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Transcribed from the official records of the Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 36th Congress, 2nd Session for the internet by Gunston Nutbush Hall.
Speech of HON. THOMAS RUFFIN, of NORTH CAROLINA, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, February 20, 1861.
The house having under consideration the report from the select committe of thirty-three–
Mr. RUFFIN said;
MR. SPEAKER: During my long service in Congress, I have rarely occupied the time of the House. I have sat here for years a patient listener. Even now, I would prefer to remain silent, were it not for the peculiar circumstances by which I am surrounded. When the Congress of the United States assembled in December last, questions of momentous importance were agitating the public mind. I found here a considerable number of gentlemen holding opinions similar to those entertained by myself. With few exceptions, those Representatives have vacated their seats, and returned to their constitutents. They have done this in conformity to the action of the sovereign States of which they were citizens, and to which they owed allegiance. They have acted patriotically and nobly. They are now engaged with their fellow-citizens at home in the maintenance of a great and glorious cause. They and their constituents are struggling to preserve the purity of the Constitution, the equality of the States, and the liberties of the people. Sustained by a convention of the the justice of the cause in which they have embarked, they have determined to maintain, outside the Union, those rights so unjustly denied them within it.
The inhabitants of the southern States are now being tested by the most trying ordeal that ever fell to the lot of a free people. They are to decide whether they will tamely and quietly submit to the arrogance, the tyranny, the usurpation of a hostile, unprincipled, and reckless majority, fatally bent on the destruction of their institutions, or whether they will assert their rights, and maintain them by all the means in their power. Devotedly attached to the Constitution and the Union, as the people of the South have ever been, and ardently hoping that a change in the public sentiment of the North would prevent a further persistence in the wrongs practiced upon the minority section, they have exercised the most extraordinary forbearance. Cherishing the Union formed by their ancestors, they have suffered great sacrifices, and submitted to grievous wrongs, rather than dissolve their connection with it. History, neither sacred nor profane, records an example of a people so patriotic, so forbearing, so patient under long suffering. For more than forty years, the history of this country has been a record of aggressions upon the one side, and of remonstrance upon the other. To posterity it will appear that, in this day and age, the North had exercised its ingenuity in devising schemes of oppression and tyranny, to test the resentment of the South.
Sir, the day for a final settlement, after a long series of years, has come. The time must not be procrastinated. This great issue of the equality of the States cannot be evaded. If the slaveholding States of this Union are not coequal with the other members of the Confederacy, it is high time that it was made known. Equality has been denied them. That denial has superinduced the fatal malady of which the Government is now perishing. No hollow truce, no temporary expedient of patched-up congressional compromise, will avail now. The disease has passed that stage. I may also say, sir, that it is immedicabile vulnus, not to be cured by the nostrums of empyricism; neither can the magic charms and mystic incantations of political charlatanry drive it from the surface back into the vital organs, again to make its appearance as a corroding ulcer upon the body politic. Illusory legislation, contrived and adopted in the exigencies of the times, has heretofore been tried, and failed of its purpose. It were bootless again to resort to such a shift. The times and occasion demanded other and different remedies.
This great question should have been settled in 1820. They attempted congressional compromise then, but it failed; for in 1850, we found that it was again necessary to enter into a compromise. The people of the South then saw the error of 1820, and should have insisted on such an adjustment as would have settled by the question forever. I thought at the time that, by the system of measures agreed upon, the South had yielded up everything and received nothing substantial in return; that the legislation agreed upon would prove mischievous in its consequences; and subsequent events have confirmed me in that opinion. The misfortune has heretofore been–and, I may with propriety add, still is–that there are too many southern men, in authority as well as in private life, who are over-anxious, in the quaint but expressive language of the day, to “fix up” something to save the Union. I trust, sir, that if there is to be any more “fixing up,” something will be done to save the Constitution, without which the Union is as nothing–a mere myth, a nonentity. The preservation of the Union without the Constitution is not desirable. I say this, sir, as a friend of the Union as formed by our early fathers. I say it not that I love the Union less, but that I love the Constitution more.
Mr. Speaker, the dissolution of the American Union–once thought impossible by many—is now a stern reality. Its reconstruction, though possible, in the temper of the times, is not at all probable. Six of the States, in conventions representing their sovereignty, have formally resumed whatever portion of that sovereignty they had heretofore delegated to the Federal Government; others are making active preparations to the same end. For causes which to them appear good and sufficient, those States have exercised the great right of secession, and are now, to all intents and purposes, independent of this Government, and are ready and willing to maintain that independence in whatever way may become necessary. It becomes us to deal with facts as they are. It is useless and absurd now to discuss the right of a State to secede; it is idle to speculate on the abstract right of secession; for this great remedy of sovereign States has been asserted and exercised, even to a practical application; and secession–a word that has heretofore so often shocked the nerves of a certain class of timid politicians in the South—is something that they have seen carried into practice, and secession itself has become un fait accompli.
Gentlemen may endeavor to persuade themselves that the Union is not dissolved. They may disguise the fact as best they can. They may say that those States are still constructively within the Union. I apprehend, sir, that the sequel will show, that whenever a State has, by a convention representing its sovereignty, passed an ordinance of secession, it will operate casus foederis, so far as that State is a party to the compact.
I know, sir, that some gentlemen here have been disposed to look upon this matter of secession as something unsubstantial and unreal. I marked well the day of the first withdrawl of Representatives of seceding States from this Hall, and the efforts made by certain members to ignore the solemn fact by a free indulgence in vulgar sneers and ill-timed jests. How different from the spectacle presented in the other wing of this Capital at a subsequent time, when Senators representing sovereignties were taking final leave of their associates, and recounting the wrongs that compelled the separation in words that went home to the hearts of political foes as well as friends, and caused the silent but expressive tears to leap forth unbidden, and course down the manly cheeks of venerable statesmen. It was indeed an impressive scene, ominous of the times, and boding the sad future of the Republic.
“A child will weep a bramble’s smart,
A maid to see her sparrows part,
A stripling for a woman’s heart;
But woe awaits a country when
She sees the tears of bearded men.”
From my first entrance into public life, I have been an advocate of the right of secession, and my views on this question are well known to my constitutents. In this connection, I would state that, in my judgment, the time has come when all the southern States yet in the Union, recognizing the institution of slavery, should proceed to carry out this inestimable remedy of secession, and to seek, outside of the present Union, such associations as would afford them that protection denied them within it.
Mr. Speaker, the usual scene presented here of a Congress wrangling about protective tariffs, to rob one portion of our people by putting money into the pockets of another; railroad grants, to place large quantities of public lands of robbers and land-grabbers; homestead bills, to squander the vast public domain by inviting worthless vagabonds from all the earth to take our lands without money and without price; Pacific railroad bills, to saddle the Government with a tax of at least $600,000,000; and loan bills, to enable the old Free-Soil fossil who presides over the Treasury Department to replenish his empty coffers by hawking bonds of the Government about the streets of our cities, like some petty chapman his wares, and selling them for whatever price they will fetch in the market. In the far distant South, in the beautiful city of Montgomery, on the banks of the Alabama, another body is now in session—a most important convention. A new government is in process of inauguration there. The acts of that august assemblage of patriots and statesmen will, ere long, pass into history, there to remain, in all coming time, the mementoes of the chivalry and patriotism of the freemen of the Gulf States.
The selection for President, of the hero, patriot, and statesmen, Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and for Vice-President, of Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, her most gifted and eloquent son, whose clarion notes have so often resounded in these Halls pleading for the rights of his section, afford us a sure guarantee that the administration of the new government will be intrusted to men equal to the responsibilities of the position in which they have been placed. I am free to confess, Mr. Speaker–yea, sir, I proclaim it with pride–that my sympathies are all with the South; and in peace or in war, they shall continue with the South. I feel a deep and abiding interest in the future relations to be assumed by the State which I have the honor, in part, to represent on this floor. In a few short weeks for the people of North Carolina are to decide, for weal or for woe, whether she will unite her destiny with that of her more southern sisters, where her rights will be protected, or remain in the present Union, where that proud old Commonwealth must, from the force of surrounding circumstances, ultimately become a mere province, dishonored and humiliated.
The alternative presented to the people of North Carolina, and of the other southern States still remaining in the Union, is abject submission or manly secession. North Carolina has to decide through her convention, whether she will make common cause with the North or the South. She cannot continue neutral; for, if she remains in her present position, she may, at no distant day, be called upon to furnish her quota of men and money to aid Lincoln in his “irrepressible conflict,” against the South; being nearest the scene of operations in the seceding States, Lincoln would probably make the first requistion on her. I trust and believe that she will decide correctly and promptly. Her former history justifies me in the opinion that she will prove equal to the emergency, and will sustain her well-earned reputation for modesty, mingled with firmness and genuine courage. Her people are brave and intelligent, and will not be diverted from the true issue of the maintenance of her rights and equality by any parrot cry of “Union, Union, glorious Union!” Neither will they be misled and prevented from an assertion of rights by the simulated lamentations and crocodile tears of that pestiferous brood of heartless demagogues who are seeking unmerited position by a betrayal of their own section. The union of States being dissolved, North Carolina will claim and exercise the liberty of selecting her own associates. She will not harken to the counsels of those who are advising her to pass under the yoke, and to submit with fear and trembling to the galling rule of her oppressors. Neither, sir, will she heed the deceitful teachings of the those among her own sons who are counseling the establishment of a middle confederacy. Forced as she is now to make a selection between the North and South, she will not hesitate. Her interests, her sympathies, her destiny, are all with the latter. I do not propose to discuss here the question of a middle confederacy. I will simply remark that I regard it as an unmitigated humbug, a shallow device, to retard the great southern movement, and wholly unworthy of serious consideration. It has not even the merit of southern origin. It was first suggested by the congressional correspondents of northern newspapers, with a view of dividing and distracting the South. It was a snare set by political tricksters to entrap the unwary—a “spring to catch wood-cocks”–and some persons, with more credulity than discretion, have become entangled in its meshes.
Mr. Speaker, we are told that the South has been too precipitate and hasty; that we should have waited yet a little while longer. That the questions in issue will all be settled; and that an era of good feeling will pervade the whole country. In the name of all that is reasonable, I ask how much longer are we to wait? When will this vaunted settlement be made? From what quarter is this much talked of compromise to come? What is it to be? Why has it been delayed so long? Is it likely to come from the Republican side of the House? I quote from a speech of Mr. SOMES, of Maine. He gives us timely caution of what we may anticipate from compromises emanating from that source:
“I warn you not to take the flimy compromises which some few gentlemen on this side of the House would offer you. They do not represent the sentiments of the North; the North will repudiate any compromise, such as has been proposed, and the party that makes it.”
Is it to come from peace congress? That body has now been in session nearly three weeks. Northern influences are in the ascendant there. Men who are hostile to the South have the controlling majority in that body, and it is not likely that they will agree on anything that will be acceptable to the people of the United States.
Sir, there are those who believe that the day of compromise is past; that you cannot, by any magic of that kind, reunite that which is broken to pieces; that there is no medicament in it that has sufficient virtue to restore the dead to life. Touching this matter of compromise, I may be permitted to say that as a southern man, I have felt humiliated and mortified at the course pursued here by some Representatives from my own section of the country. For more than two months they have been here begging, imploring and beseeching the haughty and supercilious Republicans to offer some compromise, to propose some settlement to them, to give them some ground to stand upon. Indeed, sir, they have exhibited the most marked solicitude. They have made various propositions, and their propositions have been indignantly, scornfully, disdainfully rejected. I have preserved a number of speeches of gentlemen of the Republican party on this subject. I will cite but one extract. It is in plain English, terse and pointed, without ambiquity. I quote from the speech of the gentlemen from Ohio, {Mr. EDGERTON:}
“3. I will not compromise, finally, because slavery is a sin, an outrage against humanity, and an insult to God. Disguise it as you will, it is still the crowning iniquity, the most ghastly astrocity. Beginning in violence, it can neither be hallowed by time nor sanctified by law. With my consent, it shall never curse another foot of God’s fair earth. By no vote of mine shall it ever be strengthened or countenanced. You may dissolve the Union, if you can.”
Southern men, assuming to themselves the right to act in its behalf, have imploringly asked redress as a boon, instead of demanding it as a right not to be denied. They tell the Republicans that, unless something is done, the whole South will resist. The Republicans reply that they are not aware the South has suffered any sort of grievance requiring redress; and as for resistance; they reply by singing out the magic word “coercion,” “coercion;” “the laws of the country must be enforced.” Yes, sir, these men have favored unconstitutional personal liberty bills, who have lived upon agitation, who have encouraged lawlessness in almost every conceivable shape, have now become clamorous for the enforcement of laws. Sir, who can tolerate abolition lectures on obedience to the laws? “Who could endure the Gracchi complaining of sedition?”
Notwithstanding all these things, some of our southern friends tell us that we must wait patiently; that a settlement will yet be made; that light is breaking through the murky clouds that obscure the political horizon in the North; that a reaction is going on there; and that Representatives from that section do not truly reflect the sentiments of their constituents. That is an old, familiar cry to me. I have heard it for a long time, and I distrust its verity. Where is the evidence of that reaction? I venture to assert it is far more probable that, if there has been any reaction, it has been in favor of the Republican creed. Is it reasonable to suppose that a triumphant party, flushed with victory, would commence to decrease before it had acceded to power and the apportionment of the spoils? Our real friends in the North are diminishing every day. In this the day of our severest trial, I regret to say we find very few men in the North who have the nerve to stand by us. Sir, you can tell upon the fingers of your right hand as many friends as we have in this House from that section of the Union.
I cannot enumerate as among the friends of the South any man who is in favor of the inhuman, barbarous, and monstrous doctrine of coercion. Gentlemen tell us that they are not for coercion; that they are merely for the enforcement of the laws; that they wish only to protect the property and the flag of the country, and collect the revenue. No more offensive mode of coercion can be devised than that of the forced collection of tribute. Without being an open declaration of war, it involves all the consequences of war. It is despicable and pusillanimous for a Government like ours to endeavor to enforce such a policy under any such pretext. If you want war, proclaim it boldly, and risk the responsibility of the consequences to the country which you are likely to involve, and you will manifest more courage than by going to war under such a pretext as this, for the enforcement of laws. You have, or you will soon have, control of the Navy; you own nearly all the shipping of the country; and it looks as though you were meanly trying to enforce your policy by that mode in which you think you have a decided advantage. If you thirst for the blood of the southern people, come up boldly to the task; pass your war measures, and spread them upon your statute-books; pass your force bills, and all the belligerent measures you desire. Raise your standard, muster your troops, accept the services of these “sunshine patriots and summer soldiers,” these valiant Captain Bobadils and John Gilpins, who have with such alacrity volunteered their services to engage in a war of coercion against the South. Send them down there, and my word for it, they will be met. Yes, gentlemen, if nothing but a conflict of arms will answer your purpose, all we ask of you is to proclaim it boldly, and resort to no paltry subterfuges. You boast of the vast armies you can precipitate upon the South; you talk flippantly about bombarding and burning southern cities, of laying waste the southern cities with fire and sword. The southern people will not be deterred from the performance of their fixed resolves by threats of this kind, nor will they be awed into submission by your menaces. They are contending for their rights; if war must come, they will rally in their strength to drive back hostile invaders. They will defend to the last the homes of their ancestors, their altars, and their household gods. You will never conquer the South, even though you could muster as many troops as followed the banner of Xerxes. You will never overrun the country as long as there is a man living upon the southern soil to meet you in the battle-field, or a boy to shed his life-blood on the door-still and hearthstone of his mother’s dwelling.
Oh, but you say you do not desire war; you will not declare war; you will merely blockade the southern ports; you will send a naval expedition down there with a custom-house officer on board, and collect the revenue. Yes, sir, rather than lose the money, you will precipitate the country into a war. Well did the ancient Roman say:
“Quid non mortalia pectora cognis,
Auri sacra fames?”
You will send down to the South your officer to demand tribute; and when he reaches there, and makes his demand, he will meet with the same answer that the bold Briton gave to Caius Lucius, the Roman ambassador sent to the sea-girt Isle to demand tribute in the name of his master, the Emperor:
“Why tribute? Why should we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light; else, sir, no more tribute.”
Failing in this, you will send your embattling hosts to desolate the South, to subdue and conquer it. The southern people will then say to you that when you come to the South you will find us there. “If you beat us out if it, it is yours; if you fail in the adventure, our crows shall are the better for you; and there is an end.”
Mr. Speaker, this extraordinary crisis in the history of our country will mark an epoch long to be remembered. It will stand out boldly, in all coming ages, as a monument of the stupendous folly and wicked criminality of demented fanaticism; for no unprejudiced man can deny that the fanaticism of anti-slavery zealots has involved the country in the troubles now precipitating its destruction. Through the North, it has advanced with continously-accelerated pace, gathering strength in its progress, until it has obtained control of the dominant party of the country, and prostrated all other parties before it. It now seeks to pass the boundary, and carry out its nefarious purposes in the South, it seeks to arm brother against brother and father against son; it denounces slavery as the “sum of all villainies,” and proclaims its purpose to extirpate the institution. It has become a demon of destruction that fain would be “fed by rites more savage than the priests of Moloch taught.” It now craves to satiate its gloating appetite with the blood of countless hecatombs of southern victims. To curb and suppress this fell spirit of fanaticism, the northern States should have exerted their energies; they should have inflicted condign punishment on the seditious agitators who nourished it. We had a right to expect this much of them. Have they done this? Not by any means. On the contrary, State Legislatures have encouraged it in almost every imaginable shape and form.
Sir, I was astonished at a remark of the gentlemen from Indiana, [Mr. WILSON,] in a speech he made not long since. He said:
“I do not know if any persons anywhere who have claimed the power under the Constitution to abolish slavery in the slave States. Of the three million voters of the North, I have never yet heard of one who claimed the power; not one.”
The gentleman must think we have been quaffing of the waters of Lethe, and become oblivious of the past. I will read, for the information of the gentleman, from a book published in Boston, and entitled, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, by an author named Lysander Spooner. It is commended by a number of distinguished gentlemen, and also by a large number of northern newspapers. Among those commending this work, is WILLIAM H. SEWARD, who, it is understood, is to be the premier of this new Administration. Let us see the doctrines of this man. I understand that he is a lawyer and author of great ability. I will quote, from different parts of the work, a few extracts–one having no reference to another. They will show the author’s views:
“Those who believe that slavery is unconstitutional, are the only persons who propose to abolish it. They are the only ones to claim to have the power to abolish it.”
“The North, with no very important exceptions, although not enthusiastic in the matter, are abolitionists at heart. It is a slander on human nature to assert that they are not.”
“When the North are united, they will control the national legislation and the appointment of the national judiciary. Of course they will then abolish slavery.”
“If these opinions are correct, it is the constitutional duty of Congress to establish courts, if need be, in every county and township even, where there are slaves to be liberated; to provide attorneys to bring the cases before the courts; and to keep a standing military force, if need be, to sustain the proceedings. In addition to the use of the habeas corpus, Congress have the power to prohibit the slave trade between the States, which, of itself, would do much toward abolishing slavery in the northern slaveholding States. They have power, also, to organize, arm, and discipline the militia, thus enabling them to aid in obtaining and securing their own liberty.”
If my memory is not greatly at fault, I have often heard similar views expressed upon this floor. I have certainly heard gentlemen speck of the efficacy of writs of habeas corpus to procure the liberation of slaves, and what would be done when the judiciary system should be remodeled. I cannot but believe there are a great number of people in the North who concur in the views expressed by Spooner.
Mr. Speaker, I know propose to examine what the General Government is doing to avert impending destruction. The President seems to have become a driveler, an imbecile, a mere puppet in the hands of designing men, who are counseling him to a fatal and destructive policy–a policy which has already converted the Federal capital into a military camp, and subjected it to martial rule. With shame be it said, that the Representatives of the people are sitting here, some looking on with indifference, while they are witnessing the rapid conversion of the country into a military despotism. Even now, sir, we are legislating under the muzzles of Federal guns. Batteries are planted in the immediate vicinity. We are within hearing of the bugle-blast of the trooper, and the porticoes and aisles of this Capital daily reverberate the neighings of the war steed. Armed sentinels are posted to challenge the peaceable citizens of this metropolis as they walk the public squares. In passing from this Hall to my lodgings I have, time and again, met upon Pennsylvania avenue Swiss and Hessians, hireling mercenaries, reeling and staggering in drunken revelry, and disgracing the American uniform, in which they were clothed. Scenes are here daily to be witnessed, calculated to make this Government contemptible in the eyes of all true patriots.
It has been boasted that ours was a government of affection and not of force. It seems now to be otherwise. The concentration of large bodies of troops here is a withering shame–a burning disgrace upon the country. Those who have caused it to be done should be held to a rigid accountability. These troops should be sent to the frontier to protect the settler and the emigrant from the faggot and the scalping-knife of the merciless savage. The President, the Secretary of War, the Lieutenant General–I thank my God that my name stands of record upon the Journals against the revival of the law creating the office–have violated the spirit of the Constitution, and usurped powers not delegated to them by the law. If such things had occurred in the purer and better days of the Republic, these men would be hurled–ignominiously hurled–from their high places.
As a Representative of the people here, I consider it my duty to protest, and I do protest, against the flagrant outrages and high-handed usurpations of the these enemies of the Constitution of my country, and of these conspirators against the liberties of the American people. And I do this, sir, in spite of the pretorian guard that they have placed around the this Capitol to intimidate and deter Representatives here from the performance of their duty. I do it in defiance of the obsequious miscreants and crouching monials who have sought to procure the arrest and criminal prosecution of Senators and Representatives for expressions of opinion. I wish from my heart, sir, that every man in my State could be here to witness the startling scenes of this eventful era. I wish they could see the wrongs that are perpetrated here in the name of the Union, and that they could see the standing Army of the country paraded daily through the streets to overawe and terrify those who have been sent here to legislate for the country.
The pretense of protecting the public property and the archives of the Government is all a sham. No man in the District of Columbia, outside the lunatic asylum, has any idea that an attempt will be made to invade Washington city. If there is any man silly enough to believe this cock-and-bull story, an inquisition of lunancy should be issued against him. It is all a mere pretense. Your committee, charged with the investigation of the subject, took evidence, and found that it amounted to nothing. It appears to have been a hoax. It found its dupe in the credulity of the Executive of Maryland. It is to be hoped now, that his Excellency will, from this time forward, compose his nerves, and will find more quiet repose and profound slumber in the ancient borough of Annapolis than fell to the lot of his illustrious prototype, the wise, the chivalrous, the redoubtable Sancho Panza, in his island government of Barataria.
This grand military display, as a mischievous precedent, will stand unparalleled. As an act of consummate folly, it will be only equaled by that of the late expedition of the Star of the West. I know this is a sore subject with some gentlemen. They say that the flag of stars and stripes was insulted. How insulted? What are the facts? A private steamer is charted by the General Government. It leaves the city of New York, in the day time, with a clearance for a foreign port, and makes towards the ocean. After nightfall, under the cover of darkness, it returns and takes on board munitions of war and a large body of troops. Sacred pledges had been given that no effort would be made to reinforce Fort Sumter. Hence the concealment and fraud of this clandestine expedition, planned in this city, in secret conclave, not by Caesars and Cromwells, but by Catilines and Guy Fawkeses. When it nears its real destination–Charleston harbor–the military are crowded into the hold and concealed from view; the flag of stars and stripes is floating over its deck, and its officers imagine they have done a very great thing, and will soon slip up to the fort. The lightening had carried over the wires the true facts of the case, and the South Carolinians were no longer under any obligation to respect the flag. A gallant young rebel points and fires a gun to– “Burst the lodgment of the lurking band.”
For more than two thousand years men have admired the daring boldness and dashing courage of the ardent and impetuous Laocoon, who, rushing down from the citadel of Troy, hurled his javelin into the planked sides of the Grecian horse. To a like immortality in song and legend is destined the young Carolina rebel, whose well-aimed shot made the
“Dire infringement of the hallowed wood.”
If this Government ever again finds it necessary to send out such an expedition, it had better charter for the purpose, not a steamer, but some long, low, rakish-looking schooner, and hoist at its peak a black flag, and emblazon its folds with the skull and cross-bones of the pirate, and they will thereby save from insult the flag of the stars and stripes, which, from its past associations, is dear to us all.
Mr. Speaker, I am reminded that my time is passing rapidly on, and I must turn my attention to another subject. The Constitution of the United States is a masterpiece of wisdom. Our Government is probably the best ever devised by the genius of man. Its failure lies not in any fault in the Constitution, but has arisen from the construction put upon the instrument. If the people of the North had lived up to it, if they had given to us our guarantied rights, there never would have been one murmur of discontent from the South. The southern people are conservative, not iconoclastic. They cherish the Constitution, and they had no desire to break up the Government, or to change our existing institutions. All that has been done by the South has been a mere demand of our rights. We ask nothing more. Duty to ourselves and to posterity imperatively demands of us that we should accept nothing less. For almost an age you been ringing it here upon all occasions, in the ears of southern men, that slavery was a curse, and that your connection with the Government made you participators of the guilt. As you now deny us our guarantied rights, we propose to rid you of any supposed responsibility that you are under in relation to the institution of slavery. We propose to separate in peace. You deny that we have any grievances to redress; you say we have had all our rights. We think we have not, and we are determined, so far as we can, either to get those rights in the Union, or out of it. You tell us that we shall not go out of the Union. Although we have heard a thousand times from that side of the House that the South is a drawback upon the prosperity of the country, that she was of no benefit, now, when we propose to depart from you, you tell us we shall continue with you. If your theory is correct, the South indeed occupies a strange and anomalous position; and it is fortunate for us that we can be the judges in our own behalf, that we can exercise the right of deciding our own case in this matter, and to decide upon our measures of redress. If the other States of the South think it incumbent upon them to withdraw from the Union, they will certainly do so, without asking your permission. We believe, sir, that the right of secession is a reserved right; inherent and inalienable; that it has never been and will never be surrendered; that it is the great remedy by which to protect ourselves, our liberties, and our property. Whenever the day comes that we are satisfied that we can no longer remain in the Union with safety to ourselves, to our rights, to our property, we shall unquestionbly withdraw from it.
There may, Mr. Speaker, be differences of opinion among southern men as to when that time will arrive. I myself believe it has already arrived. I think, sir, the crisis is upon us, and the sooner we get out of the Union the better. It will be fortunate for us if we can withdraw before these great measures of taxation which are now being urged before Congress shall become laws of the land. Sir, the passage of the tariff bill now pending in Congress, and the passage of that gigantic project for constructing three Pacific railroads, which will entail upon this country an enormous debt, render this Union no longer desirable for the South, under any circumstances that are likely to occur. If we remain in the Union, we, and those who live after us, in all time to come, will be ground down by the iron heel of taxation. Far better that we should be in a new confederacy, where we can have an economical Government. We will not have, in a southern confederacy, that vast number of persons called a lobby, who live upon the Government. Such a class of people is unknown in the State Legislatures of the South; and it is to be presumed that a southern congress would be free from lobby influences.
Transcribed from the official records of the Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 36th Congress, 2nd Session for the internet by Gunston Nutbush Hall.
Vitam Impendere Vero
appendum
WHO HAD ENSLAVED WHO? Irrefutable Historical FACTS! TALK ABOUT AN UNEQUAL “UNION” The real slave masters of the united States leading to the civil war, were the NORTHERN STATES holding the Southern States in Representative SLAVERY.
House of Representative
Before Census
North, 35
South, 30
North Majority, 5
1790
North, 57
South, 53
North Majority, 4
1800
North 77
South 65
North Majority, 12
1810
North 104
South 79
North Majority, 25
1830
North 133
South 90
North Majority, 43
1836
North 141
South 100
North Majority, 41
1840
North 135
South 88
North Majority, 47
1850
North 144
South 90
North Majority, 54
The South was fighting for the preservation of the original Constitution, their Citizens and State RIGHTS!
© Gunston Nutbush Hall
