he made so able an exposition of his side of the question, that Congress does not recommend it, because they are the old hacks of politics; they were elected before these things occurred. We had the young hacks of politics in our Convention; [laughter] new men—some who had never appeared before in political bodies—and yet they stand as if  under paralysis. I tell you nothing but the naked truth—we could not get them to move one inch.

Now, sir, how came you to get this Peace Conference proposition? I have already told you. It seems, however, that it was through my agency that the Virginia vote was lost for it. Even my friend, the editor of the “National Intelligencer,” leaves an inference open, unintentionally on his part, I am sure, by which I am to be assailed for the casting of the Virginia vote. I know Col. Seaton very well; I have known him from the year 1816, when I entered the House of Representatives, and a more respectable gentleman there is not in the country. As I said, even he leaves the conclusion to be inferentially drawn, that I have been the instrument of preventing Virginia from voting for these propositions.

This project of the Peace Conference is made up, as you have already seen, of seven sections. I happened to be the presiding officer of the body. The question came up in the first instance, after the amendment of all the sections on the adoption of the entire proposition. Gentlemen called for a division of the question and demanded that the question should be taken by sections. The subject of course was divided and the vote taken by sections. Each separate section was adopted. My friend, Mr. SEDDON, then moved that there should be a vote taken upon the entire proposition. Judge BROCKENBROUGH had voted against the first section, thus throwing the vote of Virginia against it—and there we stood. He had voted against two of the other sections unanimously. A motion was made, as I have said, by Mr. SEDDON, that the vote should be taken afterwards upon it as an entirety. I expressed a doubtful opinion upon the subject, and earnestly urged the Convention to take an appeal from my decision. I said it appeared to me that the adoption of each separate section by the vote of the convention amounted to the adoption of the entire project. I asked an appeal. My friend, Mr. SEDDON, would not take it—I called upon the Convention to take an appeal. I reiterated my doubts about it. There rose up an almost, if not an unanimous assent to the decision of the Chair. I still further reflected upon the question and again expressed my doubts to the Convention, and asked for its distinct decision upon the point. The Convention reiterated, by unanimous declaration of approval, coming up from every part and all over the chamber, its previous approval. That decision was given in the face of this fact, that Judge BROCKENBROUGH had just voted with Mr. SEDDON and myself against that 1^st section. I had not the slightest idea—and in this statement I am perfectly satisfied that I shall be endorsed by Mr. SEDDON himself—that Judge BROCKENBROUGH looked to it as an entirety, or would have voted for it as an entirety. I certainly entertained no such opinion and was only informed of my presumed mistake upon hearing from him, through his letter to myself and Judge SUMMERS, which has been submitted to this convention. And now, sir, after full reflection upon the question decided by me, I would submit that question to your own decision, Mr. President, or that of any other parliamentarian.

I will, now, Mr. President, proceed to discus, as briefly and as rapidly as I can, the article itself, and every section of the article which has been proposed to your consideration, and which was made the subject of the elaborate investigation of my friend from Kanawha, (Mr. SUMMERS) yesterday.

Let us look at these sections. There can be no desire on the part of anybody to be deceived concerning them.

The views taken by my friend yesterday are, as I understand, concurred in by our distinguished colleague, Mr. RIVES, for whom I entertain sentiments of the highest respect and with whom I have always been on familiar terms. Our acquaintance began, sir, at old William and Mary, and our friendship, I am sure, will only terminate with our lives. Both Mr. RIVES and the gentleman from Kanawha, who addressed the Convention yesterday, took different views from myself as to the true character of these propositions. But my exalted respect from my two distinguished colleagues cannot lead me to doubt at all the simplicity, and at the same time the absolute irrefutability of the construction which I give to the first section of the article. I have not been able to bring myself to the adoption of their conclusions, which reflection but serves to rivet me in the conviction that they have fallen, unintentionally I doubt not, into a great error. I enter, without further delay, on an analysis of the first section.

It reads:

“In all the Present territory of the United states, North of parallel 36 deg. 30 min. of North Latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment for a crime is prohibited.”

There is no misunderstanding that provision. North of this line the prohibition of slavery is plainly and emphatically expressed.

Come to the South-side and let us see what this article means? I quote from this section again:

“In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to service or labor shall not be changed.”

What does that mean? I recollect that when that provision was under examination before the Peace Conference a proposition was made to introduce the word legal before status. An eminent gentleman, whose name it is not necessary for me to mention, rose and said: “Why it is not necessary to introduce that word ‘legal,’ for when you talk of status you talk of legal status.” And, it is my duty to tell it sir, he went on still further, and with a candor which did him honor, declared that the whole interpretation of the section was that it was the status which was fixed by the Mexican law of emancipation which had been proclaimed by the Mexican Government years before the acquisition of the territory by the United States; and he maintained that the law of New Mexico was the status of free soil. Why, sir, he ignored the idea that a territory could either prohibit or introduce slavery within its limits. I thanked him for his explanation afterwards. I went to him and said: “You have at all events established your character as an honest and frank man.” I cannot refer more particularly to him than to say that he is a prominent and leading man in his party.

Mr. WISE.—Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him? I want to know the name of the gentleman to whom he refers? Was it or was it not a member of the Cabinet from Ohio of the name of Chase?

Mr. TYLER—Well, sir, that is what the lawyers call a question direct, and I have some doubt about my right to answer it, although I am perfectly satisfied that the gentleman himself would have no objection to my doing so. There was a question under consideration in the Conference as to disclosing what transpired there. How far the veil of secrecy was removed I really do not remember—the journal has not yet reached me, if it ever does. I have but followed the example set me by my friend yesterday. I am only saying what was said, but have given no names. It is not necessary to mention the name. All that I have a right to say is, that he is a prominent and leading man. Well, sir, can you doubt the correctness of his interpretation? Remember, that shortly after the Mexican revolution a general emancipation of slaves took place in Mexico. You acquired New Mexico by the treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, growing out of the Mexican war. You acquired it while still resting under Mexican emancipation and under the ordinance declaring that slavery shall not exist there, and that it was forever to be abolished. It is true that they retained a sort of slavery. They retained among them what is called “peonage.” It is a cruel bondage, a terrible bondage; a bondage of sinews and muscle which no one of our slaves has to endure. Well, sir, can you come to any other interpretation than that which the gentleman to whom I have referred has given? Why, sir, you had yesterday a statute which was passed by the Territorial Legislature of New Mexico, read to you by Mr. SUMMERS. If the statute is the status of slavery over that territory, then all the subsequent part of this provision of this first section becomes null and void. It is of no consequence at all—it only tends to confusion. Mark how the section reads:

“Nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union into said Territory, nor to impair the right arising from the said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal Courts according to the course of the common law.”

What have you to do with the common law or its course? The statute of the Territorial Government is full and ample. It gave you a right which are of themselves sufficient. The Statute is full of remedies; it recognized your rights; and you want the common law—take care, sir—take care, Mr. President, of the meshes which may encircle your feet. Mark you which have given up the statutes of New Mexico—Congress can make no provision for the protection of slavery in the Territory, nor can the Territorial Legislature, but the Mexican law is there, and the moment you go there you are under the Mexican law of emancipation. The statute of New Mexico has become a nullity. The common law is to abrogate a nullity. The common law is to abrogate the statute, which at its greatest stretch of interpretation can only cover the twenty-four slaves already there. What is the condition of the bondsman who accompanies you to that Territory? Congress is prohibited from preventing your journey to the Territory with your slaves, nor can the Territorial Legislature hinder you. But what becomes of him after he gets there? He stands upon free soil—he is there surrounded with all the panoply of the Mexican code of emancipation. Does the common law aid you?—Do its remedies offer you any security? At the most, you have a law suit upon your hands; and that is all you have got. When you come into court for security you will have applied to your case this same decision rendered by Lord Mansfield in the Somerset case which was referred to by the gentleman from Kanawha (Mr. SUMMERS.) This case grew out of the attachment of a slave on the soil of England, where, in the language of Curran, “the chains of the slave fall from around him and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the genius of universal emancipation.”

This language I have often repeated when a boy—I used to delight in its euphonious tones. It swelled like a mountain torrent upon the ear; it kindled the fancy into a perfect blaze and filled one with that delight which the eloquence of the Irishman in its brightest strain, can alone produce. So it is in New Mexico. “The altar and the god fall together in the dust,” and you rely upon the common law to restore them, and to invest your property with sanctity and protection. You appeal to Lord Mansfield’s authority. He tells you the moment you touch the soil of New Mexico with your slave, his slavery is at an end, and he is a free man. It is true that at a later day Lord Stowell assumed a position antagonistic to Lord Mansfield on this subject—He decided in the Gracie case, that Lord Mansfield was wrong. How then do you stand? You are asked to ignore the statute which recognizes your rights in the New Mexican territory and to appeal to the common law, where the decision will, in all probability, be governed by this decision of Lord Mansfield. Thus you have two of the most eminent jurists of England differing upon your title to your bondsman. You come to Washington to seek a settled opinion upon the subject and you go to the great Senators consultum. You listen to Mr. Benjamin, and he throws around you the panoply of the common law. He guarantees protection for your negro wherever he goes. Even he, however, staggers somewhat in doubt when he touches free soil, as in Pennsylvania. He is met, however, by two distinguished gentleman, Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Collamer—men of high eminence and talents, and as distinguished as Mr. Benjamin—with large and comprehensive views upon ever other subject than this cramping subject of slavery; they are in conflict with Mr. Benjamin’s views, having a majority of two to one in their favor among their brother Senators. If, leaving Washington, you go to Chicago, you encounter a pronuniamento there, which ignores your whole claim to any refuge or protection either under the common or territorial law.

Let us see what it is. Here is the Constitution of the “higher law” party; and this Constitution is proclaimed from the house tops; made the Shibboleth of political faith; engraved upon the standard of the free soil party of the North. And what does it say. I will read the eighth article of the Chicago platform:

“That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States, is that of freedom. That as our Republican Fathers when they abolished slavery in our national territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty or property without the process of law, it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it. And we deny the authority of Congress or a Territorial Legislature or of any individuals to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States.”

There it is, Sir. There it is—the overruling first of the great dominant party of the United States; and yet you rest in regard to this thing upon the poor provision of this first section of the Peace Conference article.

Sir, that is not all. Who is to decide this question of common law which arises in your territory? Where can you fly for refuge, for succor, or for security? You go to the Federal Judge. Whose Federal Judge, sir? Of our appointing? No, sir. No, this expounder of your rights is to be a Federal Judge appointed by Mr. Lincoln.

Nor is that all. Your whole granted territory, these pretended grants to you which like the apples of the Dead Sea melt away at the very moment that you get them in your grasp, are to be employed and held not only under the decision of the Chicago platform and the just interpretation of the section which I read, but, when you come to Congress, the great tribunal of the nation, and make your appeal there—the appeal of only seven—poor seven—what do your opponents count against you? Nineteen to seven! All the world to nothing. You are at their mercy, you have nothing to hope for.

But sir, (it was said the other day that you did not want any more territory.) This was said by some gentleman in debate whose name I cannot now call to mind. You seven no not want any more territory—not a foot more! Make yourselves easy upon that subject; (you have territory, but it is territory in the moon,) which you cannot reach, even if it have a better foundation than Sancho Panza had to his government. Our good friends of the north take care to head you off, sir; they give you no chance to get there. Look at the 3^rd section.

That 3^rd section denies you the right “of transit in or through any State or territory.”

 My friend announces himself a State-rights man, and I should be very happy indeed to receive him as one of my own fraternity, as the advocate of the resolutions of the ’98-99. He told us that this was but an attribute of State power, the non-permission on the part of these States to carry our property in transit through them; and them my honorable friend sent down a perfect avalanche of persons upon us, and asked: Have we not a right to prevent that avalanche from passing through our territory? Sir, Every day, every hour, every moment of every day, the mechanics of the North are passing on to the south and are taking their machinery with them of every character and description; but we poor seven, we miserable starvelings of the once great Confederacy are to be denied the poor privilege of passing with our property in transit through one of these States. Of what advantage, then, to us is the territory of Arizona and the beautiful Mesilla Valley? How are we to get to them?

Suppose we start off upon our journey from Richmond. You are resolved to take up your residence in Arizona or in the Mesilla Valley. How are you to get there? If you go by sea, you have to double the stormy Cape before you reach the gulf of California. You will scarcely encounter a voyage of so much peril and danger. You prefer to go by some other route, the route by land. How are you to accomplish it? By this 3^rd section you cannot pass through the States and territories. The soil of Ohio you must not foot upon. You may pass down the beautiful Ohio and go on dancing upon the waves of the Great Father of Waters—the Mississippi. But what will you do when you get to Louisiana which is now out of the Union? Is she going to permit this avalanche upon her? Will she permit you to reach the gulf of Mexico? This, of course, must depend entirely upon her discretion. And when you have passed into the Gulf of Mexico, how get across Texas? Attempt it in another direction. You are headed off by Kansas, the Indian Territory and Arkansas. And this is true, whether you begin your journey from Richmond or St. Louis. These fair and beautiful valleys, for such they undoubtedly are tempt you, but you without permission from others. And there you are, with a capacious domain with grants of land claimed in the sovereign capacity and attribute of the old Commonwealth of Virginia, and yet so fenced and hedged in by these provisions that nothing of these possessions which you ought to enjoy, but which your masters tell you you shall not enjoy, is left to you in any practical sense.

But sir, we were told that we wanted no more land; that we have plenty of land to fill up for one hundred years to come. I did not expect to hear this upon this floor. I do not know the gentleman who uttered the remark. Want no more land! Content to remain but seven States in the vast collection of Northern States! Want no expansion! No more power than they will grant you! They are nineteen now, while you are but seven; and let me tell you, sir, that before this administration goes out—or within two years afterwards, these nineteen States will have swollen up to twenty-seven. It will be twenty-seven to seven. Where is the glory of Virginia then? Want no more land! Your inhabitants, when the emigrate, are to be driven to the old settled States of the South, there to be forced to give from thirty to one hundred dollars an acre for land. The Government lands, at one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, are to be denied them. You may go into Texas, it is true, but you could not, probably, get land there for one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre.

I think it is a hard case to tell me what if I shall be obliged to emigrate with my large family in pursuit of a more extensive home, that I must give all the earnings of my life for the purchase of a few acres of land in South Carolina, or one of the neighboring cotton States. I cannot go into the Southern regions which can produce the cotton, the rice, the indigo, and am practically excluded from all the benefits of our new grants through the operation of the several causes to which I have referred.

Well, sir, after what is here said of this state of things, it is not for me to complain of it. I never complain of any gentleman for his opinion. Upon that subject the gentleman has a right to his opinion, and I have a right to mine; we differ; that is all, and there the matter ends. Sir, my friend yesterday said something upon the subject of future acquisition of Territory. I do not know who it can be that we should differ so widely upon that question. Now, which I look to your instructions from the General Assembly of Virginia, I find this language:

“Resolved, That in the opinion of the General Assembly of Virginia, the propositions embraced in the resolutions presented to the Senate of the United States, by the Hon. Jno. J. Crittenden, so much modified as that the first article proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shall apply to all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter to be acquired, south of latitude 36 deg. 30 min., and provide that slavery of the African race shall be effectually protected, if necessary, as property therein, during the continuance of the Territorial Government; and the fourth article shall secure to the owners of slaves the right of transit with their slaves between and through the non-slave-holding States and Territories, constitute the basis of such an adjustment of the happy controversy which now divides the States of this Confederacy, as would be accepted by the people of this commonwealth.”

I consider it in the light of a positive instruction, to stipulate for future acquired territory. And why not, sir? If the question is to be settled, why not settle it altogether? My honorable friend (Mr. Summers) Thinks it bet to let the future take care of itself.

Mr. SUMMERS.—Did I understand the gentleman from Charles City, that he intends to impute to me the sentiment that I am against the future acquisition of territory?

EX-PRESIDENT TYLER.  No; except that you abandon it in the project.

Mr. SUMMERS.  The gentleman himself will bear me witness that I, with himself and the other Commissioners—that we all sustained the Crittenden propositions. My argument yesterday was, that having lost the Crittenden proposition, I took that of the Peace Conference.

EX-PRESIDENT TYLER.  I beg the gentleman to be perfectly assured that I did not mean to impute to him any sentiments which he did not entertain. I take his explanation. We all voted for the Crittenden propositions.

Now, Mr. President, let us see for what we all voted, and for what the majority of the commissioners voted. I have already descanted upon the first section. You see that it is all wrapped up in ambiguity. It leads to doubt, at least as to its true import. Instead of healing up the discontents of the country it widens them. Now take Mr. Crittenden’s first section. Let us see how the fair and manly proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky, aged now, a student at William and Mary College when I was there as a Grammar-boy, in approval of whose patriotism I voted with the greatest pleasure yesterday, and I will repeat that the vote just as often as you ask me, for I know how indefatigable he has been in his efforts to secure the adoption of measures which would settle the pending difficulties and restore peace to country. My friend (Mr. SUMMERS) apologized for Congress for not recommending the Peace Conference plan because there were only three days left to Congress of its session.

I wish him to remember that Mr. Crittenden had struggled and struggled, for months, by night and by day, to carry out this plan; that he was in all sorts of association, soliciting here, and urging there, taking into his counsel, as we were told, Mr. Seward, and aided by Mr. Douglas—asking everybody whom he could get into his counsel, and missing all the means he could employ, likely at all to accelerate and forward his purpose; and yet it could not be effected. No sir, his hopes led him on until all hope was wrecked. My honorable friend, Mr. SUMMERS, if I understood him, said this Peace Conference proposition was better than Mr. Crittenden’s project; that it was more full, more comprehensive, more complete; that you obtained more in it than in Mr. Crittenden’s—at all events, that it was quite equal to it. Did I understand you so, sir?

Mr. SUMMERS—My position was, that taken as a whole it was an equivalent to the Crittenden proposition, and in several particulars, in my judgment in advance of it.

EX-PRESIDENT TYLER.—Then sir, you perceived that the argument which I advance is correct, that this project was equivalent to Crittenden’s; but there were only three days in which it could struggle before Congress. The Crittenden proposition was its prototype—this, the Jupiter out of whose head Minerva sprung, had long been under consideration, but had been urged in all its forms, had been pressed in every imaginable manner by my honorable friend from Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden,) with whom I had the honor of serving in the Senate of the United States, and elsewhere, who was for a short time in my Cabinet, and whose loss I regretted upon his voluntary retirement—and there never has been any interruption of our friendship at least, on my part, and will not be until death shall take away either him or me. Now, Mr. President, put this project of Mr. Crittenden beside that of the Peace Conference. Look at them, placed side by side and judge which is the more just, clear comprehensive and patriotic of the two. Here are the first section of the Peace Conference proposition, and the first article of the Crittenden proposition:

1^st Sec. Peace Conference Proposition.

“SECION 1.  In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line the status of persons held to service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed. Nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union to said Territory, nor to impair the lights arising from said relation. But the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, with such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be Republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the Constitution of such State may provide."

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1^st Article Crittenden Proposition.

“ARTICLE 1. In all the territory of the United States now held or hereafter to be acquired, situate north of latitude thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited, while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of latitude, slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress, but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance. And when any territory, north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress according to the then Federal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States, with or without slavery, as the constitution of such new State may provide.”

There you have the comparison, or more properly contrast, before you. In Mr. Crittenden’s programme things are called by their right names. There is no wrapping up, no concealment of intention—all is fair and plain. It is so exceedingly simple and explicit that no child can misinterpret it. You may run and read as you run, and yet it will still be plain and palpable. Like it author, sir, plain; distinguished for his urbanity, with his heart in his hand, his tongue not given, as Talleyrand declared his to be, “to use words to conceal his ideas,” but given to utter words of truth, of power and force. This Peace Conference proposition: palters with us in a double sense, “keeps the promise to the ear, but breaks it to the hope.”

This (the Crittenden proposition) tells us of our rights. African slavery is ours. It is to be protected. The Legislatures of the Territories shall protect it, notwithstanding the Chicago platform. Why, sir, let him who can judge choose between that and this. “The counterfeit presentment of two” minds. Those who accept this Peace Conference proposition would find themselves in the dilemma in which Hamlet’s mother was when she cast aside her “precedent lord” and married with “the cut purse of the Empire and the rule.” No, sir, there can be no mistaking it. Now my friend, (Mr. SUMMERS,) thinks that upon the subject of the Territories, he has accomplished a great good by the second section. I do not by any means which to deny, but that the principle upon which he acts ought to be consecrated. The Principle is a lofty one. It is the principle of concurrent majorities. Sir, it is the very principle which will save us. The only principle that can restore this Union which we have lost. If we can have a concurrent majority on all public questions, my deliberate opinion is that all will be safe; majorities to concur before either section can harass or disturb the other. In the crisis of legislation I do not care about dual Presidents, but concurrent majorities are essential. But what does this concurrent majority accomplish when applied solely to territory? Why it give to the seven States a great power, provided that there is anything for the power to act upon. But there lies the rub.

Now look at the North. What of territory remains for them? It has reached the Fraser River. It is in dispute about the island of San Juan, under a treaty with Great Britain. With its foot planted upon the estuary which divides Vancouver’s Island from the main land, it has got to its ultima thule of territorial—nothing lies beyond but the British Fur company possessions, or what may be called company possessions, or what may be called the Nova Zembla of the Russian-Czar, lying in the lap of perpetual winter, wrapped up in furs against frost and ice. They will not go there I’m sure.

Does it look to Canada? My friend told us there was a wire-worker in our Peace Conference, who talked to him about Canada, New Brunswick, and so on. A wire-Worker! Well, sir, there were a good many wire-workers. But this fellow had his wire broken before he could spin it. I saw some notice of a movement of annexation on the part of Canada to New England, a short time ago. The Canadians and the New Brunswickans said “No, we won’t go a step in that direction; we want none of their isms; they are pervading the who county with their isms; they have their isms of all sorts and descriptions that ever entered into the imagination of man; we prefer to chant our national anthem of ‘God save the Queen;’ she affords us protection, she nurtures us and she raises us, and if we are driven into a Confederacy, why we stretch from the extreme waters which was our shores, to the extreme waters of the Pacific, we embrace all this hunting country.” How can the North obtain it? How is this wire-worker to get it? Why, sir, the British colonies would not come if they could.

And who does not know all about the Anglo-saxon race? Did ever any Anglo-saxon man or woman part with one single foot of ground they had obtained, without full consideration? Why, the race is noted as a race of land-mongers. Of all nations in the world Great Britain is the last to surrender one single inch of territory belonging to her anywhere on the face of the earth. Queen Victoria and her sceptre must have passed away, the lion rampant will be no longer the symbol of England, before she will surrender to the United States or to any other power those possessions on this continent.

But my friend supposed that our Northern friends would come down in hordes and take possession of Central America, unless we had this check upon them. Dear me! Sir, the law of climate as applicable to races, forbids this. A man of Caucasian race pledged to go and work under a burning sun? Why, these dreamers of the North seemingly know nothing of the influence of climate. They talk of your cotton fields, of your burning sun, it is true. They estimate well the wealth that comes up from these sources. They talk of it, and they talk of free labor. Now I beg to know, while the burning sun is upon the West-India Island, the lands, the richest in the world, and although a so called free-soil (under emancipation acts) exists there, and although labor commands the highest prices and a greater demand for it exists than anywhere else, why is it that the vast tide of emigration which rolls in from Europe makes no halt there, but passes on until it reaches a high Northern latitude, where the Caucasian is found enacting the part of herdsman or engaged in the cultivation of the cereals? Where he flourishes, the African perishes. Child of the sun, the last luxuriates under tropical heat; creature of a Northern latitude, the Caucasian man perishes where the African flourishes; and so he  of Africa’s sultry land drags out a brief wretched existence where the white man becomes vigorous and strong, and attains the full perfection of mental and physical development. Such is the law of climate and that law negatives the supposition indulged in by the gentleman from Kanawha.

You rarely ever find the Caucasian day laborer in South America, and if an exception presents itself, he is a stranger in a strange land. And no guard against this imaginary acquisition of territory, on the part of the North, you require concurrent majorities which effectually precludes all hope of acquisition on your own part. You must have a majority of nineteen States now, soon to be thirty-six; and a majority of your own Senators which you would readily obtain, and from those majorities make up the two-thirds before you can get Cuba, or the West India Islands, or any one foot of additional territory.

I wish to allude to one man, in this connection, who you knew, and who I knew well for the greater portion of my life. I looked upon him almost as the atlas upon which not only his party, but, in some degree, his country rested. I knew him in the Senate of the United States, when my solitary vote was given against the Force Bill, during General Jackson's time. He stepped forth on that occasion like a patriot, to heal the discontents of his country and to cicatrize its wounds. It was Henry Clay, sir. I take pleasure in pronouncing his name in this connection. There were afterwards political feuds between us, but it was his loss and not mine. He threw off the hand that would have supported him. He forfeited the assistance of a friend who admired and esteemed him to the close of his life, one who has no hesitation in saying now, as I said upon a recent occasion, that he deserves a monument lofty as the mountains, enduring as the skies, for his great measure of pacification, his famous tariff compromise, which gave peace to the country and bade the raging elements be still.

Well, sir, I am a disciple of his, to some extent, on the subject of the African race. He did not limit his view to the then confines of the United States. He looked from Maryland, Virginia and the other border States in the direction of the West India Islands, or central America, with the idea that the slave population might ultimately find their outlet in that direction. And yet, in my firm belief, you cannot acquire a foot of land under this provision of the Peace Conference, for it effectually closes the door further expansion on the part of the South. The only way in which you have heretofore acquired territory has been by a great party in the free States coming to the aid of the South. You could have acquired it in no other way. Louisiana and Florida were obtained in that way. New England opposed them, as she opposes now everything that pertains to the interests of the South, or tends to give it political strength. In like manner, she opposed the acquisition of Texas; and yet it was through the medium of a controlling majority, made up of Northern and Southern votes, that we obtained the acquisition of that country.

Mr. SHEFFEY.—I move, sir that the Convention do now adjourn, and I hope it will be the pleasure of the convention to extend the courtesy of the floor tomorrow to the distinguished gentleman who as addressed us.

The Convention adjourned.

MARCH 14^th, 1861.

Ex President TYLER resumed his remarks and said:

Mr. President, I am deeply grateful, sir, to the members of the Convention for the kind indulgence of which they granted me yesterday. I found much difficulty in causing the views which I address to the Convention yesterday, to be heard, because of a great deficiency in my voice. I feel similarly circumstanced this morning. A voice which has heretofore never failed, has become subdued by severe and continued cold, until it has lost most of its distinctness and compass.

But I make no apology for the circumstances under which I appear before you. I am in the discharge of a great public duty; and in the discharge of that duty I suffer no impediment arising from my own personal infirmities to stand in the way.

On yesterday I dissected, as far as I could, the first section of the article proposed by the “Peace Conference,” I find, however, that I omitted a fact which has much bearing upon the case.

In the course of our proceedings at Washington, and looking to some safe guarantee of protection against the influence of propogandism through the officers of the Territory, I deemed it proper to offer the amendment which I hold in my hand. I will read it with the consent of the Convention:

“All appointments to office in the Territories lying North of the line 36 deg. 30 min. as well before as after the establishment of Territorial governments in and over the same or any part thereof, shall be made upon the recommendations of a majority of the Senators representing at the time the non-slaveholding States. And in like manner, all appointments to office in the territories which may lie South of said line 36 deg. 30 min. shall be made upon the recommendation of a majority of the Senators representing at the time of the slave-holding States. But nothing in this article shall be construed to restrain the President of the United States from removing, for actual incompetency or misdemeanor in office, and any person thus appointed, and appointing a temporary agent, to be continued in office until the majority of Senators as aforesaid may present a new recommendation, or from filling any vacancy which may occur during the recess of the Senate, such appointment to continue ad interim. And to insure, on the part of the Senators, the selection of the most trustworthy agents, it is hereby directed that all the Senators, the selection of the most trustworthy agents, it is hereby directed that all the net proceeds arising from the sale of the public lands, shall be distributed annually among the several States, according to the combined ratio of representation and taxation; but the distribution aforesaid may be suspended by Congress in case of actual war with a foreign nation, or imminent peril thereof.”

That proposition I submitted, and by the courtesy of the Convention—and no body was ever more courteous that it was to me—the ten minutes’ rule, which had been proclaimed as the limit of debate, was immediately suspended, it being understood that I intended to discuss the propositions, and my own time was allowed me, to take what range and latitude of debate I might deem necessary. I accordingly entered into an explanation of the proposition in all its parts and bearings. I maintained that some security was necessary against the influence which the President, through his patronage, might exercise in the Territories. It was even without such intention natural that the President should bestow the emoluments of office on those who held opinions corresponding with his own. The propagandism of anti-slavery sentiment would inevitable proceed from the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and the long list of other officers to be appointed by Mr. Lincoln to these Territories. I sought to guard against this by the proposition to amend, so as to give substantially to the majority of Senators on each side of the line 36 degrees and 30 minutes forever the virtual appointment of officers in the territories lying respectively North and South of that line. I stated in that Assembly a fact which it is not out of place to repeat here, that sixteen years ago, when I left the government, we had reduced the public expenditures from thirty-two millions to  twenty-four millions per annum.—And yet we have in no degree impaired the efficiency of the public service, but had added to our naval defence the Home Squadron; had enlarged the basis of our military operations; had increased the strength, and the efficiency of the army—and manned our fortifications and all at the low rate of expenditure mentioned. Within this short period of sixteen years, which has since elapsed, we find these expenditures swollen up, of 60, 70, 80,000,000—I know not what in fact. I cannot account for the fact expenditure. Nor does the evil stop with the expenditures from the Treasury. The public lands, that great source of public credit in times of embarrassment, are spoliated on with a merciless prodigality—land-grants, homestead bills and railroad donations, all combined, seem to threaten an extinction of all public interest in the preservation of this great inheritance. It was time, I thought to interpose with that great remedial measure of distributing the proceeds of the public lands equally among the States, according to the ratio of representation and taxation. But, furthermore, in the division of territory, there had been given to the Northern States fully four-fifths of the territory of the United States. The remaining fifth being on our side of the line, I sought to equalize, to some extent, the division, by making each state a participant in the proceeds of the sales of the whole of the lands.

But above all, Mr. President, I desired to restrain that wild spirit of propagandism which I know would inevitably influence those who would be appointed to offices in the territory under the new administration. I knew that the man who was in the Presidential office would appoint his own friends to office. It was natural that Mr. Lincoln should do so, and I took for granted that the Chicago platform would be the Constitution of every man of them. I regarded the rejection of this proposition as a vital objection to that first section, and my friend near me (Mr. Summers), and the whole delegation from Virginia, came up as one man and voted for it. They gave me their cordial support, and yet what vote do you suppose we obtained for it? Plain, rational, just as it seemed to be and really was-what sort of vote do you suppose we got for it? There were five States voting for it, and all the rest against it! It would not do to restrain Mr. Lincoln in the giving of his patronage; they wanted to give him full sway. I was told by some, we will vote for your proposition in 1865, but we cannot vote for it now. Yes, sir, they would vote for it after the mischief will have been done-after the propagandists shall have accomplished their purposes. The Chicago platform will then have received its practical interpretation, and been carried into full effect. I repeat, that my colleagues came up to the spirit of the proposition which I offered, and Virginia was a unit in favor of it; and I would now have it incorporated in any project that may be offered to this convention.

Sir, I shall now endeavor to hurry on as fast as I can with my commentaries upon the remaining sections.

The third section, if you examine it, will be found to be deprived of its principal value by the adoption by two-thirds of both houses of Congress of the Corwin amendment. Why that amendment has not been submitted to us, for our consideration, I do not know. The section secures us against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in places under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, within States and Territories, where slavery exists. My friened thinks that we gain much by the succeeding clause of the section which gives us the right to transport out slaves by sea or river, to touch at ports, shores or landings, and of landing in case of distress. I cannot place the same high value upon it that he does. This right stats so under the international law—that law which is co-extensive in its operation with the civilized world—no country, however powerful, can violate it without incurring universal odium and denunciation. How was it in the case of the Creole, which we settled under the Ashburton treaty? You recollect that the Creole sailed from this port with a cargo of slaves for a Southern State. Her crew rose up against her officers, took possession of the ship and carried her into Nassau, New Providence, where the slaves were taken from the ship by the populace and all set free. We made a demand of Great Britain, charged that she had violated the rights of hospitality, and the comity that exists between nations. The amende honorable was made by Lord Ashburton in his negotiations with us at Washington. The Executive would have accepted no result which had not embraced an honorable adjustment of the principle involved in the case of the Creole.

So that you perceive that this is not a new thing. It is no more than the confirmation of a principle in the international code by a Constitutional enactment. Unhappy state of things, truly, when a principle of comity and good feeling, observed by all nations in their intercourse with each other is, in order to be recognized as obligatory by confederates, to be incorporated as a guarantee in the fundamental law. How lamentably deplorable is that state of things which renders it necessary.

In regard to the last cause of this section, which my friend (Mr. SUMMERS,) laid so much stress upon. We have simply caught a Tartar. I do not know that it would not be fortunate if the whole measure was rejected in order to get rid of this. I think no objection was made to it, and being urged by one of our own members, we all voted for it. I allude to the final clause of the section, which declares that Congress shall not authorize any high  rate of taxation on persons held to labor or service than on land.

I remember to have heard an anecdote which is somewhat illustrative of the great sagacity and aptitude for business of our Northern associates. It occurred upon the meeting of the first Congress. Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee opened the session in terms of impressive eloquence. Samuel Adams, that illustrious man who is recognized as one of the most pure, noble and patriotic statesmen of the glorious age in which he lived, is reported to have said to one of his colleagues: “we have no business her, let us go home: these people will settle this thing without us.

But, the Congress went shortly afterwards to work, and something else than eloquence was required. Astute and quick perception were necessary to carry out the political problems of the day—and practical results were only to be attained by that practical good sense, the nurseling of experience and observation—and Adams very soon approached his colleague with the remark, “we had as well stay where we are.” They understood this thing very well. Sagacious, keen, intellectual, the Northern men are capable of doing their work in the best way and after the best manner, and I fear they have by silent acquiescence, don so in this instance to our disadvantage.

I confess to the fact that I did consider the provision a valuable one when I voted for it. But, sir, subsequent reflection and consideration has greatly unsettled my opinion concerning it, and I find, upon examination, the whole case was decided as long ago as 1793, by the Supreme Court.

In the case of Hylton, plaintiff in error, vs. the United States, a decision was rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States, from which I extract the following language:

“The great object of the Constitution was, to give to Congress a power to lay taxes adequate to the exigencies of government; but they were to observe two rules in imposing them, namely, the rule of uniformity, when they laid duties, imposts or excises; and the rule of apportionment according to the Census, when they laid a direct tax.”

 

“A general power is given to congress to lay and collect taxes of every kind or nature without any restraint, except only on exports; but two rules are prescribed for their government, namely, uniformity, and apportionment; three kinds of taxes, to wit: duties, imposts and excises by the first rule, and capitation or other direct taxes, by the second rule.”

 

“The Constitution evidently contemplates no taxes as direct taxes, but only such as Congress could lay in proportion to the Census.—The rule of apportionment is only to be adopted in such cases where it can reasonably apply; and the subject taxed, must ever determine the application of the rule.”

Patterson, justice, said: “I never entertained a doubt that the principal, I will not say the only object that the framers of the Constitution contemplated as falling within the rule of apportionment, where a capitation tax and a tax on land. Local considerations, and particular circumstances and relative situations of the States, naturally lead to this view of the subject. “The provision was made in favor of the Southern States. They possessed a large number of slaves; they had extensive tracts of territory, thinly settled, and not very productive. A majority of the States had but few slaves, and several of them a limited territory, well settled and in a high state of cultivation. The Southern States, if no provision had been introduced in the Constitution, would have been wholly at the mercy of the other States. Congress, in such case, might tax slaves, at discretion, or arbitrarily, and land in every part of the Union after the same rate or measure, so much a head in the first instance, and so much an acre in the second. To guard them against imposition in these particulars, was the reason of introducing the clause in the Constitution, which directs that representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States, according to their respective numbers. He argued, further, that the rule of apportionment was not to be preferred to the rule of uniformity; but the former was to be applied only where the Constitution imperatively requires it to be applied, to wit, to ‘capitation or other direct taxes,’ and where it would reasonably apply. He considered it radically a wrong rule, and asks, ‘why should slaves, who are a species of property, be represented more than any other property?’”

In that opinion all the judges concurred, save one, who gave no opinion.

Well, it has occurred to me that, inasmuch as the apportionment is to be made according to taxation and representation combined, we have by that clause subjected ourselves to a capitation tax upon the head of every slave, when it should only apply to every three out of five. I think I am sustained in that position by this decision.

Again, sir, we find in the case of Loughborough vs. Blake, 5 Wheaton, 317, the following language by Judge Marshall:

It was under these clauses, to reconcile and expound them, that the decisions of the supreme court referred to, were made. Federal taxation, it is shown, consists of two classes of taxes:

1st. Direct; supposed to be capitation and land tax alone. And,

2d. Indirect taxes, embracing duties, imposts and excises. And,

1st. The first are always to be apportioned with representatives among the several States, according to their respective numbers of described persons; and among these are three-fifths of the slaves; and no direct tax can ever be laid, unless in proportion to this census thus described to be enumerated; and,

2d. The second, consisting of duties, imposts and excises, are always to be “uniform throughout the United States;” and,

3d. Congress may or may not tax the territories, as included under the first clause of section 8th, in the United States, but not necessarily included among the “several states,” in the apportionment required by the 3d clause of section 2d; but if Congress, or power derived from congress, does tax the territories as well as States, it must be done by one of the two rules above, of apportionment or uniformity. And,

4th. If slaves, or “other persons,” in States or territories, are taxed by Congress or its authority, it must be done under the clauses apportioning representatives and capitation or other direct taxes, taxes upon persons being capitation and direct taxes throughout the United States.

Mr. SUMMERS.—I don’t desire at all to interrupt the argument at this point, or to occupy the floor further than to call attention to the fact, which my distinguished friend from Charles City, Mr. TYLER, will readily call to mind, that the minority report submitted by Mr. SEDDON, from the Committee of States, which prepared business for the Convention and of which the Committee our excellent friend Mr. SEDDON was the Virginia member, proposed the Crittenden propositions with certain emendations and additions, and among other modifications of the Crittenden proposition, this same feature is contained as proposed in the minority report of our colleague. It is annexed to the 4^th article of the Crittenden proposition:—

“And in imposing direct taxes pursuant to the Constitution, Congress shall have no power to impose on slaves a higher rate of tax than on land, according to their just value.”

Mr. SUMMERS.—When that was submitted by our colleague as a substitute for the report of the Committee, the Virginia Commission voted for it as a unit.

I merely call the attention of my distinguished friend to the fact, that it was considered not only by us, but by all the southern men, as a most vital and important amendment to the Crittenden project.

Mr. TYLER.—I am perfectly aware of the facts states by my honorable friend. They are all correct. We concurred in the adoption of that section with that addendum. I frankly confess the fact before the Convention, and here I express my regret at our having fallen into this error.

I used, moreover, the words that we had “caught a Tartar” by the adoption of this clause which was recommended to us by the circumstances adverted to my honorable friend—but I renounced my own error the moment I became convinced of it.

I am hurrying rapidly through my task of dissecting the various sections of this article; and now I come to the 4th section. If gentlemen will look at it, they will find probably no objection to it, because it merely re-affirms what exists now in the Constitution.

The 5th section we voted against, unanimously. That, as you may remember, declares that,

“The Foreign slave trade is hereby prohibited; and it shall be the duty of Congress to pass laws to prevent the importation of slaves, coolies, or persons held to service or labor, into the United States and the Territories, from places beyond the limits thereof.”

My Friend, Mr. SUMMERS, has made the best apology for that section that could be made, in the address that he delivered. But against it, Virginia stood as a unit. And why?

We look to the probable arrival of a period when the independence of the Southern Confederacy will be recognized by the whole country. Whether we might have a separate Confederacy along side of us, made up of other States, or whether we could belong to the Confederacy whose seat of Government is at Montgomery or not, was not the question.

We contended and voted against the proposition of the grounds that a prohibition being made by the government to which we now belong, in regard to the inter States slave trade from that quarter, would have the effect of producing a similar interdict on the part of that government at a future day, and in that way a demand upon us for supplies of labor would altogether cease. I remember the time that Virginia prevented the introduction of slaves within her borders by statute from other States, and I also remember that similar prohibitions soon afterwards followed from most if not all of the Southern States, as retaliatory on us. Such a policy would be again resorted to by this Southern confederacy, when it shall come to be recognized, in case this provision was enforced; and the result would be to put a stop to the profitable drain of this species of property. It was a desire to avert this result, and not the remotest wish to reopen the African slave trade, that induced us to vote against this section. So far as the reopening of the African slave trade is concerned, I protest against it. I believe there is no man now in Virginia who is in favor of the restoration of that trade. I protest against it with all my heart, with all my strength. I would not suffer it to be reopened by any State, either in this Union, or of the American Hemisphere, if it depended upon my voice to prevent it. I should deny my own paternity if I failed to do so. My venerated father made the continuance of that trade to 1808 one of his leading objections to the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States in the Convention which gave to that instrument the ratification of Virginia. I adopt his views and shall endorse them so long as life shall last.

The 6th Section is merely a re-confirmation, if I may be allowed such an expression, of certain sections of the Constitution as it is.

And now I come to the last or 7th section, which I shall dispose of in very few words:

“Congress shall provide by law that the United States shall pay to the owner the full value of his fugitive from the labor, in all cases where the marshal or other officer, whose duty it was to arrest such fugitive, was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation from mobs or riotous assemblages, or when, after arrest, such fugitive was rescued by  like violence or intimidation, and the owner thereby deprived of the same; and Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of the several States.”

It might be sufficient to say that we were united against that provision. I had hoped that it would require no explanation at my hands. It received an explanation at the hands of my honorable colleague, in which I could not concur. I felt that the explanation was rather in contravention of the views I entertained, and therefore I begged him to urge the objections which he had had to the section when we voted unitedly against it. It was considered by some of us at least that that section was, in effect, the initiation of a course of emancipation throughout the extensive borders of the slave States; that there would be every inducement on the part of the slave to cross the border, and every inducement for mobs to assemble and prevent the arrest of the fugitive, or to secure his escape. The master himself would be less in earnest to recover possession of the fugitive, as he had to be paid for him by the Government. Nay, the Marshal himself—I should have but little confidence in marshals of Mr. Lincoln’s appointment—might wink at the whole proceeding, and thus a great Pandora’s box would be opened all along the border. Instead of such a provision as this quieting agitation it would re-open it. But, strong as these objections occurred to me to be, our chief position, as I understood it, was leveled at the last clause. Under the Constitution, when a citizen travels abroad from his own State, he should enjoy the rights, privileges and immunities which are enjoyed by the citizen of the State to which he goes. That provision is broad enough, capacious enough and covers the whole ground. It wants no legislation to enforce it. But Congress is to be invested with full discretionary power to legislate upon this subject. In Massachusetts, if I am not deceived, and in some other States, they proclaim that a portion of their so called citizens, are of the African race. They are admitted to an equality with the whites at the polls.—Being professedly citizens of that State why sir, the toils might be thrown over us without our being aware of it through an act of Congress. Congress might legislate them even into seats in that body, and you might have Fred. Douglass occupying a seat there. He is one of their leading men, one of their principal orators upon all the disturbing questions connected with the slave interest of the country. He is ever thrusting himself into everything. The last time I heard of him he was at Faneuil Hall, attempting to address some assemblage held there. Faneuil Hall that glorious hall, consecrated to freedom , and around whose altars their fathers and our fathers have so often knelt together—to be desecrated by the ravings of a run-a-way slave! I could not tolerate for a moment the idea of putting my honorable friend (Mr. SUMMERS)—and I trust that some day he will be clothed with a higher representative power, either at Washington or Montgomery—down by the side of Fred. Douglass, in the Senate of the United States, Cheek by jowl, and in fellowship with him as his fellow Citizen. “Give me some civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.”

Now, Mr. President, what do you make of this thing? Let us see what is left of it. I have demonstrated, that so far as grants of the public land are concerned, it is a mere myth—a gossamer of the air—something that fades before you as a will-o’-the-wisp; that vanishes into thin air, so that you cannot lay your hand upon it.

As to the first section, therefore, it is of no consequence at all. That is my deliberate judgment. Your committee of twenty-one will have it under their consideration. The first section, then, is worthless. The second I demonstrated to be injurious, as preventing the acquisition of any new territory. The third is Corwin’s amendment, which has passed the two Houses of Congress; and whatever remains of it is, in my deliberate judgment, not compensated for by the negation of the right of transit through the States. The fourth section is already provided for in the Constitution of the United States. The fifth and seventh were voted against unanimously by the Virginia Commissioners. What remains of the article then? Why, it is all gone, dissipated, according to the interpretation I put upon it. It was, in truth, but a phantom from the first.

Since it introduces nothing which is tangible and of value, that should have been provided for, what is omitted by it? I will recapitulate, very briefly, what it has omitted:

First. Lands all gone and none to be acquired.

Second. No right of transit.

Third. No rendition of fugitives from justice.

A negro kills his master in Virginia, and flees into Ohio; Governor Dennison turns over his volumes, and he cannot find, with the aid of all his spectacles, that in the State of Ohio a slave killing his master can be punished as for a crime. One of John Brown’s raid flees to Iowa. A requisition is made upon the Governor for the man who has violated your own homestead, and who has dared to tread with impious footstep upon Virginia soil. You make a demand upon the Governor for him; but the authority cannot be found in the bond which authorizes his restoration. Like the Jew Shylock, he cannot find it stipulated in the bond, and the murderer and the incendiary goes free.

Fourth. No repeal of personal liberty bills demanded.

Let me here do justice to the gallant little State of Rhode Island; prompt in the execution of her duty, the very instant there was a requisition of the kind made upon her by the public voice, she repealed her personal liberty bill. Has she been followed by Massachusetts? Will the exultant party in New Hampshire that is now living more loftily its banner of victory than ever before, be likely to follow the example of Rhode Island? Will they make any concession? especially when they have again triumphed, and by a larger majority that heretofore?

What else?

Fifth. No security against under-ground-railroads.

Mr. President, have you not been struck with the perfect silence which has prevailed on the part of these under ground railroads of late? We have not heard of a single passenger over that route since the present agitation commenced, and since South Carolina first entered upon her course of separation. It seems to be abandoned. What inference do you draw from that circumstance? That the whole matter is under the management and control of the leaders—under their dictation and constant control. If they put it in motion, it is in motion. If they bid it stand still, it stands still. You have heard nothing of it now for months, but you may expect developments from it bye and bye.

Sixth. No restraint upon the circulation of Helper’s book or pamphlets through the Post office.

Can you restrain their circulation, in the absence of any provision, through the Post Office? New men are in power. Their friends and allies are clothed with the investiture of office. But I will not stop to discuss that matter further.

The whole of this project is the work of a minority. Congress repudiates it through non-action. It was presented to that body for ratification or rather for recommendation to the States. The Premier looked at it closely. The Premier of this Administration, which has been installed in office by blast of trumpet and roll of drum—this Administration that has come stealthily in by night into the Presidential chair which was filled by a Washington, and which, under some vague pretence of hidden assassins lurking in ambush, surrounds itself with a guard of armed men—the Premier of this Administration, I say, glanced at it, and what does he propose? After midnight conferences with our friends, pretendedly inclining to compromise and settle it, why he proposes a National Convention.

“Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly; it is the prettiest parlor that you ever did spy.”

[Laughter.]

That is exactly the parlor in which you are invited to walk. Go into it and the fate of the poor fly is yours.

Now, Mr. President, I want seriously to know of this convention, what are you going to do? You cannot stand still. That is not possible. Events are moving too rapidly around you. The times are pregnant with signs. Even if you were disposed to take a little more slumber, you cannot fold your arms and sleep soundly. You must do something. And what is that something? On One day there comes fort a smile from the White House; but, lo! the next day it is chased away with a frown. On one day we hear that Fort Sumter is to be abandoned—the next that the Star of the West with supplies is already to sail from New York for some point on the Southern coast. I would fain hope that the news is authentic that Fort Sumter is to be evacuated and that gallant man, Major Anderson, is to be relieved from a condition which becomes more desperate every day. A fine gallant boy, the son of an esteemed and respected friend of mine, whom I have known for many years, and whose father was familiar with my father—our present Minister to Brazil—is now shut up in that fort. I know that he is prepared to die in the discharge of his duty. He would not be a Virginian if he were not. But his father is 2,000 miles away, representing his government in a foreign court. I thought I would wait upon President Buchanan, and try to interest him in behalf of Major Anderson and those under his command. I urged the impossibility of sending relief—I saw no change for a successful defence. I represented to him, in the mildest terms I could, the condition of that noble boy. I adverted to the state of the garrison; that there were only seventy-odd people to man the guns; that after all this vaunting about the strength of the fort, there were no more than enough soldiers to man six guns, and the ability would fail event to man them, after a few days of conflict. Why not, then, relieve and discharge the garrison? They are ready to perish in the defence of their duty—why let them perish? Why shall your robes be stained with the blood of your officers, when you have but a few days more to remain in office. The reply in substance was “duty.” I could not feel it—I could not comprehend it—but there it was. I was rejoiced when I understood that the present occupant of the Presidential Chair had decided to abandon the fort. He can do nothing else. He is in a straight-jacket; he cannot throw in supplies, neither can he retain a possession of the fort much longer. But I do not altogether like the appearance of the news of this morning—yesterday the dove was let loose from its cage in evidence that bitter waters were subsiding—today the hawk is unhooded and flies on rapid wing to overtake the dove. I trust yet that there will be good sense enough on the part of the Administration to induce an evacuation of that fortress as well as others, without a conflict of arms.

There are many things that look alarming. The Star of the West and Daniel Webster are at New York with supplies, ready to sail for the Southern coast. And a newspaper paragraph announces that announces that General Scott has been studying out a plan by which Fort Sumter can be reinforced. This paragraph I do not altogether credit, because I do not believe that the old war-worn chieftain, although he may have lost some of the chivalric spirit which formerly illustrated his character and his fame, has yet gone to that desperate extremity of trying by shift and cunning to accomplish what noble-hearted men will ever try to accomplish only by direct action. Mr. President, I wish not only that Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens might be abandoned, but that the President would lift himself up to a higher and loftier pinnacle of statesmanship and at once yield to the propriety of a recognition of the Southern Confederacy. A commercial treaty and a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive with them, would save much of the Union under which we have all lived so long and happily. If all cannot be saved, save as much as can be saved, even of the fragments; for every fragment will be a gem glorious and priceless. But I fear that this policy is not to be their policy. Italy can rise up from the thralldom of centuries and win the bright coronet of free government. The Iron crown of Austria may be removed from the brow of its wearer to do honor to Hungary. But Mr. Lincoln recognizes no such principle as lying at the base of American institutions, as the right of the people of any of these states to seek their happiness under any other government than that inaugurated by himself, of a sectional majority. Hence the Pacific and Mediterranean fleets are, it is said, ordered home, to cluster about our coast! Hence, the whole border, stretching off California, is to be left exposed to the attacks of the savages, by withdrawing from it the two thousand fife hundred regular troops. Rumor speaks of a portion of these troops being stationed at Washington as a strategic point. If it be accurate, I shall regard it as “bearding the lion in his den, the Douglas in his hall.” It looks like a strategic operation to coerce Virginia, and keep you under subjection and control.—Virginia is the bright star that now fixes the attention of the country. Every eye is turned to her. I fear that the game is to hold Virginia in thralldom, if possible. If it can be done by the practice of chicanery and smiles, she will be kept in her present attitude of inaction. Depend upon it, all means will be resorted to accomplish this object. Troops may be concentrated in considerable numbers at Fort Washington and Fortress Monroe. In that event what will be the condition of Alexandria and Richmond—Fort Washington upon the Potomac, garrisoned—and not a barrel of flour not a hogshead of tobacco, no article of commerce, can float by without being under the range of its guns. If Fortress Monroe is to be garrisoned by 5,000 men, as speculation has sometimes intimated, the trade of Richmond—that trade which floats down the James, the York, the Rappahannock, and other rivers of the Commonwealth, is essentially blocked out from the ocean by a ship of war stationed in the Bay, to co-operate with the Fort. Look at it, I pray you, and let your action here anticipate, and as far as it can avail, guard against the state of things which may soon exist.

What else presents itself to you? There is a hint give you from a quarter which speaks almost in tones of thunder. What means the resignation of those, as it were cabinet officer of the army? These aids and chief officers, including the adjutant-general of the army? Why do they resign the fat emoluments of their offices? Why are they seeking employment elsewhere? I put it to your own sagacity to say, for there must be something of distrust and a want of confidence, when these things happen. I repeat the question, what will you do? What is Virginia to do in this state of things? This I know she cannot do in safety: She cannot rest upon any inefficient measure. Mark you, how things have gone. I trust I shall be pardoned by the Convention for the feeble and tedious manner in which I am exhibiting my views upon this great question. I feel that I am surrounded by a band of brothers. We are to speak our sentiments freely to each other. In that spirit I ask you, what sort of guarantees will Virginia require? Mere reiterations of constitutional enactments which already exist? No sir, that will be of but small avail. For 50 years in the history of the government, you had a positive guarantee of powers—you could not be injured—no sectional party could disturb you, because you had an equal balance of power in the Senate. There you had a check. For a long course of time, which a slave State was introduced, a free State was also introduced, and that state of things continued until recently. You exhausted your land. You had no longer any slave States to bring in; and now you are out numbered. The whole power of the Government is against you; and you have no check. You must, therefore, have guarantees of power. You effect but little by mere declarations, whether in the form of resolutions or amendments. Against such a power as that which has been growing up for 30 years, and swelling in magnitude from almost nothing, until it has grown up into a sectional magnitude to control the destinies of the country—how can you restore your safety? To guard against sectional majorities, are you going to trust to a piece of parchment? In the language of the great orator, whose portrait adorns the hall of this Convention, John Randolph, you had as well pierce the parchment with bayonets, and burn it, as to trust your rights to a merely declaratory provision. Majorities are despotic. I had rather be governed by King One than by King Numbers, with sectional conflicts and antagonism between us. King One will look to my interest along with the interest of all his subjects; but King Majority, when sectional, looks to its own interests, and nothing else. Why, sir, your parchment would not be worth anything for positive protection. Rise up, then, in the dignity of your manhood. If you will delay still—if you are desirous to try still farther experiments—go forth with a strong hand, I pray you, such as Virginia ought to exhibit.—Why, sir, my friend, (Mr. SUMMERS, gave us a glowing picture of the exposure along the line of our borders to inroads for the abduction of the slaves. Such inroads cannot, in any state of the future, exceed what has occurred in the past. I have a friend upon this floor, a member of this Convention, (Gen. JACKSON, from Wood,) who, years ago, informed me of the sweeping loss which, along with others, he had sustained in this particular. More vigilance will be exerted in this behalf than in a time of profound tranquility, and by that alone property will be rendered more secure. If driven to secession, Virginia should introduce a rigid passport system to be executed by a vigilant police, and in that,, security will be found.

I have heard others express fears of inroads, and border forays. Let me tell all such, that the Alleghany Eagle soars with as strong a wing and gazes with as unwinking an eye upon the sun as any similar bird from any other eyrie. If you fear those across the border, they also fear you. Yield not one inch in taking your position, whatever it may be.—That is the way to maintain your rights.—Sir, the slave States have, it is true, two thousand miles of border, but so have the free States. Their Cities and farms are quite as much exposed as are ours. The large cities are chiefly on their side. If Wheeling is in danger, so also is Pittsburg. Cincinnati is opposite to Newport. Do you think that those Ohio people are going to endanger Cincinnati, by making in inroad upon Newport? What are either side to gain by inroads? No, sir, it is to the interests of the borderers to keep the peace, and men are apt to pursue their interests. I have but little fear from that quarter. Mr. President, my policy stretches still farther than to the slave states. I want the government of the whole Union, sir; and you can acquire it if you pursue a wise and determined appendage to a Northern Confederacy. You cannot fasten her to the North, and what is there to induce Pennsylvania to remain? I have great hope of change in the politics of Pennsylvania. Sir, I heard a voice from New York last night. It was mellifluous, powerful, truthful. I know not whether the gentleman who uttered those sentiments be present in my hearing, the Hon. John Cochrane, of New York, (Yes, said some one, he is present,) if he is let me tell him that his own great imperial city of New York cannot stay where she is.—The South is her natural ally, and she must come with us.

And now what result may be anticipated? I say to you here, play your part properly; open your eyes and take a full expansive survey of all the circumstances that surround you. What will you have done if you get three or four of the free States and all the slave States go with you? What becomes of Mr. Lincoln’s General Government? Why you constitute a majority of the whole number of States; and if a majority of the whole number of States; and if a majority power means anything, it means that you are entitled to the scepter and the crown. The Government becomes yours almost decidedly. And I don’t despair of this result. All I say is that if my friends desire time, in the name of peace let them take time; let them take what time they may please, so that it be reasonable time. My constituents I know are in motion. They are composed of the old Whig Party five to one. They sent me her almost without consulting me. They have chosen to confer upon me the mantle of their representative in this Convention, and voted five to one against a reference to them of what we should do there. I feel it to have been a great honor. They are in motion, sir. You cannot keep the Virginia spirit down. And you cannot preserve any nomenclature of party in these times. He who attempts to establish a party for mere party victory and will find himself in a very miserable minority.

Well, sir, if you cannot act with those whose sentiments you consider extreme, do as my friend from Kanawha (Mr. SUMMERS,) told you. Let Virginia act for herself. Let your wise-heads lay down your ultimatum. Let that ultimatum consist of ample and full protection. Then send it to all the free States, saying “Here is our ultimatum; if you do not take that, we go out, we cannot longer continue with you.” It is not possible for us to remain at rest; we must do something.

Mr. President, that is the view I entertain upon this subject. Sir, about the Western part of Virginia I have not the slightest apprehension. There is a glory in the West that cannot fade away. It was there, at the dawn of the Revolution, that the first great victory was obtained, in advance of the fight at Bunker Hill. My friend alluded in glowing terms to the west There it was that your men of former times battled for the rights of your eminent domain. Point Pleasant is a marked place in history. A little higher up you vanquished the French and Indian legions, and drove them from Pittsburg, which afterwards Pennsylvania got from you under mistake in the survey. That is the whole secret of it. According to right, if that line had been run properly you would have got Pittsburg. What are the difficulties now in comparison with what they were then? Then there was a wilderness to settle; there were no habitations to be seen; it was a country uninhabited except by the roving savage. Cornstalk, the Indian chief, ruled the land, and was master of that region. It became necessary to extend your sway and your dominion; and your gallant Lewis and others of the West, trans-montane and cis-montane united, and you accomplished victory and glory in face of difficulties of immense magnitude.

Ex-Governor WISE.—(Interrupting)—And the battles of the North West.

Mr. TYLER.—Yes, sir, under the gallant Clark, and at an after day by the brave Kentuckians. But I am speaking exclusively of Virginia. Now, Gentlemen, here you stand in the mist of these evils. I fear that a dangerous and insidious policy is about to surround us. The patronage of the Administration begins to be distributed. Who is to be sent as representative to Spain? A man who is everywhere reproaching us, Cassius M. Clay. He is to go to Spain. Clay to acquire Cuba? Don’t dream about it. Sir, you will never get Cuba under this Administration. Cassius M. Clay, a perfect fanatic on the subject of slave property, is sent to Spain. Well, a better appointment is made in the representative of the Government to Mexico, Mr. Thomas Corwin. I have a very high respect for that gentleman. I think he is a more liberal man than the other in his views, and he is a man of high talent. Who is to go to England, who to France, and who to the other Courts of Europe, we know not yet. These will doubtless be of those who will be welcomed in Exeter Hall, and delight to put forth long tirades against us. These are the sort of men likely to be appointed to represent the United States in foreign courts, whose chief office and pleasure it will be to defame and abuse us upon the theatre of Europe. O, Sir, great events depend upon every moment of our lives. “There was a Brutus once that would have braved the very devil to keep his state in Rome, as proudly as a king.” And so it was once with old Virginia. Is she going to sneak about in order to obtain possible terms by which she is to keep in with the North? Or does she mean to stand upon the great platform of her rights? Does she mean to claim in her own behalf the application of her great magna charter to hold sacred her property under all circumstances and at all hazards? That is the Virginia that I have been born in and that I have been living in. I have traveled over her lofty Western mountains. I have wandered over those hills where slumber remains of Morgan, that gallant leader of the Rifles in many a had fought field; and among those hills you will find the graves of the gallant and the brave. My home is in sight of Jamestown, there our ancestors four years in advance of the British Parliament adopted the great petition of right which lies at the foundation of public liberty. The non-observance of the principles of that petition of right cost the head of one sovereign and the expulsion of another. I wander amid their graves and ponder beside their tombs. I find myself in Williamsburg, and the memories of the past cluster all around me. The Voice of Henry is heard from amid the ruins of the old capitol, and the dying echoes of the last cannon reverberate from the plains of Yorktown. In triumphant array our victorious hosts pass before me, and my eyes become riveted upon them and the tattered banner which those of Virginia proudly bear. It is the prototype of that which floats over this deliberative hall.

There they are, all of them. By the example of these illustrious men, I stand up for our rights as the only way to vindicate them.—Watchman, what time of the night? The hour has almost struck. Put down your ultimatum, and don’t stop there. Go a little further. You have already reported and anti-coercion bill. Let it be strong; let there be no sort of reserve upon its face. Let it say to these gentlemen in Washington as King Canute said to the waters of the great deep, “thus far, and no farther.” Arrest their warlike movements, if possible. Go a step further. Insist upon the observance of the statu quo precisely as it is. Not an additional man to garrison Fortress Monroe; not another to Harper’s Ferry; not another to Fort Washington; not another at the city of Washington. Do that, and you will do right. Then you can give time, reasonable time, for action on your ultimatum. Revolutions never go backward. Ponder on this, and be ready.

I have heard much abuse heaped on South Carolina. Now, preliminary to any remarks which I shall make upon that subject, I want merely to say that I am not in correspondence with any politicians upon the face of the globe. A newspaper, the New York “Times,” in a scurrilous article calling me traitor because I would not vote for this Peace Congress Proposition, accused me of being the mere attorney of South Carolina and the Government at Montgomery. Sir, I only mean to say that I never received a communication from either place, except by telegraph in reply to one dispatched from almost under the eye of the then President of the United States, with a view to preserve peace between the constants. I wrote no letter at all. My whole correspondence, limited as it is, is in another direction, and very much is confined to the North. I delight to correspond with the men of high talents, and the noble men of Massachusetts—for there are noble men there.—There is no man in the Union that I respect more highly than Edward Everett. I correspond with him occasionally—not on political subjects, but in the ordinary course of familiar correspondence. There is another whom I would like very much to make my correspondent, and that is Robert Winthrop of Massachusetts. There is but one more man in the wide world outside of my own family, that I have as a correspondent, and that is Dr. Sprague, of Albany, the venerable Presbyterian divine, the most distinguished man of his order in America. The New York “Times” could hardly, with all its knowledge of alchemy, extract treason out of this.

Now, sir, much has been said against South Carolina. Well, look upon the other hand, if you please that she might have been more patient and waited for the co-operation of her sister States, may be admitted. I have thought that the cotton States had better have retained their Senators and Representatives in their seats at Washington. Sir, they had in their hands a great power—the power of control over the public expenditures. They were in a majority in both houses in Congress, and they were destined to hold that majority for two years if they chose. All of us, who are familiar with history, know that the great instrument for saving public liberty against the licentiousness of the monarch in England, has been the control over the appropriations, the right to withhold appropriations. Sir, according to my conception, although I may be mistaken, they had this control in their hands and they threw it away. If I had been one of that majority, and my voice might have been heard, I would have begged and supplicated the cotton States to have held on to their position; and I would not have voted one dollar to Mr. Lincoln’s administration for the army and navy until he had come up to the high duties of statesmanship, and given such guarantees to the South as were necessary for their protection. I would have done as the Republican party did in the case of Kansas. But they threw away the game. So, at least I though. But it was for them to decide; and I no longer complain.

Now, I hold to the opinion that this consultation of the border slave States will amount to nothing. But put forth your ultimatum, sir; let it be, as I have said, strong and decisive, full of guarantees of security, and I don’t know what may be the effect of it  if you can get it adopted. I am not prepared to say that with these guarantees of protection, the seceded States of the south will not come back.

Well, Mr. President, what labor, what expenditure of means ought to be made to place in your power so glorious and so magnificent a result, as the restoration of the Union?

Sir, you cannot do without the cotton States. It is idle to talk of it. You must have the cotton States, if they can on proper terms be brought back. If those States to-morrow were put up at market overt, and you invited to the place of bidding; the nations of the earth, Russia, wrapped up in her furs, would be there; England with argosies freighted with treasure would be there; France would come with her imperial crown—and what price would be bid for them, it would puzzle arithmetic to determine. What would be the price to be paid down for them? Would you count it by millions? Or would you go up to billions and trillions? Why, look at it. The Foundation of all the exchanges of the world, the commerce of the world proceeds chiefly from them.

Go to the Exchanges of the world and you see that they are all regulated by cotton. Go to the North—why the whole North is covered over with glittering gems through the cotton trade. And yet it is to be thrown away because of your conception that South Carolina guarantees which cost nothing, to reclaim so great a treasure. Why cannot the free States, if they really design you no harm, give the necessary guarantees to secure you? I fear that they desire disunion. Disunion is to them the high road to office; and I fear that many of their politicians would rather “rule in hell than serve in Heaven.” South Carolina was a glorious star in the firmament, and I want her to shine there again in all her brightness and glory. Who has forgotten her Marion, her Pickens, and her Sumter? Who has forgotten—even the boys at their school have learned it—who has forgotten King’s Mountain and its glory? Sir, I remember an incident connected with King’s mountain.—When traveling in the railroad cars, I fell in with Mr. Bancroft, the historian. “I am just from King’s Mountain,” he said, “they have had a great celebration there, and I have been delighted beyond measure. I went over with William C. Preston, I accompanied him in his carriage upon that occasion. Stricken down as he was in the flower of his life, there was enough of intellect still to coruscate into jewels everything around him, magnificent in its splendor, brilliant in everything that related to him. There he was. They called upon him for a speech; and even there, amidst that decrepitude, broken down as he was by paralysis, a stranger at his home by the severance of his domestic ties, which he lamented and mourned over ‘like a deer,’ he found his way to the heart of every human being who heard him.” That was what Mr. Bancroft said.

Well, sir, you are going to throw up this.—Gems so bright as your cotton interest you are going to discard. Whither are you going? You have to choose your association. Will you find it among the icebergs of the North or the cotton fields of the South? What will you gain by going North? Will you jeopardize for an association with the North your great interest arising under your domestic institutions? That interest is worth $300,000,000.—Decide upon association with the North, and you reduce it two-thirds in value. Nor is that all—a still more evil day will befall you.—Brennus may not be yet in the capitol, but he will soon be there, and the sword will be thrown into the scale to weigh against our liberties, and there will be no Camillus to expel him.

Sir, I am done. I know that I have presented my views to you most feebly. I have presented them, however, with all the frankness with which one Virginian should talk to another upon this great occasion. You have much more wisdom that I possess. I look with fear and trembling, to some extent, at the condition of my country. But I do not want to see Virginia united—I which to see her carrying her head as she carried it in former times—The time was, when she did not fear. I have entire confidence that her proud crest will yet be seen waiving in the great procession of States that go up to the temple to make their vows to maintain their liberties, “peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must.” Sir, I am done.

SOURCES: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 598-600, 607; Charles William Kent, Literary Editor, Library of Southern Literature, Volume 12, p. 5551-5554; “The Virginia State Convention. Speech of Ex-President Tyler,” Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, Saturday Morning, March 30, 1861, pp. 1 & 4; John Robert Irelan, The Republic, Or, A History of the United States of America in the Administrations, From the Monarchic Colonial Days to the Present Times, Vol. 10, p. 176-7, 395-7; William Flewellen Samford, Letter of William F. Samford, Esq. of Alabama, to Governor Wise, p. 21; George Henkle Reese, Editor, Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention of 1861, February 13-May 1, Vol. 1, p. 660-81