Showing posts with label Southern Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Southern Rights. Show all posts

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Diary of Corporal John Worrell Northrop, Friday, May 6, 1864

BEHIND THE ENEMY'S GUNS; LEE AND LONGSTREET.

Up at earliest dawn. Feeling quite well. The sound of battle was in our ears. The ground is very foul here; a winter camp and a fresh battle ground. Dead cavalrymen, killed yesterday are in our midst, our men bury them. At daylight Longstreet's corps came up on a forced march, moving close to us; it was two hours passing. General Longstreet and staff call at General Lee's headquarters, a hundred yards distant. The fore part of last night several batteries were hurried past, sent, I think, to Lee's right. I think this early fighting is to facilitate a movement by our left wing around Lee's right. Hard to get water. They let a few men out with canteens under guard. When Longstreet returned to his column he was accompanied by General Lee. A short time they stood together dismounted, with bared heads, opposite us on the other side of Longstreet's cheering columns hastening to battle. Grave  concern was on their faces. Magnificent men; but I felt oppressed with the fact of their attitude toward their country, fighting to disrupt it, to maintain a claim of right to perpetuate slavery by unlimited extension; to curse the whole country as it curses the South. Educated to serve the Nation, sworn to do it, they break their oaths by acts most treasonable, justifying their course by the flimsy pretext of the acts of their states in seceding because a president, not their choice is elected. It is apalling how men of large ability and boasted dignity, stultify themselves! the greater the men the greater their responsibility for wrongful acts. The roar of deadly battle this good morning witnesseth their and their associates sin. What wretched perversion of the sentiment of patriotism! Their cause fails, God rules! General Lee and staff passed close to me at 7 o'clock, galloping to the front. He has a pleasant face, peculiarly impressive but stern; an imperative temperament that inspires confidence, admiration and fear, the austere features lighted by geniality and persistent characteristics signifying strength of nature, but liable to act from illogical and dangerous influence that appeals to prejudice, narrow pride, warped by false traditions; a bent of character when once it espouses illegitimate conclusions, devotes his best ability to accomplish ends his better judgment had condemned.

The battle had opened at 5 o'clock, our sixth corp[s] attacking. Firing terrific, nearer this point than last night but farther west, came nearer steadily, our forces driving till Longstreet's corp[s] reached the field, overlapping our line and regained the position from which our forces had driven them. Had our attack occurred an hour earlier, decisive defeat of the Rebel forces engaged must have resulted before Longstreet could have arrived. Our lines are reported in confusion and falling back.

The rest of our party who avoided capture last night, are brought in after trying all night to escape. Officers are as humble as privates, look full as serious over prospects. Talk of exchange as soon as the campaign is over, July at the farthest. But the duration of this campaign is uncertain. A great disaster on either side would need it. If there are no decisive results, and a prospect of transferring the struggle to the vicinity of Richmond—Butler is already near there—it will be longer than any other Virginia campaign. Lee will get no peace as long as Grant maintains a position between Fredericksburg and Richmond, until he is in his stronghold; then Lee's fate will be settled. Fortunate we shall be if we see our lines by September. By 8 a. m. fighting ceased; wounded coming in fast. Confederates taken to field hospitals, our wounded put with us. Some have lain all night, are chilled badly. It is hard to see so many bleeding men shot through faces, arms, legs, bodies, broken limbs, distorted mouths, one with eye-ball dangling on his cheek, blood clotted on his face, neck and breast. They let us help them from ambulances. They cry for water, some stupid, some shaking with chills and crying for blankets. Rebels claim they whipped us yesterday; but they have no advantage except in position; in that they are losing. They admit two generals killed and Longstreet wounded. Fog clears away; gets pleasant.

LEAVE BATTLE LINE FOR PRISON—INTERVIEW REBEL OFFICER.

At 10 a. m. about 700 prisoners started for Orange Court House. Day hot, road dusty. We meet supply trains, ambulances, troops and a few conveyances with civilians pushing to the front, and for twenty miles groups of stragglers limping on, some lying down, the hardest looking lot of men ever seen trying to get to their commands. As we met the troops they cried, "What brigade's that?" "Are you on to Richmond?" "Where's Grant?" We were told that already a large portion of his army was north of the Rappahannock. Sneers, jeers and words of contempt we did not notice; but when they told us we were whipped we replied bitterly, "You fool yourselves." Till noon we march fast, the guard keeping ranks closed up, threatening if one lagged. We suffered with thirst, wallowed in a constant cloud of dust, panted with heat and chafed over our terrible luck.

Our guard claims to be General Lee's bodyguard; better men than the general run of Rebel soldiers. They grew sociable and easy with us. We halted at noon near a creek in woods by the roadside, until lately an army camp, and rested an hour. Bathing my head and neck freely in the stream, I felt better. A man about forty years old, a Captain, was eager to talk politics. I saw him talking to one of our soldiers who was irritated by his secesh notions, which he put forward in a good natured but overbearing way. The boy could not stand it and "blew on him" and took another seat. Anxious for a little Copperhead philosophy from a Southerner, I took a position nearly in front of him, my friend Thompson on my right, and called him out. The group that listened were convinced that Northern sympathizers are of the Virginia stripe, the same bird that can see only in the night of slavery and Southern rights and the art of secession; and while he believed in secession he was not of the "fire-eater" temperament but would have preferred the further way round to the same point. That is, he preferred that the slavery question be settled in favor of slaveholders in the Union. But "Black Republicans" and "Nigger Stealers" had seized the bridge, and the South had gone all one way by the Secession route." "We conservatives fell in at last feeling elated and sure," said he, "that when we get secession, friends at the North will help us to pin to the wall the radicals, hang abolishionists, suppress every newspaper like old Greeley's and stop the incendiary preaching against slavery, and reestablish the Union on Southern ideas proclaimed by Alexander H. Stephens in his inauguration speech, making slavery the chief cornerstone of a new government."

We accepted his declaration as very frank and representative of so-called Virginia conservatives. Consequently they rejoiced to see a party crying down the administration, praying that that party shall rise to power, in Northern States, hurl every man from positions of trust that does not believe in the policy of the extreme Southern leaders on the slavery doctrine, with the fiercenes of vigilance committees. I had read much of this many times in stanch newspapers, ratification speeches and in platforms. While in his mind lurked a love for Union, he said: "First and always the independence of the South must be the end of this war." If Northern "doe-faces" would still whine for a Union on "time-honored principles" namely, on any terms dictated by Calhoun disciples, their manhood and patriotism is a nullity. A thousand times have I wept and raved that Northerners should palaver over this deliberate treason of the South, failing to see the issue so plain that he who runs may read. There never was a more direct conflict of principles than this in which America is engaged.

To detail all was said is impossible. I give some points to show his logic. I open by saying it was foolish to "flare up," that we ought to be able to talk even if we were prisoners, but if we could not express our views we had nothing to say; that if free discussion had been allowed by the South for the last thirty years instead of hanging Northerners for expressing opinions we would thought better of each other, the problem would have been solved without war.

Tis home is at Leesburg, Va., in Union lines. His wife resides there. He had known General Lee many years and from the first was ready to follow him either way in this contest; so was all northern Virginia. He confirmed my assertion that if Lee had stood for the Union and offered his services, that the majority of Virginians would have been on the side of the Union, and there would have been no State of West Virginia; also that Lee deprecated secession, regarded it revolutionary and contrary to the intention of the founders of the government, and if successfully it would multiply the very evils slaveholders complain of. But he justified his ultimate course by the fact that his State had seceded, that it had a right to secede, and that his duty to Virginia was paramount to his allegiance to the national government.

 "A majority of Southern men are States rights," said he, "and when it appeared that the South would secede, State after State, it was plain to Southerners that the Union had gone to pieces,—nothing left to hang to, even if every Northern State should legalize nigger slavery and embellish all Northern political platforms with Southern notions about that 'peculiar institution.' Southern rights, secession, and slavery is the prevailing trend, out and out slave confederacy the aim. No man of character can live in the South and attain success without slaves, or an heirdom, pecuniarily or socially. A slave holder has standing; it is a certificate of character, a credential that takes him everywhere, to be master and owner of labor. He holds the church in his hand, and in his grip the politicians and the state. The press must be his tool. He is master of society as well as his slaves; commands respect from centers of fashion and trade, even in England and France regardless of professed aversion to slavery. You had not a merchant in New York, of wealth and influence, who did not cater to the hated slave-power; always will out of the Union the same as in."

He owned slaves when the war began; he had thirty-three. He said: "You nigger stealers got all but one, and he is a cook in Lee's army." Then to my surprise he said:

"I never did believe slavery right; it began by stealing and piracy, and you fellows mean it shall end the same way. It is practically the curse, of the South, degrading to the master morally; degrading to the mass who never did and never can hold slaves; yet the mass are the bone and sinew of its strength. Slavery is to be the cornerstone of the Confederacy; but that stone rests upon the bare backs of the non-slave holding rank and file. They must be our military strength. They are not and cannot be our industrial strength; that belongs to the slaves under the whip. The wealth, social and political power, lie with slave owners; they are the land owners; they rule the white mass as effectually and at less cost than they control the blacks. The future of the South is a military empire and necessarily a wealthy power."

I endorsed his prophesy, if the South should succeed, and asked: "If slavery is not right, why are you fighting to maintain it? Why will it not be abolished? He said:

"The South has made it a permanent system not only of domestic importance, but a state policy, a source of social, economical and political strength. The abolishionists are not strong enough

to abolish it; secession has placed it beyond their reach. It is an accomplished fact. If the Confederacy is not recognized this summer it will be be [sic] after the fall election. The wealth power of the North, then, through commercial and financial interests, will be weighed against you."

"You are deluded, Sir, in assuming that secession, if successful, will put slavery beyond the growing power of abolishionism. Freedom is progressive; your boast arrays civilization and progress against you. Again you are wrong in assuming that the Confederacy will be recognized this year or next. The rabid spirit of the slave power has called into greater force the love of liberty, the principle written in the Declaration of Independence, than has been known for ages. The very fact that your great men of Virginia today repudiate Washington, Jefferson, Henry and Madison, convicts you of treason to the spirit of '76. Your apparent chance of success as it seemed to exist has gone. You stole States, forts, arms, men trained at government cost, until we had nothing left in the South and but little in the North. We then proposed to coax you to old fashioned loyalty patched with a new slavery grant. But you thought you had it all. We now propose to restore the Union and purge it of slavery. Instead of recognition you will see that secession will go to pieces and your Confederacy will collapse. We were unprepared for this fight, you boasted you were ready. We are now ready and your power must wane. It will cost less to save the Union without slavery than with it. Should you now offer to accept our first purpose, to save the Union, with slavery, the North would scorn it. The trend is against your scheme of a black Utopia, a slave owning, slave breeding, slave selling, slave working empire.

"Had the Democrats of the North done as they might have done you would not have been here, boys. Abe Lincoln could not have carried on the war. The abolishionists will have a sweet time up North this fall if they run McClellan for president." "What did you expect they would do?"

"Do what they said they would, oppose the draft and war by force, not let the abolishionists rule."

"Is it possible you expected what you call the Democrats would assist you?"

"We cal'lated their opposition to Lincoln would prevent war, but they kept still and let him control the people and gave him power in Congress and had not nerve to oppose him."

"But it was your party that gave him power in Congress by seceding; they boasted North that Lincoln could not choose his Cabinet except by sanction of a Democratic Senate."

"Yes, but we had seceded, and there would have been less bloodshed had they shed some."

"You deceived yourselves."

"Should not have been deceived had Seymour led the New York riot. When he was elected Governor the South rejoiced; New York would send no more men and when that riot came up we expected great things; but instead of running it he let it run itself; he might have helped us there."

"What, you don't suppose Horatio Seymour is in sympathy with secession! He will stand for the Union till the last." My aim was to make them believe that the North is a unit. So I added: "The people of the South have, and will rely in vain upon this element; the mere difference of opinion never will injure our strength. The North is as one man on the question of Union and never will give it up; they can whip you and will do it."

"See what they will do if they elect McClellan, he is your best man; you never ought to have removed him."

"Will you come back into the Union if he should be elected?"

"Never; we'd be d----d fools to come into the Union then. Never; until all States shall have adopted policies favorable to slavery!"

He said the administration would have interfered with slavery if they had not gone to war. I quoted from the Chicago resolutions, speeches and the resolutions of Congress after they had seceded and left the power in the hands of the Republicans, showing they were anxious to give them every guarantee not to interfere with the local establishment of slavery by legislation; that they persisted in revolt and measures were adopted accordingly. "You invited war," I said, "and that invites the use of the war power against slavery. After it is over you may resume rightful relations in other matters but slavery will be ended."

"Well, niggers run into Pennsylvania and they would not let them come back."

"Recognize your Confederacy; will not the nigger go over? Will it not be an inducement to run away? Will your fugitive slave law apply?"

"Yes, they may run away."

"Will we as a nation give them up?"

"I don't know; reckon not."

"What will you do if we don't?"

"We'll fight for them."

"What have you gained there?"

"It's a state right to secede; you deny it, we establish it."

"Could you maintain a Confederacy three years?"

"I presume not; South Carolina'd kick up a muss in six months and raise h--l."

"Then the other States would have to assume the obligations of the Confederacy; this would produce discontent; what would you do?"

"Well, I s'pose we'd whip her back."

Taking him by the buttonhole, I said: "Where are your state rights, man?"

Amid the shouts of the boys he laughed, frowned, colored, and was much agitated, and said:

"Damn her; she and Massachusetts ought to've been shoved into the ocean years ago."

"That can't be done; you'd whip her back and that is precisely what we are doing only on a larger scale. Can you blame us for whipping you back?"

"Never can do it. We will have our independence; without that there will not be a slave in the South; a man is a fool that thinks we are fighting for compromise, or will give up till we are whipped, or force you to concede our rights."

"So we might as well have it out and end the matter, slavery question and all."

"Yes, sir; we agree on that."

"We are going to do it," shouted the boys.

Giving him a Union hardtack and receiving one of his, feeling heartily thankful that we had over an hour's talk with an officer of Lee's bodyguard, we pursued our dreary journey, considerably rested.

TALKS AND INCIDENTS AT GORDONSVILLE.

Passing Mine Run we got a view of that formidable position which we invested in December last and realized the wisdom of General Meade's caution in retiring. The most important place on the route is Old Verdersville where we raided her public wells. Many of our men were overcome with thirst, heat and cramps. Griffith and I had some dried currants and Jamaica ginger which we distributed much to their relief. It was eight in the evening, and very dark when we arrived at Orange Court House. They put us in the court house yard which is paved with cobble stones and surrounded by an iron fence, so crowded that there was not room for all to lie down. We had come 25 miles, was faint, tired, dejected; had eaten but little all day, piecing out the remnant of rations drawn May 3 and 4, not knowing when the Rebels would issue any.

SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 30-8

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Frank G. Ruffin to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, November 2, 1852

SHADWELL, ALBEMARLE Co., [VA.], November 2nd, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: I know not if a man retired as I am from politics and never very active or influential in that field has a title to ask a favour even at the hands of one of his own strait sect; but as I speak not in my own behalf but for another I have ventured to approach you on the subject.

I learn, but not from himself, or by his agency, that in case Mr. Pierce shall have been elected, my friend, Gov[erno]r McDonald of Georgia has been mentioned in his own and some other contiguous states as a suitable member of the Cabinet: and it has been suggested that your influence would avail in getting him into that position. I need not mention to you how true he has been to the rights of the South and that he is not more of a disunionist than you and I, that is to say, as the lady remarked of Wilkes, "he does not squint more than every gentleman ought to." But I may say, what his retiring disposition and rare modesty may have prevented your knowing, that he is a man of marked ability, of wise moderation, of Roman firmness, of devoted patriotism, and of the loftiest public and private character. Every drop of his blood pulseth in accordance with Southern rights; and had every Southern man been as wise, as prudent, and as firm as he we should not now have to mourn the surrender of those rights?

I presume from Cobb's activity, that he is after some such post. You know him. Ought such a man, dead in his own state, except perhaps for purposes of mischief, to supplant him whom I propose, and thus rise one step higher towards that office which he has sought by betraying not only his own section, but the very principles which he proposes to maintain? Would it not be a step gained that the President of the Nashville Convention should aid the deliberations of Mr. Pierce?

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 149

Saturday, October 14, 2023

James A. Seddon to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, February 7, 1852

RICHMOND, [Va.], February 7, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: For some days past, I have been suffering serious inconvenience and confinement from my vexatious complaints (of which I have a score) and consequently have been prevented from either acknowledging your friendly letter to myself or communicating my views upon the interesting points suggested in your confidential letter to our friend Goode who in pursuance of the leave allowed him submitted it to me. My opinions are worth very little indeed, especially now that my thoughts and feelings are so little given to political subjects but such as they are, will ever be most sincerely and frankly at the services of a friend so highly valued as yourself. I agree with you readily as to the position and duty of the Southern Rights (or as I prefer the States Rights) party of the South in the coming presidential struggle. Personally I should have preferred a separate organization and action on their part and 18 months ago, when I still hoped their spirit and their strength might prove equal to their zeal and the justice of their cause, I should have advised that course. Now however it is apparent, their cause as a political one is lost and thus separate action would be more than preposterous-would be suicidal. The cursed Bonds of party paralized our strength and energy when they might have been successfully exerted, and now as some partial compensation must sustain and uphold us from dispersion and prostration. In reviewing the past I am inclined to think the great error we committed in the South was the uniting at all in council or action with the Whigs. Their timidity betrayed more than treason. We should have acted in and through the Democratic party alone. Certainly that is all that remains to us now to do. We have and can maintain (within certain limits of considerable latitude) ascendency in the Democratic party of the South and probably controlling influence on the general policy and action of the whole party in the Union. The Union party, par excellence, we can proscribe and crush. What miserable gulls the Union Democrats of the South find them, and I am inclined to think the Union Whigs will not fair much better. "Woodcocks caught in their own springs." Of both for the most part, it may be safely said, they were venal or timid-knaves or fools and most richly will they deserve disappointment and popular contempt. The Southern Rights men by remaining in full communion with the Democratic party will be at least prepared for two important objects-to inflict just retribution on deserters and traitors to sustain, it may be, reward friends and true men. I go for the States Rights men making themselves the Simon pures of Southern Democracy—the standard bearers and champions in the coming presidential fight.

Now as for the candidate. We must exclude Cass and every other such cats paw of Clay and the Union Whigs. We must have a candidate too who will carry the Middle States or rather on whom the Democracy of the Middle States will rally. Too many factions prevail in those states to allow any prominent man among them to unite all the Democracy. Besides they are peculiarly wanting in fit available men. It is rather farcical to be sure to those who know to insist on Douglas as most fit. The best man for the Presidency and yet I have for more than than [sic] a year thought it was coming to that absurdity. On many accounts I concur with you in believing he is our best chance and that we had better go in for him at once and decidedly, making our adhesion if we can [be] conclusive of the nomination. You know I have long thought better of his capacity than most of our friends, especially the Judge and he is at least as honest and more firm than any of his competitors. I should be disposed therefore to urge him.

As to the vice presidency, I am strongly inclined to urge the continued use of your name, unless your personal repugnance is insuperable. I can readily understand your present position to be more acceptable to your personal feelings. I think it the most agreeable position under the Government, but ought not other considerations to weigh seriously. There is the chance of the Presidency by vacancy, not much perhaps but still to be weighed. There is a certain niche in History to all time which to a man not destitute of ambition is an object. There is to your family the highest dignity and respect attached to the Vice Presidency in popular estimation. In this last point of view, is not something due too to your State. Southern States can hardly longer aspire to give Presidents. Whatever belated honors are to be cast on them must be through sub or direct stations and of these the Vice Presidency is the first.

These considerations I think should prevail and I suspect would, if some personal feelings reflected from the general estimate of your friends in regard to Douglas and a just estimate as I know and feel it of your own subornity did not make you revolt at a secondary position on his ticket. You may too fear that the influence and estimation of your character among the true men of the South might be impaired by this sort of a doubtful alliance with Northern politicians and schemers even of the most unobjectionable stamp. All these considerations are not without weight with me. I feel them to the full as much on your account as you can well do yourself, and yet I think they ought not to control. We must be practical as politicians and statesmen to be useful—a high position—good—a position of acknowledged influence and confessed participation in the administration ought not to be lost to the States Rights men from over refined scruples and feelings. As Vice President, I believe you could and would have great influence in the administration and that influence might prove of immense value to our cause in the South.

If however your objections personally are insuperable, I am too truly your friend to insist on their reliquishment. We must then look out for and obtain the next best of our school, who is available. I should not advise as you suggest J[ohn] Y. M[ason]. He is not strictly of us—is too flexible—too needy and too diplomatic to be fully relied upon. I fear we should have to go out of our State, unless Douglas could be content with Meade or with Goode himself. Bayly might have done but for his desertion, which has lost all old friends and gained none new. Jefferson Davis would be the best if he would accept. If not, what would be said to Gov[ernor] Chapman of Al[abam]a. He is I think a true man. Excuse an abrupt close. I have exhausted my only paper.

[P. S.] My best regards to the Judge and Mr. Mason. Write whenever you have a spare hour to bestow on a friend.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 136-9

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Congressman Albert G. Brown’s Speech in the House of Representatives, on Slavery, and on the action of the Administration in relation to California and New Mexico, January 30, 1850

GENTLEMEN say they deprecate discussion on the subject of slavery. My judgment approves it. We have gone too far to recede without an adjustment of our difficulties. Better far that this agitation should never have commenced. But when wrong has been perpetrated on one side and resented on the other, an adjustment in some form is indispensable. It is better so than to leave the thorn of discord thus planted, to rankle and fester, and finally to produce a never-healing sore. We need attempt no such useless task as that of disguising from ourselves, our constituents, and in truth the world at large, that ill blood has been engendered, that we are losing our mutual attachment, that we are daily becoming more and more estranged, that the fibres of the great cord which unites us as one people are giving way, and that we are fast verging to ultimate and final disruption. I hold no communion with the spurious patriotism which closes its eyes to the dangers which visit us, and with a loud voice, sing hosannas to the Union; such patriotism will not save the Union, it is destructive of the Union. Open wide your eyes and look these dangers full in the face, and with strong arms and stout hearts assault them, vanquish them, and on the field of your triumph erect an altar sacred to the cause of liberty, and on that altar offer as a willing sacrifice this accursed demon of discord. Do this, and we are safe; refuse, and these dangers will thicken, these misty elements will grow darker and blacker as days roll on. The storm which now lingers will burst, and the genius of dissolution will preside where the Union now is.

I am for discussion, for an interchange of sentiments. Let there be no wrangling about small grievances, but with an elevated patriotism—a patriotism high as our noble mountains, and broad as the Union itself—let us come to the consideration of the difficulties and dangers which beset us.

In all matters of dispute it is important to consider who committed the first wrong; until this is done, no satisfactory basis of an adjustment can be established.

The Union is divided in sentiment upon a great question, by a geographical line. The North is opposed to slavery, and the South is in favor of it. The North is for abolishing it, the South is for maintaining it. The North is for confining it within it in its present limits, where they fancy it will languish, and languishing, will die. The South is for leaving it unrestrained to go wherever (within our limits) it may be invited by soil, climate, and population. These issues and their necessary incidents have brought the two ends of the Union into their present perilous position—a position from which one or the other must recede, or a conflict, dangerous to liberty and fatal to the Union, will certainly ensue.

Who is at fault, or rather who was first in fault in this fraternal quarrel? We were the owners of slaves; we bought them from your fathers. We never sought to make slaveholders of you, nor to force slavery upon you. When you emancipated the remnant of your slaves, we did not interpose. Content to enjoy the fruits of our industry at home, within our own limits, we never sought to intrude upon your domestic quiet. Not so with you. For twenty years or more, you have not ceased to disturb our peace. We have appealed in vain to your forbearance. Not only have you disregarded these appeals, but every appeal has been followed by some new act of outrage and aggression. We have in vain pointed to our domicils, and begged that you would respect the feelings of their inmates. You have threatened them with conflagration. When we have pointed to our wives and our sleeping infants, and in their names besought your forbearance, you have spurned our entreaties and mocked the fears of these sacred pledges of our love. Long years of outrage upon our feelings and disregard of our rights have awakened in every southern heart a feeling of stern resistance. Think what you will, say what you will, perpetrate again and again if you will, these acts of lawless tyranny; the day and the hour is at hand when every southern son will rise in rebellion, when every tongue will say, Give us justice or give us death.

I repeat, we have never sought to disturb your quiet. We have forborne to retaliate your wrongs. Content to await a returning sense of justice, we have submitted. That sense of justice, we fear, never will return, and submission is no longer a virtue. We owe it to you, to ourselves, to our common country, to the friends of freedom throughout the world, to warn you that we intend to submit no longer.

Gentlemen tell us they do not believe the South is in earnest. They believe we will still submit. Let me warn them to put away that delusion. It is fatal to the cause of peace. If the North embrace it the Union is gone. It is treason to encourage a hope of submission. Tell the truth, speak out boldly, go home and tell your people the issue is made up; they must now choose between non-interference with southern rights on the one side, and a dissolution of the Union on the other. Tell them the South asks nothing from their bounty, but only asks their forbearance.

The specious arguments by which you cover up your unauthorized attempts to drive us from the territories may deceive the unwary, but an enlightened public sentiment will not fail to detect its fallacy, and posterity will award you the credit of destroying the Union in a lawless effort to seize the spoils of a victory won by other hearts and hands than yours. Territory now free must remain free, say you. Who gave you the right to speak thus oracularly? Is this an acquisition of your own, or is it a thing obtained by the joint effort of us all? I have been told that the United States acquired the territory from Mexico, and that the Congress, speaking for the United States, must dispose of it. Technically speaking, the United States did make the acquisition; but what is the United States? a mere agent for the states, holding for them certain political powers in trust, to be exercised for their mutual benefit, and among these is the power to declare war and make peace. In the exercise of these powers the territory was acquired, and for whom? Not certainly for the agent, but for the principal. Not for the United States, but the states.

Who fought the battles, who won the victories which resulted in the acquisition? The people of the United States? Certainly not. There is no such thing as the people of the United States. They can perform no act—have in fact no political existence. Do the people of the United States elect this Congress? No; we are elected by states—most of us by districts in states. The states elect senators, and the President is himself elected by state electoral colleges, and not by the people of the United States. There is no such political body as the people of the United States; they can do nothing, have done nothing, have in fact no existence. When the war with Mexico began, on whom did the President call? Not, certainly, on the people of the United States, but on the people of the states by states, and by states they responded, by states they made their contributions to the grand army; and whatever was acquired, was of necessity acquired for the states, each having an equal interest; and the United States, as agent, trustee, or general repository of the common fund, is bound to do equal and exact justice to all the parties interested.

The army was created and supported by thirty sovereignties allied together. These sovereignties acted through a common head for the common defence and general welfare of all. But it does not follow that such head may rightfully appropriate the award of the conflict to fifteen of the allies, leaving nothing to the remaining fifteen. Sovereigns are equal; there is no such thing as great or small sovereigns, or, to speak more correctly, sovereigns of great and small degree. They are equals, except when by conventional agreement that equality is destroyed. No such agreement has been made between the sovereigns composing our confederacy. Hence, Delaware is equal to New York, and the fifteen southern states are equal to the fifteen northern states. It follows that the fifteen sovereignties of the North cannot exclude the fifteen sovereignties of the South from an equal participation in, and control over, the joint acquisition or property of all. Nor can the common agent, the United States, hearken to the voice of the fifteen northern in preference to those of the fifteen southern allies. So long as one of the sovereigns in alliance protests against a common disposition of what belongs to all and to each one in an equal degree, no disposition can be rightfully made. The strong may take by force from the weak, but in such case power gives the right. The North may take from the South in this way, unless perchance it should turn out in the course of the conflict that the South is the stronger party, in which case it would be our right to take from you.

Without pursuing this course of reasoning, unprofitable as I feel it must be, I come at once to the conclusion, that we of Mississippi have the same right to go into the territories with our slave property as you of New York have to go there with your personal estate of whatever kind. And if you deny us this right, we will resist your authority, and to the last extremity. You affect to think us not in earnest in this declaration. Look at the attitude of the South; hear her voice as it comes up from her bench, her bar, her legislative halls, and, above all, from her people. Sir, there is not a hamlet in the South from which you will not hear the voice of stern resistance to your lawless mandate. Our men will write it on their shields, our women will teach little children to lisp it with their earliest breath. I invoke your forbearance on this question. Ask yourselves if it is right to exasperate eight millions of people upon an abstraction; a matter to us of substance and of life, but to you the merest shadow of an abstraction. Is it likely, let me ask, that the Union can survive the shock which must ensue if you drive eight millions of people to madness and desperation? Look, sir, to the position of Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the glorious old state of South Carolina; listen to the warning voice of these, and all the Southern States, as they come to us upon every breeze that sweeps from the South, and tell me if we are not sporting above a volcano. Oh! gentlemen, pause, I beseech you, in this mad career. The South cannot, will not, DARE not submit to your demand. The consequences to her are terrible beyond description; to you forbearance would be a virtue—virtue adorned with love, truth, justice, and patriotism. To some men I can make no appeal. I appeal not to the gentleman from Ohio. He, like Peter the Hermit, feels himself under some religious obligation to lead on this crusade. I make no appeal to the putative father of the Wilmot proviso; like Ephraim, he is joined to his idols—I will let him alone. But to sound men, to patriotic and just men, I do make a solemn appeal that they array themselves on the side of the Constitution, and save the Union. When the fatal step is taken it will be too late to repent the folly of this hour. When the deed is done, and the fatal consequences have fallen upon us, it will be vain, idle, worse than folly to deprecate the evil councils which now prevail. Now, now is the time for good men to do their duty. Let those who desire to save the Constitution and the Union come out from among the wicked and array themselves on the side of justice. And here in this hall, erected by our fathers and dedicated to liberty and law, we will make new vows, enter into new covenants to stand together and fight the demon of discord until death shall summon us to another and better world.

You think that slavery is a great evil. Very well, think so; but keep your thoughts to yourselves. If it be an evil, it is our evil; if it be a curse, it is our curse. We are not seeking to force it upon you; we intend to keep it ourselves. If you do not wish to come in contact with this crying evil, stay where you are, it will never pursue you.

For myself, I regard slavery as a great moral, social, political, and religious blessing—a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master. This is my opinion. I do not seek to propagate it. It does not concern me whether you think so or not. I have seen more of slavery than you, know more about it; and my opinions are, I think, worth more than yours. Slavery, African slavery, was, as I religiously believe, planted in this country through the providence of God; and he, in his own good time, will take it away. Civilization dawned in Africa. The Christian religion was preached to the African race before its votaries carried it to other lands. Africa had the glad tidings of the Saviour long before his divine mission was revealed to us. And where is she now? Centuries have passed away, and all traces of Christianity, every vestige of civilization, have departed from that degraded and benighted land—a race of cannibals, roasting, eating men as we do swine and cattle. Resisting with fire and sword all efforts of Christian ministers to lift them from the deep degradation, they perseveringly worship idols and graven images, and run continually after false gods. Look at the condition of this people, and contrast it with the worst condition of the same race in this country, and tell me if the eye of fancy, in its utmost stretch, can measure the elevation at which the Southern slave stands above the African in his native jungle? And yet philanthropy, double distilled, extra refined philanthropy, bewails in piteous accents the fallen condition of the poor slave. The negro race in the South have been civilized; many of them evangelized. Some are pure Christians; all have been improved in their moral, social, and religious condition. And who shall undertake to say it was not within the providence of their Creator to transplant them to our soil for wise, beneficent, and holy purposes?

It is no part of my purpose to discuss this proposition. The subject, in this view of it, belongs rather to the pulpit than to the halls of legislation.

It may seem to those not familiar with the state of public sentiment North and South, and the dangerous issues to which it is conducting us, out of time and out of place for us to discuss the value of the Union. I am not afraid of the consequences of such a discussion. It is a discussion not to be coveted, but one which the times and tempers of men have forced upon us. It is useless to deny that the Union is in danger. To discuss its value is to ascertain its worth. When we shall have done this, we can better decide how great a sacrifice we can afford to make to secure its perpetuity.

We of the South have ever been the fast friends of the Union. We have been so from an earnest attachment to its founders, and from a feeling of elevated patriotism, a patriotism which rises above all grovelling thoughts, and entwines itself about our country, and our whole country. We have made, and are now making day by day, greater sacrifices to uphold and maintain the Union in all its purity and dignity, than all the other parts of the country. Drop for a moment the sacrifice of feeling; forget the galling insults you are habitually heaping upon us, and let us look to other sacrifices. We export annually, in rice, cotton, and tobacco, the peculiar products of our soil, more than seventy-five millions of dollars in value. Your whole national exports do but a little exceed one hundred and forty millions of dollars. These articles of southern export are the support of your immense carrying trade, and of all your flourishing and profitable commerce; and these do not include the sugar of Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, nor do I estimate the cotton, rice, and tobacco consumed in the United States. If all these were embraced, our exports could not fall short of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars. I need not add, that as a separate, independent confederacy we should have the heaviest agricultural export of any people on the face of the earth; and that our wealth would in a short time be commensurate with our immense exports, no reasonable man can doubt. In the Union, our exports become the common trading fund of the nation, and the profits go into the general coffers. We know all this; and more, we know how much we contribute to the support of the Government, and we know too how little we get back. It gives me no pleasure to discuss questions like this, but a solemn duty I will not forego, from any mawkish, sentimental devotion to the Union. It is right that we fully understand one another. You think the South is not in earnest. Now, this opinion is based upon one of two hypotheses, either that we are too much devoted to the Union to run the hazard of its dissolution by a manly vindication of our rights; or else that we are afraid to encounter the perils of a dissolution. That we have loved the Union is most true. That our affections entwine themselves about it, and are reluctant to give it up, is also true. But our affection is no ordinary plant. Nourish it, and it will grow in the poorest soil. Neglect it, or trample upon it, and it will perish in the richest fields. I will not recount the story of our wrongs. I but ask you, can such wrongs ever be the handmaids of love, of that mutual and earnest, devoted love, which stood godfather when the infant Union was baptized, and without whose fostering care it cannot, will not, must not survive? Throw an impartial eye over the history of the last twenty years, and answer me if there is anything there which challenges our devotion? Who does not know that time after time we have turned away in sorrow from your oppressions, and yet have come back clinging to the Union, and proclaiming that "with all her faults we loved her still." And you expect us to do so now again and again; you expect us to return, and, on bended knees, crave your forbearance. No, you do not; you cannot think so meanly of us. There is nothing in our past history which justifies the conclusion that we will thus abase ourselves. You know how much a high-toned people ought to bear; and you know full well that we have borne to the last extremity. You know that we ought not to submit any longer. There is not a man of lofty soul among you all, who in his secret heart does not feel that we ought not to submit. If you fancy that our devotion to the Union will keep us in the Union, you are mistaken. Our love for the Union ceases with the justice of the Union. We cannot love oppression, nor hug tyranny to our bosoms.

Have we any reason to fear a dissolution of the Union? Look at the question dispassionately, and answer to yourselves the important inquiry, Can anything be expected from the fears of the southern people? Do not deceive yourselves—look at things as they really are. For myself, I can say with a clear conscience, we do not fear it; we are not appalled at the prospect before us; we deprecate disunion, but we do not fear it; we know our position too well for that. Whilst you have been heaping outrage upon outrage, adding insult to insult, our people have been calmly calculating the value of the Union. The question has been considered in all its bearings, and our minds are made up. The point has been designated beyond which we will not submit. We will not, because submission beyond that point involves consequences to us more terrible than disunion. It involves the fearful consequences of sectional degradation. We have not been slow in manifesting our devotion to the Union. In all our national conflicts we have obeyed the dictates of duty, the behests of patriotism. Our money has gone freely. The lives of our people have been freely given up. Their blood has washed many a blot from the national escutcheon. We have loved the Union, and we love it yet; but not for this, or a thousand such Unions, will we suffer dishonor at your hands.

I tell you candidly, we have calculated the value of the Union. Your injustice has driven us to it. Your oppression justifies me to-day in discussing the value of the Union, and I do so freely and fearlessly. Your press, your people, and your pulpit, may denounce this as treason; be it so. You may sing hosannas to the Union—it is well. British lords called it treason in our fathers when they resisted British tyranny. British orators were eloquent in their eulogiums on the British crown[.] Our fathers felt the oppression, they saw the hand that aimed the blow, and they resolved to resist. The result is before the world. We will resist, and trust to God and our own stout hearts for the consequences.

The South afraid of dissolving the Union?—why should we fear? What is there to alarm us or awaken our apprehensions? Are we not able to maintain ourselves? Shall eight millions of freemen, with more than one hundred millions of annual exports, fear to take their position among the nations of the earth? With our cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco, products of a southern soil, yielding us annually more than a hundred millions of dollars, need we fear the frowns of the world? You tell us all the world is against us on the slavery question. We know more of this than you; fanaticism in the Old World, like fanaticism at home, assails our domestic relations, but we know how much British commerce and British labor depend for subsistence on our cotton, to feel at all startled by your threats of British power. Massachusetts looms will yield a smaller profit, and British looms will stop when you stop the supply of southern cotton. When the looms stop, labor will stop, ships will stop, commerce will stop, bread will stop. Build yourselves no castles in the air. Picture to your minds no such halcyon visions as that Great Britain will meddle with our slaves. She made an experiment in the West Indies in freeing negroes. It cost her one hundred millions of pounds sterling, and crippled her commerce to more than three times that amount, and now her emancipated blacks are relapsing into a state of barbarism. By the united verdict of every British statesman the experiment was a signal failure, injurious to the negro and detrimental to the kingdom. England will not interfere with southern slaves. Our cotton bags are our bonds of peace.

Have we anything to fear from you in the event of dissolution? A little gasconade, and sometimes a threat or two, altogether out of place on so grave an issue as this, are resorted to on your part. As to there being any conflict of arms growing out of a dissolution, I have not thought it at all probable. You complain of your association with slaves in the Union. We propose to take them out of the Union—to dissolve the unpleasant association. Will you seek a battle-field to renew, amid blood and carnage, this loathsome association? I take it for granted that you will not. But if you should, we point you to the record of the past, and warn you, by its blood-stained pages, that we shall be ready to meet you. When you leave your homes in New England, or in the great West, on this mission of love—this crusade against the South; when you come to take slavery to your bosoms, and to subdue eight millions of southern people, I warn you to make all things ready. Kiss your wives, bid your children a long farewell, make peace with your God; for I warn you that you may never return.

I repeat, we deprecate disunion. Devoted to the Constitution—reverencing the Union—holding in sacred remembrance the names, the deeds, and the glories of our common and illustrious ancestry—there is no ordinary ill to which we would not bow sooner than dissolve the political association of these states. If there was any point short of absolute ruin to ourselves and desolation to our country, at which these aggressive measures would certainly stop, we would say at once, go to that point and give us peace. But we know full well, that when all is obtained that you now ask, the cormorant appetite for power and plunder will not be satisfied. The tiger may be driven from his prey, but when once he dips his tongue in blood, he will not relinquish his victim without a struggle.

I warn gentlemen, if they persist in their present course of policy, that the sin of disunion is on their heads—not ours. If a man assaults me, and I strike in self-defence, I am no violator of the public peace. If one attacks me with such fury as to jeopardize my life, and I slay him in the conflict, I am no murderer. If you attempt to force upon us sectional desolation and—what to us is infinitely worse—sectional degradation, we will resist you; and if in the conflict of resistance the Union is dissolved, we are not responsible. If any man charges me with harboring sentiments of disunion, he is greatly mistaken. If he says that I prefer disunion to sectional and social degradation, he does me no more than justice.

Does any man desire to know at what time and for what cause I would dissolve the Union, I will tell him: At the first moment after you consummate your first act of aggression upon slave property, I would declare the Union dissolved; and for this reason: such an act, perpetrated after the warning we have given you, would evince a settled purpose to interpose your authority in the management of our domestic affairs, thug degrading us from our rightful position as equals to a state of dependence and subordination. Do not mistake me; I do not say that such an act would, per se, justify disunion; I do not say that our exclusion from the territories would alone justify it; I do not say that the destruction of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, nor even its abolition here, nor yet the prohibition of the slave trade among the states, would justify it. It may be, that not one, nor two, nor all of these combined would justify disunion. These are but the initiative steps—they lead you on to the mastery over us, and you shall not take these steps. The man must have studied the history of our revolt against the power of Britain to but little purpose who supposes that the throwing a few boxes of tea into the water in Boston harbor produced, or had any material influence in producing, the mighty conflict of arms which ensued. Does any man suppose that the stamp act and its kindred measures produced the revolution? They produced a solemn conviction on the minds of our fathers that Britain was determined to oppress and degrade the colonies. This conviction prepared a heroic people for resistance; and the otherwise trivial incident of throwing the tea overboard supplied the occasion for manifesting that state of public sentiment. I warn gentlemen by the history of these transactions, not to outrage the patience of a patriotic people, nor yet, like the British king and parliament, to spurn our entreaties, and turn a deaf ear to our prayers for justice.

Before the first fatal step is taken, remember that we have interests involved which we cannot relinquish; rights which it were better to die with than live without. The direct pecuniary interest involved in this issue is not less than twenty hundred millions of dollars, and yet the loss of this will be the least of the calamities which you are entailing upon us. Our country is to be made desolate. We are to be driven from our homes—the homes hallowed by all the sacred associations of family and friends. We are to be sent, like a people accursed of God, to wander through the land, homeless, houseless, and friendless; or, what is ten thousand times worse than these, than all, remain in a country now prosperous and happy, and see ourselves, our wives and children, degraded to a social position with the black race. These, these are the frightful, terrible consequences you would entail upon us. Picture to yourselves Hungary, resisting the powers of Austria and Russia; and if Hungary, which had never tasted liberty, could make such stout resistance, what may you not anticipate from eight millions of southrons made desperate by your aggression? I tell you, sir, sooner than submit we would dissolve a thousand such unions as this. Sooner than allow our slaves to become our masters, we would lay waste our country with fire and sword, and with our broken spears dig for ourselves honorable graves.

You tell us, sir, there is no intention of pushing us to extremities like these. I do not doubt the sincerity of gentlemen who make this avowal. If there was fixedness in their positions I would believe them, I would trust them. If members of Congress were to the political what stars are to the planetary system, I would take their solemn—and, I hope, sincere—declarations, and be satisfied. I should feel secure. But a few days, a brief space, and you will pass away, and your places will be filled by men more hostile than you, as you are more hostile than your predecessors, and the next who come after your successors will be more hostile than they. Look to the Senate—the conservative branch of the government. Already there are senators from the mighty states of New York and Ohio, who repudiate the Constitution. One [Mr. Chase, of Ohio] says the Constitution is a nullity as regards slavery, and another [Mr. Seward, of New York] declares that slavery can and will be abolished, and that you and he will do it. He tells us how this to be done. He, too, repudiates the constitutional obligation, and says that slavery rests for its security on public sentiment, and that public sentiment must and will destroy it. These are fearful declarations, coming from that quarter. They evince a settled purpose to pursue these aggressive movements to the last terrible extremity; and yet, sir, we are asked to fold our arms and listen to the syren song that all your ills will soon be o'er.

And now, Mr. Chairman, before the sands of my brief hour have quite run out, let me turn for a moment to the late recent and extraordinary movements in the territory of California,—movements fraught with incalculable mischief, and, if not arrested, destined to entail calamities the most terrible upon this country. I am told that the late administration is in some degree responsible for these movements. I know not if this be true. I hope it is not. Indeed, I have authority for saying it is not. Certainly no evidence has been advanced that the statement is true. But I care not who prompted the anomalous state of things now existing in California. At whatever time, and by whomsoever done, it has been without precedent, against the voice of the people's representatives, in derogation of the Constitution of the United States, and intended to rob the Southern States of their just and rightful possessions. Viewing the transaction in this light, and without stopping to inquire whose it was, I denounce it as unwise, unpatriotic, sectional in its tendencies, insulting to the South, and in the last degree despicable.

Twelve short months ago it was thought necessary to invoke the authority of Congress for the people of California to form a state constitution. The present Secretary of the Navy, then a member of this House, did, on the 7th day of February, 1849, introduce a bill for that purpose. The first section declared "that the Congress doth consent that a new state may be erected out of the territory ceded to the United States," &c. (See Congressional Globe, 2 Sess. 30 Con. p. 477.)

Whether the honorable Secretary, as a member of the cabinet, advised and consented to the late extraordinary proceedings in California, I pretend not to know. I do know that he bitterly inveighed against General Cass, in 1848, for a supposed intimation that the people of the territories might settle the slavery question for themselves, and chiefly on the ground that it was a monstrous outrage to allow aliens and foreigners to snatch from the South territory won by the valor of her troops. I know that he introduced the bill to which I have adverted, and urged its passage in a speech which was said to have given him his position in the cabinet. He certainly thought at that time, that the consent of Congress was necessary to the formation of a state government in California. The bill itself, to say nothing of the speech, assigned one pregnant reason for this thought, for by its second section it declared "that the foregoing consent is given upon the following reservations and conditions: First, that the United States hereby unconditionally reserves to the federal government all right of property in the public lands."

It was then thought a matter of some moment to reserve to the parties in interest, their right of property in the soil. But the progressive spirit of the President and cabinet has gone far beyond such idle whims, and "the introduction of California into the Union as a sovereign state is earnestly recommended," without reservation of any kind, save alone that her constitution shall conform to the Constitution of the United States. If any one here knows the secrets of the cabinet councils, he can best inform us whether Mr. Secretary Preston thought it worth his while to intimate to the President and his associates that the formation of an independent government in California would of necessity vest in such government the right of property in the soil, and that her incorporation into the Union without reservation, would be to surrender the right of eminent domain. It would disclose an interesting piece of cabinet history to ascertain whether so trivial a matter ever engrossed the thoughts of that most august body-the President and his constitutional advisers.

It is amusing to see with how much cunning the author of the late special message endeavors to divide the responsibility of this nefarious proceeding with the late administration. Several times in the message it is broadly hinted that President Polk took the initiative in this business. This may be so. I have seen no evidence of it, and do not believe it; but whether true or false, it does not render the transaction less odious or more worthy of support. The President himself seems to think it too much for one administration to bear, and, therefore, strives to divide its responsibility with his distinguished Democratic predecessor. I commend his discretion, more than his generosity. It is discreet in him to shake off as much of the odium of this thing as possible. If it had been a worthy action, I doubt if he would not have appropriated the honors of it entirely to himself.

The President sees, as well as you or I, that there is a fearful accountability ahead, and he cries out in time, "Polk was to blame—I only followed up what he began." I would to God he were as willing to carry out all of Polk's unfinished plans.

Is there nothing wrong, let me ask the friends of the President, in this thing of the Executive of his own volition, and upon his own responsibility—establishing a state government over the territory of the United States, and that too after Congress had been invoked and had refused her consent to the establishment of such a government? I have seen the time when if this thing had been done, the nation would have reverberated with the eloquent burst of patriotic indignation from gentlemen on the other side. General Jackson was charged with taking the responsibility, but he never assumed responsibility like this.

The manner of doing this thing is still more extraordinary than the thing itself. General Riley, a military commander, charged with the execution of certain necessary civil functions, is made the man of power in this business. That officer, on the 3d day of June, 1849, issued his proclamation, a paper at once novel and bold. His object is to make a new state, and he commences thus:

"Congress having failed at its recent session to provide a new government for this country, the undersigned would call attention to the means which he deems best," &c., &c.

Yes, sir, there it is. Congress having failed to give government to California, General Riley notifies the inhabitants that he has taken matters into his own hands; that he will give them a government, and that HE will authorize them to make a state for themselves. He does this, too, because Congress had refused.

I must do General Riley the justice to say he is not wholly an usurper in this business. He declares to the world in this same proclamation (a document by the way drawn up with acumen and legal precision), that the course indicated by him "is advised by the President and the Secretaries of State and of War," and he (General Riley) solemnly affirms that his acts are "fully authorized by law." I hope the General did not understand that Mr. Secretary Preston's bill was the law that "fully authorized" his acts. There might be a difficulty in sustaining the opinion on that basis, inasmuch as the bill did not pass Congress.

There are stranger things than these in this Riley proclamation "advised by the President, and Secretaries Clayton and Crawford." The General not only sets forth circumstantially what is to be done, but he designates the persons who are to do the things which he bids to be done. Hear him:

"Every free male citizen of the United States and of Upper California, 21 years of age, will be entitled to the right of suffrage. All citizens of Lower California who have been forced to come into this territory on account of having rendered assistance to the American troops during the recent war with Mexico, should also be allowed to vote in the district where they actually reside," &c.

Now, sir, I humbly ask who gave the President and his cabinet the right to "advise" this military commander by one sweeping proclamation to admit the "free male citizens of Upper California," and "ALL the citizens of Lower California," (then in the country, under certain circumstances,) to the right of voting? In so important a matter as forming a state constitution, which was to affect important interests within the territory, and still more important interests without the territory, it would have been at least respectful to his southern constituents, if the President had confined the voting to white people; but all free males of Upper California, and ALL from Lower California, whether bond or free, were fully authorized to vote. Shame, shame upon the man who, in the midst of our struggles for blood-bought rights, thus coolly submits them to the arbitrament of such a people.

I have been speaking of what the President expressly authorized. He, by his agent, General Riley, in terms, authorized these people of whom I have been speaking to vote. They did vote; they were voted for; some of them had seats in the so-called California Convention. But the gross wrong—the palpable outrage—did not stop here. We all know the President knows that everybody voted. The whole heterogeneous mass of Mexicans, and foreign adventurers, and interlopers voted; and yet, the President, without one word of comment or caution touching these strange events, calmly recommends the progeny of this strange convention to the favorable consideration of Congress. If I had not ceased to be amazed at the conduct of the present President of the United States, I should indeed wonder what singular infatuation had possessed the old man's brain when he made that recommendation. Can it be that he has not read the treaty with Mexico, or the laws of his own country on the subject of naturalizing foreigners, that he thus recommends the admission of a state into the Union, with a constitution formed mainly by persons who were strangers to our laws, and who, by our laws and by the treaty, were not citizens, and consequently had no right of suffrage? Look you, sir, to the treaty with Mexico. In its 8th article it is declared: "That Mexicans who shall prefer to remain in the territory may either retain the rights and title of Mexican citizens or acquire those of citizens of the United States." They shall make their election in one year after the treaty is ratified. "And those who shall remain in the territory after the expiration of that year without having declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, shall be considered to have ELECTED to become citizens of the United States."

Mexicans remaining in the territory after twelve months "shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States;" but who shall make them citizens? This question is fully answered by the ninth article of this treaty. We have seen that Mexicans may acquire the rights of citizens of the United States, and that under certain circumstances they are deemed to have elected to become citizens, &c. Read the ninth article of the treaty: "Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican Republic, conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States, and be ADMITTED at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States according to the principles of the Constitution."

Here we have it. They are "to be incorporated into the Union, and be admitted at the proper time, to be judged of by Congress, to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States." Where did the President get his authority to dispense with these articles, these solemn stipulations of the treaty? By what right does he extend to these people that dearest privilege of an American freeman, the right of suffrage? By what authority does he confer the power to hold office, to sit in a convention, and to trample under foot the rights of the southern people? The late Administration had something to do with making this treaty, and they provided that these people, at a proper time, to be judged of by Congress, should enjoy all these rights. Congress has not judged in the matter. Congress has done nothing. Congress has refused to act, and the President tells these people to vote, to accept office, to make a state constitution, to elect governors, secretaries, auditors, members of Congress, &c., &c. And when they have done as he bid them, he "earnestly recommends their acts to the favorable consideration of Congress." And this is the President who was going to act according to the laws and the Constitution, and abstain from all interference with the duties of Congress. O tempora! O mores!

[Here the hammer fell, and Mr. BROWN gave notice that he would append the unfinished remarks to his printed speech.]

The present President of the United States delights in doing in all things like Washington. In his annual message he alludes no less than three times, with evident self-complacency, to supposed similitudes between his acts and those of the illustrious Father of his Country.

In the earlier history of the republic, and in the time of Washington's presidency, a case bearing close resemblance to the one under discussion was presented for his consideration. How closely the second Washington copies the precedent of the first may be gathered from the history of the transaction. That history has been briefly sketched by a distinguished, eloquent, and aged friend of President Taylor. I read from a pamphlet by George Poindexter:

Shortly after the cession by North Carolina of the south-western territory, certain influential individuals, anxious to hasten the formation of an independent state government within the ceded territory, induced the inhabitants to call a convention and frame a state constitution, to which they gave the name of the State of Franklin. This proceeding met the unhesitating frowns and disapprobation of the Father of his Country—the illustrious Washington—who caused it to be instantly suppressed, and in lieu of this factitious state government, a territorial government was extended to the inhabitants by Congress, under which they lived and prospered for many years."

If the first President, the great, the good, the illustrious Washington, would not listen to the proposition of the Franklanders, citizens as they were of the United States, for admission into the Union, under the circumstances attending their application, I ask how the present President shall justify his proceeding, in first prompting the free male citizens of Upper California, all the people of Lower California, and in fact the interlopers and adventurers from all the nations of the earth, now upon our territory, to form a state constitution, and ask admission into our Union? And now when this constitution, the creation of such a conglomerate mass, is about to be presented, let the friends of the President justify, if they can, his "earnest recommendation that it may receive the favorable consideration of Congress."

Frankland was not admitted as a state, but a territorial government was given to the country under the name of Tennessee. As a territory these people again applied for admission, and again their application was rejected. I read from Poindexter's pamphlet the history of this second application:

"Subsequent to these transactions, the inhabitants of the south-western territory having increased, as it was believed, to a sufficient number to entitle them to become one of the states of the Union, the territorial legislature directed a census to be taken under the authority of an act passed by that body. This census having been so taken, exhibited a number of free inhabitants exceeding 60,000—being a greater number than was required by the ordinance of 1787 to admit them into the Union; and on the 28th of November, 1795, the governor being authorized thereto by law, issued his proclamation requiring the inhabitants of the several counties of the territory to choose persons to represent them in convention, for the purpose of forming a constitution or permanent form of government. This body so chosen, met in convention on the 11th January, 1796, and adopted a constitution, in which they declared the people of that part of said territory which was ceded by North Carolina, to be a free and independent state, by the name of the State of Tennessee. Without entering into minute details of all the proceedings which took place in relation to this constitution, it will be sufficient for my present purpose to refer to the Senate Journal of the first session of the fourth Congress, to which that constitution was submitted for the reception and approbation of Congress. In the report of the committee of the Senate, to whom this constitution was referred, it will be seen that this act of the territorial authorities was deemed premature and irregular; that the census ordered to be taken of the inhabitants was in many respects deficient in detail, and more especially that the enumeration of the inhabitants must, by the Constitution, be made by Congress; that this rule applied to the original states of the Union, and as their rights as members of the Union are affected by the admission of new states, the same principle which enjoins the census of their inhabitants to be taken under the authority of Congress, equally requires the enumeration of the inhabitants of any new state, laid out by Congress in like manner, should be made under their authority. This rule, the committee are of opinion, left Congress without discretion on this point. The committee therefore reported, that the inhabitants of that part of the territory south of Ohio, ceded by North Carolina, are not at this time entitled to be received as a new state into the Union. This example is drawn from the action of Congress during the administration of Washington, and will serve to show you, sir, the great caution with which, under the administration of that illustrious individual, the state was admitted into the Union."

In the purer and better days of the republic it was thought necessary to consult Congress as to the disposition to be made of the territory belonging to the United States, and our fathers thought it necessary to show a decent regard to the demands of the Constitution, in admitting new states into the Union. But in these latter days, when soldiers become statesmen, without study, and men intuitively understand the Constitution, the old-fashioned notions of Washington and his compatriots are treated with scorn, and we are given to understand that the soldier-President can make new states without the aid of Congress, and in defiance of the Constitution. Whether the people will submit to this highhanded proceeding I do not know; but for my single self I am prepared to say, that "live or die, sink or swim, survive or perish," I will oppose it "at all hazards and to the last extremity."

What, Mr. Chairman, is to be the effect of admitting California into the Union as a state? Independent, sir, of all the objections I have been pointing out, it will effectually unhinge that sectional balance which has so long and happily existed between the two ends of the Union, and at once give to the North that dangerous preponderance in the Senate, which ambitious polititions have so earnestly desired. The admission of one such state as California, opens the way for, and renders easy the admission of another. The President already prompts New Mexico to a like course. The two will reach out their hands to a third, and they to a fourth, fifth, and sixth. Thus precedent follows. precedent, with locomotive velocity and power, until the North has the two-thirds required to change the Constitution. WHEN THIS IS DONE THE CONSTITUTION WILL BE CHANGED. That public opinion, to which Senator SEWARD so significantly alludes, will be seen, and its power will be felt—universal emancipation will become your rallying cry. We see this. It is clearly set forth in all your movements. The sun at noonday is not more visible than is this startling danger. Its presence does arouse our fears and set our thoughts in motion. It comes with giant strides and under the auspices of a southern President, but we will meet it, and we will vanquish it. The time for action is almost come. It is well for us to arrange the order of battle. I have listened, and will again listen with patience and pleasure, to the plans of our southern friends. My own opinion is this: that we should resist the introduction of California as a state, and resist it successfully; resist it by our votes first, and lastly by other means. We can, at least, force an adjournment without her admission. This being done, we are safe. The Southern States, in convention at Nashville, will devise means for vindicating their rights. I do not know what these means will be, but I know what they may be, and with propriety and safety. They may be to carry slaves into all of southern California, as the property of sovereign states, and there hold them, as we have a right to do; and if molested, defend them, as is both our right and duty.

We ask you to give us our rights by NON-INTERVENTION; if you refuse, I am for taking them by ARMED OCCUPATION.

SOURCE: M. W. Cluskey, Editor, Speeches, Messages, and Other Writings of the Hon. Albert G. Brown, A Senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi, p. 162-76

Saturday, April 14, 2018

George D. Phillips to Howell Cobb, February 25, 1845

Hab[ersham] Co[unty, Ga.], Feb. 25,1845.

Dear Sir: I wrote you a few days ago that the Texas question, as decided now, would stand decided forever. I would stake my ears against a Romish crucifix, that time proves the correctness of this opinion; but I would qualify in this particular: if President Polk convenes an extra Congress and Texas be thereby annexed, even under less favourable circumstances than those secured by the House Resolutions, Texas will assent, provided there be no restrictions on the subject of slavery embraced. The wit of man could not devise a plan of annexation to which they would assent if at any future time any portion of Texas, or rather any State formed out of Texas territory, should give rise even to a discussion in Congress on the question of negro slavery. Her public lands are more than enough to pay her public debt, and she feels indifferent on that subject. You need not indulge the least fear that Texas will fall a prey to English diplomacy, intrigue, or money. I had my doubts and fears until I visited the country and mixed with her people freely, the elite and the clod-pole. Save the immigrants from the West, and probably those from abroad, all, all are Americans, and better, Southern, and dyed in the wool. And I hazard nothing in saying Texas will sustain and defend Southern rights and Southern institutions or cease to exist as a free people. Nor will Texas permit England to guarantee her independence. She is conscious of having a better guarantee in the strong arms and brave hearts of her sons; and if she is not received by the U. S., or her independence acknowledged by the powers that be, as soon as a new state of things becomes settled in Mexico she will wring from Mexico that acknowledgement. There is now a strong feeling in all the states from the Rio del Nort to the Table Lands to amalgamate with Texas; an invading army of 2000 men would certainly take possession of 4 states. As those who are resolved not to fight are easily whipd, all that Texas will desire of Uncle Sam will be to keep her Indians at home. As to Mexico and her own savages, she can take care of them.

The last mail brought us intelligence that Congress had decided to establish a territorial government in Oregon. The slavery question did not apply there; but to us it involved the question of power, and if I had been clear that the whole country to the 54th deg. N. L. belonged to us, I never could have supported the measure in advance of a settlement of the Texas question. With me it would have been: no Texas, no Oregon, or both simultaneously. I have never seen any conclusive evidence of our titles to Oregon north of 49, and doubt if such proof is extant. If so, where will I find it? If I am not deceived, Oregon will prove a Pandora's Box. For a foot of Maine I was willing to fight; for Texas I would fight the world, because the world would be impertinently interfering with our concerns; but for Oregon north of 49, I would not quarrel. . . .

There is I find an extraordinary effort making to remove Mr. Cooper, superintendent of the mint,1 from office; and that Dr. Singleton should have the motley crowd almost passeth belief and that too to wear the slippers. Does it not require some credulity to believe this, yet it is so. You know the Dr. is a dull plodding man, and if he were again in office and remained there for half a century he could not be as well qualified for the office as Mr. Cooper was the first week he entered it. Under the Dr.'s administration depositors had to wait from two to four weeks for coin. Some improvement took place when Rosignol was in office, but since Mr. Cooper has been in depositors often get their gold coin as soon as the assay can be made. Mr. Rosignol was an efficient man but his manners rendered him unpopular and it was said, perhaps with some truth, he killed two birds with one stone, served a bank and Uncle Sam too; and for this I presume was removed. Mr. Cooper is easy and polite in his intercourse with all who have business at the mint. If any charges of improper conduct have been brought against him I have not heard them; and it would be difficult to imagine one so correct and unexceptionable in his conduct that such a being as Harrison Riley could not bring a charge against. I presume they dare not attack Mr. Cooper on the ground of want of qualification. No change could be made for the better on that score. Do depositors of gold bullion want him removed? No, and he may challenge to the proof. I speak of honorable, intelligent gentlemen. Many two-and-sixpence depositors may have signed a petition. To what kind of a petition would you fail to get signers? You might get forty in Washington to emancipate my negroes and compel them to cut my throat. But if they really have, as I hear, 6000 petitioners for the removal, I have no doubt but 9/10 of them never were in the mint, made a deposit of gold or know Mr. Cooper, and further that 9/10 of them are Whigs. If Mr. Cooper or his friends were to get up counter petitions they could beat the celebrated Abolition petition a stone's throw. That I think had 7 thousand names. We could get 20 thousand in Geo. The truth is this: Dr. Singleton wants the office for the money. Harrison Riley, than whom the devil is not more artful, hates Mr. Cooper because he is a gentleman and a Democrat, and wishes to get him out of the county, and others whom I could name cooperate from interested motives. In justice to Maj. C. and in justice to your constituents I hope you and every Democratic Member of Congress of both houses will call on President Tyler and put this low and dirty effort down, by the correct representations. It is said Mr. C. is some way related to the President; if so, there may be more danger than if no such connection existed. If any importance is attached to six thousand then ask a suspension of any action until a counter petition of 10,000 can be sent on; and if the matter is reserved for the President-elect, do not in the fulness of heartfelt rejoicing and the pageantry of oiling the head of our triumphant Chief make you forget to call on him, the whole of you, Judge Colquitt at your head, and prevent an honest man and faithful officer from being thrown overboard to gratify a land pirate and his porpoise coadjutor. I write in haste and amidst confusion, but have no doubt wearied you. Adieu.
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1 I. e., the United States branch mint at Dahlonega, Ga.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 66-8

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Diary of Sarah Morgan: Friday Night, January 23, 1863

I am particularly happy to-day, for we have just heard from Brother for the first time since last July. And he is well, and happy, and wants us to come to him in New Orleans so he can take care of us, and no longer be so anxious for our safety. If we only could! —To be sure the letter is from a gentleman who is just out of the city, who says he writes at Brother's earnest request; still it is something to hear, even indirectly. One hundred and fifty dollars he encloses with the request that mother will draw for any amount she wishes. Dear Brother, money is the least thing we need; first of all, we are dying for want of a home. If we could only see ours once more!

During this time we have heard incidentally of Brother; of his having taken the oath of allegiance — which I am confident he did not do until Butler's October decree — of his being a prominent Union man, of his being a candidate for the Federal Congress, and of his withdrawal; and finally of his having gone to New York and Washington, from which places he only returned a few weeks since. That is all we ever heard. A very few people have been insolent enough to say to me, “Your brother is as good a Yankee as any.” My blood boils as I answer, “Let him be President Lincoln if he will, and I would love him the same.” And so I would. Politics cannot come between me and my father's son. What he thinks right, is right, for him, though not for me. If he is for the Union, it is because he believes it to be in the right, and I honor him for acting from conviction, rather than from dread of public opinion. If he were to take up the sword against us to-morrow, Miriam and I, at least, would say, “If he thinks it his duty, he is right; we will not forget he is our father's child.” And we will not. From that sad day when the sun was setting for the first time on our father's grave, when the great, strong man sobbed in agony at the thought of what we had lost, and taking us both on his lap put his arms around us and said, “Dear little sisters, don't cry; I will be father and brother, too, now,” he has been both. He respects our opinions, we shall respect his. I confess myself a rebel, body and soul. Confess? I glory in it! Am proud of being one; would not forego the title for any other earthly one!

Though none could regret the dismemberment of our old Union more than I did at the time, though I acknowledge that there never was a more unnecessary war than this in the beginning, yet once in earnest, from the secession of Louisiana I date my change of sentiment. I have never since then looked back; forward, forward! is the cry; and as the Federal States sink each day in more appalling folly and disgrace, I grow prouder still of my own country and rejoice that we can no longer be confounded with a nation which shows so little fortitude in calamity, so little magnanimity in its hour of triumph. Yes! I am glad we are two distinct tribes! I am proud of my country; only wish I could fight in the ranks with our brave soldiers, to prove my enthusiasm; would think death, mutilation, glorious in such a cause; cry, “War to all eternity before we submit.” But if I can't fight, being unfortunately a woman, which I now regret for the first time in my life, at least I can help in other ways. What fingers can do in knitting and sewing for them, I have done with the most intense delight; what words of encouragement and praise could accomplish, I have tried on more than one bold soldier boy, and not altogether in vain; I have lost my home and all its dear contents for our Southern Rights, have stood on its deserted hearthstone and looked at the ruin of all I loved — without a murmur, almost glad of the sacrifice if it would contribute its mite towards the salvation of the Confederacy. And so it did, indirectly; for the battle of Baton Rouge which made the Yankees, drunk with rage, commit outrages in our homes that civilized Indians would blush to perpetrate, forced them to abandon the town as untenable, whereby we were enabled to fortify Port Hudson here, which now defies their strength. True they have reoccupied our town; that Yankees live in our house; but if our generals said burn the whole concern, would I not put the torch to our home readily, though I love its bare skeleton still? In deed I would, though I know what it is to be without one. Don't Lilly and mother live in a wretched cabin in vile Clinton while strangers rest under our father's roof? Yankees, I owe you one for that!

Well! I boast myself Rebel, sing “Dixie,” shout Southern Rights, pray for God's blessing on our cause, without ceasing, and would not live in this country if by any possible calamity we should be conquered; I am only a woman, and that is the way I feel. Brother may differ. What then? Shall I respect, love him less? No! God bless him! Union or Secession, he is always my dear, dear Brother, and tortures could not make me change my opinion.

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 316-9