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The Committee, to whom was committed the duty of preparing an Address to the people
of the Southern States, to declare the causes which justify the secession of South Carolina
from the Federal Union, made their report as follows:
DECLARATION OF THE CAUSES WHICH JUSTIFY THE SECESSION OF
SOUTH CAROLINA FROM THE FEDERAL UNION.
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of
April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of
the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved
rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the
Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding
States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these
encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among
nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America,
and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have
led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to
make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen
American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted,
on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and
of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and
independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract
alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent
States may of right do."
They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes
destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to
alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great
Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the
Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally
dissolved."
In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to
exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and
appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments --
Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms
and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of
Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their
external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States,
expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty,
freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this
Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress
assembled."
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd
September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great
Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following
terms:
"ARTICLE 1. -- His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New
Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND
INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs
and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and
territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."
Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right
of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a
Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And
concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each
Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country as a FREE, SOVEREIGN
AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation,
and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended, for the adoption
of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.
The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States;
they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact
was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common
agent, was then invested with their authority.
If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as
they then were -- separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the
provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution
until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and
during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the
exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their
continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was
added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or
to the people. On the 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of
her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her
own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.
Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with defined objects
and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left
the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to
the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.
We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles
asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode
of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact.
We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the
obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a
material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that
where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the
fact of failure, with all its consequences.
In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the
States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional
obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into
another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not
have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves,
and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by
making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded
by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of
fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these
stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an
increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery,
has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General
Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New
York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws
which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to
execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor
claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the
stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a
law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of
anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the
remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State
of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the
States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives
charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus
the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the
non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released
from her obligation.
The ends for which this Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for
the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State
was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own
institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons
distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burdening
them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of
slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from
labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated,
and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action
of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the
propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of
property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have
denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open
establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and
to enloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged
and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have
been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured
to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the
Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive
Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line
has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the
election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose
opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration
of the common Government, because he has declared that that
"Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind
must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in
some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law
of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to
inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and
safety.
On the 4th of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has
announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the
judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery
until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States
will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of
self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their
enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is
rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great
political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State
and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of
South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate
and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract
alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent
States may of right do.
And, for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred
honor.
Mr. ADAMS moved the adoption of the report.
Mr. FURMAN. There is a statement in that document that all the States North
of the sectional line, cast their votes for a sectional candidate for the Presidency of the
United States. I believe such is not the case.
Mr. INGLIS. I find recorded in the statute books of one of the States that four
votes were cast for Lincoln and three for Douglas. I have heard, and I know, that
Pennsylvanians deny, not only by words, but in conversation and writing, that they have
on their statute books any Personal Liberty law. They say they have a law to prevent
kidnapping almost similar to a law in Virginia.
They say public sentiment has perverted the meaning of the law in reference to persons
held to labor.
Mr. ------. I have in my hand an elaborate report made on this point by the
Committee appointed by the Legislature of Virginia during the last session, in which the
laws of each State profess to be accurately stated. I will read it to my friends in the
Convention, and particularly to my friend from Chesterfield. It says: "In regard to
Pennsylvania, prior to 1847 non-resident owners of slaves could remain within the State
with their property six months. Slaves are allowed to testify in Courts. There is a law
against kidnapping."
Mr. ENGLISH said Pennsylvania has quite recently revised her laws. It has not
been long since she appointed Commissioners for that purpose. It would seem that nine
of the Northern States have virtually annulled the Fugitive Slave law, while four others
have by their acts so nearly committed something that amounts pretty much to practical
disunion. In June, 1851, Daniel Webster, in his speech at Capons Springs, Va., remarked:
-- "I do not hesitate to say and repeat that if the Northern States refuse willfully and
deliberately to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration
of the fugitive slaves, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A
bargain broken on one side is a bargain broken on all sides." Mr. English also quoted
from DeBow's Review the actual position of Northern States in this respect.
Mr. ORR said he did not think Illinois had any censurable law on the subject.
Mr. INGLIS doubted the authority of the statements. We well know that it is
denied that there is on any statute book a law in Pennsylvania forbidding the restoration
of fugitives from labor. I desire that everything brought before this Convention shall be
exclusively the truth. I think no declaration or facts should be introduced into so solemn
a document as this address to the people of the Southern States until it be verified. We
should not go to the report of the Legislature of Virginia, but have reference to the
original source of information. We should go to the statute book of Pennsylvania if we
wish to really and truthfully ascertain their laws on this subject. [Mr. Inglis here
mentioned the fact of a planter with his servants at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In this
instance, a reverend clergy actually exhorted men to throw stones at the Southern
gentleman. He was into Court, but was cleared.] Many attempts to rescue slaves have
been made like this.
Mr. GREGG did not think the paper of the Committee was entirely perfect. As
a State paper, it is to go out as a new Declaration of Independence. It is to me defective
and imperfect. Not one word is said about the tariff, which has caused us so many years
of contest. The main stress is made upon the unimportant point of fugitive slaves, and the
laws passed by various Northern States obstructing the recovery of fugitive slaves. If we
undertake to set forth the causes which justify secession, we ought to publish all complete
in one document, like that adopted in 1776. It should not be so long, for that document
says too much. [Laughter.] We ought not to set forth a small portion of these reasons.
But that is what this paper does. It is not the sort of paper to go before the Court to justify
our cause.
A correct description of the paper would be to declare some of the causes which justify
South Carolina for leaving the Federal Union. If it is prone to set forth in a solemn
declaration some of the causes, let the title be altered, and then, if the Convention think
proper, let it go forth. Up to the moment we made ourselves free, we were living under a
protective tariff, and, that was a violation, which justified our secession. For forty years
we, and those who went before us, had submitted to unconstitutional expenditures by the
General Government. This was a violation of the compact, justifying our secession. In
1852 the people of South Carolina solemnly declared of the frequent violations of the
Constitution of the United States by the Federal Government. There were then causes
which justified this State, so far as any obligation is concerned, in dissolving the Union.
I believe there was nothing said in that solemn Ordinance, upon this or against these laws
obstructing the recovery of fugitive slaves. Many of the Acts relative to fugitives have
been passed since `52. I think a majority of them have. But when South Carolina,. eight
years ago, declared the causes then existed which fully justified the State in seceding, did
they confine themselves to these miserable Fugitive Slave Laws -- no, I think it unworthy
of this body -- unworthy of the State of South Carolina to send forth a new Declaration of
Independence, and in it say nothing of any cause justifying their action but fugitive slaves.
I propose to lay this document upon the table. If further discussion is desired, I will not
interrupt. We had either to refer it back to the Committee or lay it on the table. I prefer
laying it on the table because so much stress is made on the subject of fugitive slaves.
Mr. KEITT. I agree with the gentleman from Richland, that the power of
taxation is the central power of all governments. Put that power into my hands, and I care
very little what the form of government it is; I will control your people through it. That
is the question in this address. We have instructed the Committee to present a summary
of the reasons which influenced us in the action we have now taken. My friend from
Richland said that the violation of the Fugitive Slave Laws are not sufficient, and he calls
up the Tariff. Is that one of the causes at this time? What is that cause? Your late
Senators, and every one of your members of the House of Representatives, voted for the
present tariff. [Mr. Miles. I did not.] Well, those who were there at the time voted for it,
and I have no doubt you would, if you were in it. The question of the tariff did agitate us
in 1832, and it did array this State against the Federal Government.
I maintain, and do always maintain, that this State triumphed then. Mr. Clay said, before
nullification, that the protective tariff system had been established for all time. After the
Nullification Ordinance, Mr. Clay did say that the State had accomplished the destruction
of that system, and that the State had triumphed. The history of that time has never been
written. It is true, we were cheated in the compromise; and really, sir, in what single
compromise have we not been cheated? My opinion is, that the State of South Carolina
and every other Southern State have been dealing with faithless confederates.
But the Tariff is not the question which brought the people up to their present attitude.
We are to give a summary of our causes to the world, but mainly to the other Southern
States, whose co-action we wish, and we must not make a fight on the Tariff question.
The Whig party, thoughout all the States, have been protective Tariff men, and they cling
to that old issue with all the passion incident to the pride of human opinions. Are we to
go off now, when other Southern States are bringing their people up to the true mark?
Are we to go off on debateable and doctrinal points? Are we to go back to the
consideration of this question, of this great controversy; go back to that party's politics,
around which so many passions cluster? Names are much -- associations and passions
cluster around names.
I can give no better illustration than to relate an anecdote given me by a member from
Louisiana. He said, after the election of Lincoln, he went to an old Whig party friend and
said to him: We have been beaten -- our honor requires a dissolution of the Union. Let us
see if we cannot agree together, and offered him a resolution to this effect --Resolved,
That the honor of Louisiana requires her to disrupt every tie that binds her to the Federal
Government. [Laughter.]
It is name, and when we come to more practicability we must consult names. Our people
have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon
that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and
I am not willing to divert the public attention from it. I believe the address, in this
respect, cannot. The gentlemen from Chesterfield (Mr. Inglis) says that certain
constructions of the Act of Pennsylvania are denied. He might have gone further and
have said that certain constructions of the Personal Liberty Bills are denied. I have never
seen any Abolitionist yet who did not say that these Acts had no reference to fugitive
slaves.
I, myself, have very great doubts about the propriety of the Fugitive Slave Law. The
Constitution was, in the first place, a compact between the several States, and in the
second, a treaty between sections, and, I believe, the Fugitive Slave Law was a treaty
between sections. It was the act of sovereign States as a section; and I believe therefore,
and have very great doubts whether it ought not have been left to the execution of the
several States, and failing of enforcement , I believe it should have been regarded as a
causi belli.
I go for the address, because, I believe it does present succinctly and conspicuously what
are the main primary causes.
Mr. GREGG. If this address was to be a declaration of the immediate causes
which produced the secession of South Carolina, what the gentleman has said might be
applicable, but its title does not say so. Another document has been before the body --
that document has been made the special order for another occasion. I am unwilling to
take a vote upon this address when it may be inconsistent with the that other paper. If we
wish to find the immediate cause of the secession of South Carolina, the immediate cause
of all is the election of Lincoln.
Mr. INGLIS. I would like to know from the gentleman from Orange, who has
just taken his seat, if he has the information whether or not the State of Virginia has not
on her statute book an Act to prevent, presenting almost word for word the same as that
of Pennsylvania?
Mr. KEITT. I really don't know. It is very possible. The gentleman will find in
the very elaborate speech of Mr. Toombs, where he writes at length on this subject, every
explanation of the various differences between the States.
Mr. INGLIS. I moved to amend declaration on the fourth page by striking out
the word fifteen, and inserting many, so as to read many States, instead of fifteen; and
then on the fifth page to strike out the sentence which contains the enumeration of the
States.
Mr. MIDDLETON announced the result of the second ballot.