History of American Abolitionism Part 9

At a later period, in the Senate of the United States, the same Senator uttered the following language:--

"A free Republican government like this, notwithstanding all its const.i.tutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the progress of society.

"Free labor has at last apprehended its rights and its destiny, and is organizing itself to a.s.sume the government of the Republic. It will henceforth meet you boldly and resolutely here (Washington); it will meet you everywhere, in the Territories and out of them, wherever you may go to extend slavery. It has driven you back in California and in Kansas, it will invade you soon in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Texas. It will meet you in Arizona, in Central America, and even in Cuba.

"You may, indeed, get a start under or near the tropics, and seem safe for a time, but it will be only a short time. Even there you will found States only for free labor to maintain and occupy. The interest of the whole race demands the ultimate emanc.i.p.ation of all men. Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take effect, with needful and wise precautions against sudden change and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that remains for you to decide. The white man needs this continent to labor upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and his necessities are fixed.

"It is for yourselves, and not for us, to decide how long and through what further mortifications and disasters the contest shall be protracted before freedom shall enjoy her already a.s.sured triumph.

"You may refuse to yield it now, and for a short period, but your refusal will only animate the friends of freedom with the courage and the resolution, and produce the union among them, which alone is necessary on their part to attain the position itself, simultaneously with the impending overthrow of the existing Federal Administration and the const.i.tution of a new and more independent Congress."

Hon. Joshua Giddings, Member of Congress from Ohio:--

"I look forward to the day when there shall be a servile insurrection in the South; when the black man, armed with British bayonets, and led on by British officers, shall a.s.sert his freedom, and wage a war of extermination against his master; when the torch of the incendiary shall light up the towns and cities of the South, and blot out the last vestige of slavery. And though I may not mock at their calamity, nor laugh when their fear cometh, yet I will hail it as the dawn of a political millennium."

Hon. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States:--

"I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave, and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief, that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

"I have always hated slavery as much as any abolitionist. I have always been an old line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision I would vote that it should."

These are a few only of the extracts of a similar nature which may be selected from mult.i.tudes of speeches that have been delivered by the leading men of the party. The same sentiment, however, runs through them all, and abolition, in one way or another, is not less a doctrine of the Republican party of 1860 than it was of the Liberty party of 1840, to which it owes its birth. "Abolitionism is clearly its informing and actuating soul; and fanaticism is a blood-hound that never bolts its track when it has once lapped blood. The elevation of their candidate is far from being the consummation of their aims. It is only the beginning of that consummation; and if all history be not a lie, there will be coercion enough till the end of the beginning is reached, and the dreadful banquet of slaughter and ruin shall glut the appet.i.te."

And now the end has come. The divided house, which Mr. Lincoln boastfully said would not fall, has fallen. The ruins of the Union are at the feet as well of those who loved and cherished it as of those who labored for its destruction. The Const.i.tution is at length a nullity, and our flag a mockery. Fanaticism, too, must have its apotheosis.

HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

CHAPTER IX.

The Six Seceding States and date of their Separation--Organization of the Southern Congress--Names of Members--Election of President and Vice President, and Sketch of their Lives--The New Const.i.tution--The City of Montgomery, &c., &c.

On Sat.u.r.day, February 9, 1861, six seceding States of the old Union organized an independent government, adopted a const.i.tution, and elected a President and Vice President. These States pa.s.sed their respective ordinances of dissolution as follows:--

STATE. DATE. YEAS. NAYS.

South Carolina Dec. 20, 1860 169 -- Mississippi Jan. 9, 1861 84 15 Alabama Jan. 11, 1861 61 39 Florida Jan. 11, 1861 62 7 Georgia Jan. 19, 1861 228 89 Louisiana Jan. 25, 1861 113 17

Only two of the seceding States--South Carolina and Georgia--were original members of the confederacy. The others came in in the following order:--

Louisiana April 8, 1812 Mississippi Dec 10, 1817 Alabama Dec 14, 1819 Florida March 3, 1845 Texas Dec 29, 1845

The Convention which consummated this event a.s.sembled on the 4th of February, at Montgomery, Alabama. Hon. R. M. Barnwell, of South Carolina, being appointed temporary chairman, the Divine blessing was invoked by Rev. Dr. Basil Manly.

We give this first impressive prayer in the Congress of the new Confederacy below, and further add, as an ill.u.s.tration of the religious earnestness by which the delegates were one and all animated, that the ministers of Montgomery were invited to open the deliberations each day with invocations to the Throne of Grace:--

Oh, Thou G.o.d of the Universe, Thou madest all things; Thou madest man upon the earth; Thou hast endowed him with reason and capacity for government. We thank Thee that Thou hast made us at this late period of the world; and in this fair portion of the earth, and hast established a free government and a pure form of religion amongst us.

We thank Thee for all the hallowed memories connected with our past history. Thou hast been the G.o.d of our fathers; oh, be Thou our G.o.d.

Let it please Thee to vouchsafe Thy sacred presence to this a.s.sembly.

Oh, Our Father, we appeal to Thee, the searcher of hearts, for the purity and sincerity of our motives. If we are in violation of any compact still obligatory upon us with those States from which we have separated in order to set up a new government--if we are acting in rebellion to and in contravention of piety towards G.o.d and good faith to our fellow man, we cannot hope for Thy presence and blessing. But oh, Thou heart searching G.o.d, we trust that Thou seest we are pursuing those rights which were guaranteed to us by the solemn covenants of our fathers and which were cemented by their blood. And now we humbly recognise Thy hand in the Providence which has brought us together. We pray Thee to give the spirit of wisdom to Thy servants, with all necessary grace, that they may act with deliberation and purpose, and that they will wisely adopt such measures in this trying condition of our affairs as shall redound to Thy glory and the good of our country. So direct them that they may merge the l.u.s.t for spoil and the desire for office into the patriotic desire for the welfare of this great people. Oh G.o.d, a.s.sist them to preserve our republican form of government and the purity of the forms of religion, without interference with the strongest form of civil government. May G.o.d in tender mercy bestow upon the deputies here a.s.sembled health and strength of body, together with calmness and soundness of mind; may they aim directly at the glory of G.o.d and the welfare of the whole people, and when the hour of trial which may supervene shall come, enable them to stand firm in the exercise of truth, with great prudence and a just regard for the sovereign rights of their const.i.tuents. Oh, G.o.d, grant that the union of these States, and all that may come into this union, may endure as long as the sun and moon shall last, and until the Son of Man shall come a second time to judge the world in righteousness. Preside over this body in its organization and in the distribution of its offices. Let truth and justice, and equal rights be secured to our government. And now, Our Father in Heaven, we acknowledge Thee as our G.o.d--do Thou rule in us, do Thou sway us, do Thou control us, and let the blessings of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit rest upon this a.s.sembly now and forever.

Amen.

A. R. Lamar, Esq., of Georgia, was then appointed temporary secretary, and the deputies from the several seceding States represented presented their credentials in alphabetical order, and signed their names to the roll of the Convention.

The following is the list:--

ALABAMA.

R. W. Walker, R. H. Smith, J. L. M. Curry, W. P. Chilton, S. F. Hale Colon, J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, David P. Lewis, Thomas Fearn.

FLORIDA.

James B. Owens, J. Patten Anderson, Jackson Morton, (not present.)

GEORGIA.

Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, F. S. Bartow, M. J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. R. Cobb, A. H. Kenan, A. H. Stephens.

LOUISIANA.

John Perkins, Jr.

A. Declonet, Charles M. Conrad, D. F. Kenner, G. E. Sparrow, Henry Marshall.

MISSISSIPPI.

W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, N. S. Wilson, A. M. Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

R. B. Rhett, R. W. Barnwell, L. M. Keitt, James Chesnut, Jr.

C. G. Memminger, W. Porcher Miles, Thomas J. Withers, W. W. Boyce.

THE HALL OF THE SOUTHERN CONVENTION.

The following description is from a Southern paper:--