SOUTH CAROLINA, DISUNION,
ANI) A
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY CONFEDERACY
NO. I. — THE ANTECEDENTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
The State, judged by its ruling majorities, has not had a single patriotic
sensation for the last thirty years. As Cxen. Jackson said, in his letter to the
Rev. Mr. Crawford, she first sought disunion under the pretext of the tariif:
and as he predicted, on the failure of that scheme, she has been ever since
dilligently seeking it under pretest of the slaye question.
When she commenced this enterprise, thirty years ago, her aspect, as compa-
Tcd with that of many other States, was one of penury and decay. Slie seemed
to be laboring under a lethargic paralysis. With no manufacturing or mechan-
ical industry, and but little external trade beyond the mere sale of her exports,
she had no means of resuscitation by natural means. With nothing to invite
jnllus of population or capital, both population and trade seemed to have come
to a stand-still with an ominous prospect of material diminution of both, whilst
most of the other States were progressing with unprecedented rapidity. 1 n this
state of things it was easy for her politicians to delude her into the belief that
her unprosperous condition could be remedied by the organization of a Southern
Confederacy, of which she would be the commercial and political ce^iter. Hence
the great unanimity with which she attempted her mad experiments at nulli-
fication and secession. The deep moTtification for the disgraceful defeat of
that experiment extinguished every remaining spark of her patriotism. It has
never been forgotten "or forgiven, but has been brooded over until rancorous
hate toward the Union and" the nation has been substituted for whatever of
patriotism she once felt. Her guiding statesmen have held disunion as their
ultimate aim in all political operations. It has been untiringly pursued with
demoniac hate and perseverance, and with a statesman-like ability worthy of
a better cause. Their policy has been, in aid of abolition disunionists, to
agitate unceasingly the slave qi;estion, for the purpose of consolidating the
South into a sectional party, well knowing the necessary consequence to be
the consolidation and sectionalizing of the North, together wuth ultimate dis-
union. Abolition disunionists and fire-eating disunionists have, for jnore than
twenty years, been aids to each other in the accomplishment of iheir mutual
designs against the Union.
So early as 1835 they commenced the formal agitation in pongress, tinder
the miserable pretext of the presentation of abolition petitions, and it has
been perseveringly kept up ever since. The bulk of the nation, North and
South, nil the time, honestly endeavoring to keep down the agitation. The
South was indulged, ai the expense of an onerous foreign war, in the acqui-
sition of Texas, for the purpose of extending the area of slavery o^'cr five new
States. But this waa not done fast enough for South Carolina and her co-
conspiratora. A c&nvention of Southern States Avas called to meet at Nash-
ville, under the cry of "Texas or Disunion," but it was indignantly repulsed
by the citizens of Nashville and failed. But five years later a Southern con-
vention was actually held in Nashville with the view of promoting disunion.
The convention was largely attended by prominent men from Carolina, Geor-
gia, Alabama and Mississippi, but there were only a very few from Tennes-
see, and not a. maa from Kentucky. This Convention recommended a Con-
gress of Southern States to redress Southern grievances, the chief of those
supposed grievances being, at that time, the refusal of Congress to lej^islate
slavery into the southern half of California against the wishes of its citizens.
The legislatures of South Carolina and Mississippi were all that acceded to
this recommendation of a Southern Congress. During the discussion in the
South Carolina legislature leading members undisguisedl3r avovred disunion
as their object, and even said that so far from having any Jove for the Un^'on,
it was the object of their detestation and abhorrence. Mississippi was guilty
of the folly of actually calling a convention to decide upon secession on ac-
count of their grievances. The agitators were sorely disappointed, and
severely rebuked. The convention decided that there was no need for its
call, and expressly repudiated secession as nothing but revolution and rebel-
lion.
_ In 1850 the South was indulged with the passage of a more efficient fuo-i-
tive slave law, and all sectional questions were settled by what, it was hoped,
would prove a permanent compromise pacification. Tlie Democratic party
justly claimed the chief credit in obtaining this compromise, and the nation
was so well satisfied therewith that its candidate for the Presidency in 1852
secured the vote of twenty-seven out of thirty-one States, liut pacification did
not suit the di.sunion agitators. Under their influence the Missouri Compro-
mise was repealed, with full fore-knowledge that its repeal would cause a
more intense excitement on the slavery question than was ever before witness-
ed; that it would probably destroy the northern wing of the Democratic
party; and that it would do the South no good, as it was utterly impractica-
ble to make a Slave State out of Kansas. After the repeal had given the con-
trol of the House of Representatives to the Free-Soilers, and Mr. Buchanan
had escaped defeat by frauds and accident, instead of doing anything to soothe
the excitement, they purposely intensified it by attempting to force throu"-h
the infamous ^Lecompton swindle against the known wishes of four-fifths°of
the voters of Kansas. .Failing in that, they actually accomplished the passage
of the equally infamous bribery bill, Avhereby they insolently proclaimed that
Kansas had population enough to be admitted as a Slave State, but not half
enough to be admitted as a Free State. This discrimination in favor of the
slavery propaganda they well knew was a grosser sectional outrage and insult
than any, or all the acts of the Xorth combined. The fraud saturation of the
Lecompton swindle was so notorious, that a distinguished South Carolina
^5enator was compelled to admit, in afterward addressing his constituents,
I' that Southern honor required that the South itself should have kicked the
infamy out of Congress." Having thus deprived the Democracy of all foot-
hold in the North, they split it into two fragments, nominate a Southern can-
didate for the Presidency and proclaim that if he is defeated, or which, under
the circumstances, was the same, that if Lincoln was elected the Union should
be dissolved. His election should be cause for disunion, when they them-
selves did the very thing to insure his election, even if the bare utterance of
such a threat was not itself sufficient for that purpose. What the North, in
cooler moments, may do for the purpose of conciliation we have yet to see.
but that it should have ignominiously succumbed under the threat, no intelli-
gent honorable man could have expected; eighteen millions of Americans can-
not be bullied. The threat was no doubt worth hundreds of thousands of
votes to Lincoln, and that result was what was aimed at in its utterance. No
intelligent man can doubt that his election was precisely what the disunion
agitators aimed to accomplish, and most ardently desired. The grounds of
their split with the Northern Democracy, and abandonment of the Cincin-
nati platform, upon a practically unessential abstraction, cannot be elevated
to the dignity of even a respectable pretext. Disunion was the motive, the
real motive. This, their conduct since the election places beyond all cavil or
doubt.
Since 1835 South Carolina has been industriously pursuing the policy more
recently enunciated by her talented and influential leader, Mr. Rhett, in the
following words: '^ All true statesmanship in the South consists informing
combinations and shaping events, so as to bring about as speedily as possible
a dissolution of the present Union, and a Southern Confederacy." Or as
still more distinctly portrayed in the langui\2;e of the distinguished agitator,
Mr. Yancey: "Organize committees all over the Cotton States to lire the
Southern heart, ins'trnct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and
at the proper moment, hy one organized, concerted action precipitate the
Cotton States into revolution." Jn pursuance of this policy South Carolina,
through her leaders, became a Cull participant in the atrocious secret con-
spirac^' of eminent politicians and high oHlcials in most of the Southern States
to precipitate the nation into civil war in the event of Fremont's election to
the Presidency. The avowed scheme was, without waiting any sanction of
the people of the South or any part of them, to precipitate the civil war by a
seizure of the government with armed force. This civil war with the North,
Uov. Wise confessed, would be accompanied by a ''neighborhood civil war"
with the Union-loving men of the South. To meet the exigencies of the occa-
sion he said they would arm their slaves. Whilst Senator Clingman said the
Union men would be hushed by the '' sioift attention of vigilance commit-
tees." A national civil war and a neighborhood civil war combined, to be
carried on with the aid of armed slaves'and committees of assassins, was the
merciful boon prepared for the nation by these cold-bl6od_ed, remorseless con-
spirators, and from which we were saved only by the accidental j-unning of a
third candidate. The worst wickedness imputed, as the supposed design ot
the worst abolitionists, does not transcend this in infamous atorcity. _ It is
rivaled in cruel wickedness by nothing done or attempted by conspirators
since the davs of Catalinc. Had we not their own avowals for the facts, it
would be incredible that sane men, educated men, could have seriously con-
spired, in a Christian, civilized country, for the perpetration of such aI^
"iiormous crime. How intense and unappeasable must be their hate of the
Union and the nation ! That precipitation without consultation with the
[seople is still the desire of leading disunionists, may be inferred from the
indiscreet admission recently made before the members of the (ieorgia legis-
lature by Senator Toombs, that he had no confidence in the people, and
feared to trust them with a decision of the question of secession.
With this understanding of the long settled views and feelings of South
' x'arolina, we shall be the better able to appreciate her candor in her state-
ment of alleged grievances by way of justification for her attempted secession.
In tlie next number her Declaration of Independence will be considered.
NO. II. — SOCTH CAROLINA'S DECLARATION OF INDE-
PENDENCE.
The most notable thing about this attempt of South Carolina to break up
the Federal (Government and dissolve the Union, is tliat she has not a single
• i;omplaint, fictitious or real, not one to allege against the structure of the Gov-
ernment, or tlio manner of its administration. She alleges neither want of
jiower or inclination on the part of tlie Government to protect and promote her
rights and interests. So far as the Government is concerned, the complaint
is iigainst not what has })cen done, but what she fears may hereafter be done
by tiic prohibition of slavery in the Territories, if the Republicans should
iicreafter obtain the control of the two houses of Congress. To say nothing of
the great iniprol^ability of that contingency occurring, if it Avere actually to
occur, such a prohibition would furnish only the flimsiest pretext for so mighty
a revolution. Such a prohibition, if it had not to encounter the decision of
the Supreme Court, denouncing it as void and unconstitutional, would if le-
gally valid accomplish nothing which the laws of climate and trade have not
already irrevocably accom.plished, there being no Territory into wliich slavery
could be introduced, by any encouragement, for at least fifty years. Such a
prohibition would be no novelty in our Government, it was established cotem-
poraneously with tlie Government as tc all the country north of the Ohio; ir
was the basis of the Missouri Compromise, made, principally, by Southern
votes; it was part of the Texas bill of 1845, passed with the aid of a largo
uiajority of Southern votes, and which applied it to the whole or nearly the
whole of the Territory upon which it could now have any practical bearing-
and It was applied to the Oregon bill which received the approval of the
bouthern President, Polk. Such examples would relieve the prohibition, if
actually made, from the imputation of an unmistakable disposition in the
^orth wantonly to oppress the South. The sum of this complaint is, the al-
leged fear of an improbable occurrence, which, if it were actually to happen
Stofe ^ """ substantial prejudice to South Carolina, or any other Southern'
, J^' °*f,f"«f'^ grievances are, first, the non-rendition of fugitive slaves;
and second, the election of Lincoln. '
The grievance from the loss of fugitives is very small, if any, to South Car-
olina. She probably has not lost ten in as many years, by their escape into
a Jree State Ihere is no known instance of any citizen of hers ever havin-inia North
Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, is a modest specimen' «f the
arro^gant self-importance of a paltry State with only some three hundred thou-
sand etleminate whites, and four-sevenths of whose whole population arc
black._ She and her colleagues are to form a Southern Confederacy, adopt a
Constitution imperatively re-opening the African Slave Trade, or enforcing
¦their cherished theory of free trade, direct ta.^ation, and no tariff, with the full
behet that they will coerce the border States to join them, notwithstandin--
such a Constitution, under the pressure of necessary emancipation as the only
alternative. A paltry State whose contributions to the Government, in the
payment of duties and postages, does not near compensate the expeusu of fur-
nishing her with mails, and a few custom-house and judicial officers, to reach
at a single bound such a height of arrogant, dictatorial insolence is beyond
all example.
Yet when thus recklessly pursuing her treasonable schemes for her own
peculiar local benefit, regardless of the injury she may inflict on others, she
modestly expects our sympathy and protection, whilst she is perpetrating her
treason, and accomplishing our destruction.
In despite her grossly insulting, dictatorial arrogance, we are expected sub-
raissiveiy to place ourselves under the self-assumed guidance of crack-brained
fire eaters, wiio have signalized their statesmanship by rendering ours, accord-
ing to the admission of one of themselves, "the most corrupt (Tovernment irs
thewoidd;" who have further signalized their capacity by breaking down
the most powerful political party we have ever had ; who are holding out as
among the chief allurements to disunion and benefits of their vSouthern Con-
federacy the re-opening of the piratical Slave Trade ; a trafic that is de-
nounced as infamous by the Declaration of independence, and the concurring
voice of all Christendom ; a trafic so infamous that the nation, with almost
perfect unanimity, by her laws, classed it among the most detestable crimes,
and awarded it the punishment due to highway robbery and murder. We
are expected blindly to confide to such men the making for us of a new con-
federacy, and new Constitution.
These fire-eating gentry must excuse us. Kentucky acknowledges to no
admiration for tiieia, nor to any admiration or special partiality towards South
(Jarolina. She can have no particular sympathy for a State that requires a
property qualification for her representatives. A State that submits hersell
to .the government af an aristocracy of nabobs, one of whom pi'oclaimed in
the United States Senate the doctrine that "laboring men are every wdiere the
¦mtul sills oi' society," that "every man is a slace who lives ])y the wages of his
labor." Thanks to the patriotic "Working Men of Louisville," who recently
poured forth such a heart-warm, indignant protest against disunion, this na-
bob may now learn that neither they nor their numerous brethren of the
great West will ever become the viud sills of his impotent fire-eater Confede-
racy. Thanks, ten thousand thanks are due to those working men for the
outpouring of their unadulterated, strong patriotic feelings, which has given
to sorrowing, almost desponding hearts, the only glad pulsation that they liave
known during weary months of gloom. They have shown how Kentuckians
will always feel and speak when they assert their manhood, and cast oil the
fetters of party ties and political leaders. They have shown that there are
still real, live Kentuckians among us, worthy of our proud State, and the
stock from which they are descended. With aching hearts, listening ears
had long been waiting, almost in despair, for the true ring of the right Ken-
tucky metal. It has come, at last, and thanks to the working men of Louis-
ville that it has.
It is true that some of the States, but not so many by nearly one-half as
charged by South Carolina, have grossly violated tiieir duty and the Consti-
tution by al)ortive attempts of their Legislatures to nullify the Fugitive Slave
Law. That law may need amendment in some of its details to render it per-
fectly just, and especially better to i;iuird again.st its being abused for the pur-
poses of kidnapping. IJut that affords no justification for those attempts at
nullification, which ought to be swept from the statute books of all the States.
This the l)order States have an interest in demanding, and in due time will
demand, under the penaly of retaliatory legislation. A slight application of
the lex ialioitis by Kentucky would soon compel Ohio to repeal her obnoxious
statute. She is the only one of our three near neighbors that has resorted to
such statutes. Indiana and Illinois have habitually performed their duty to-
wards us in this particular. A large majority of our recaptured fugitives have
been taken by their owners or by the citizens of tliose States, without the aid
of any officers of the law. Many years ago, when the Fugitive Slave Law
was much less efScient than now, Kentucky sent Commissioners to the Ohio
Legislature asking a statute to supply the deticiency, and the request was
promptly granted. A similar application made now, would, no doubt, result
in the repeal of the obnoxious statute. It is true it has never had any effect
in preventing the rendition of any fugitive upon which the Federal officers
could lay their hands. The statute is treated by every one as a mere nullity,
and there has never been a prosecution under it; still it is offensive to Ken-
tucky, tends to create bad feeling between the two states, and ought to bo re-
pealed. It was passed during a period of high excitement and resentful feel-
ing, resulting from the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the maltreat-
ment of Northern men in the management of Kansas affairs. Ohio has had
time to cool off, her resentment will be appeased by the admission of Kansas
as a free State, and she is now in a mood to listen to our remonstrances, and
see and do what is so essential to her own honor, to say nothing of justice tct
us. No doubt on the application of Maryland and Virginia, for the sake of
good neighborship, Pennsylvania will now do the same. The repeal of the
» nullifying statutes of Pennsylvania and Ohio would remove most of the South-
ern discontent against such legislation so far as it is based upon the actual
loss of fugitives. After they have passed through those two States the chance
of re-capture is so very slight that they are not worth pursuing. The reten-
tion of such statutes by the other States would be of no substantial injury to
the South, and only serve as degrading mementos of abortive efforts of impo-
tent malice or revenge. This is the right method for settling disputes between
the States, but if that fails, we still have adequate remedy in the retaliatory
legislation recommended by Mr. Calhoun as the true mode of redress against
offending States, without a resort to disunion, which should be discardod from
every true American's mind as a remedy for nothing. Such a remedy is su
grievous and costly that sound minds have long settled in the belief that it
can never yield adequate compensating benefits. That has always been the
doctrine of Kentucky statesmen. The memorable answer of Mr. Clay to the
question when he would consent to disunion, was the reiterated '¦^ never, never.
NEVER." Disunion on the slave line carries such obvious and inevitable de-
structive results to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, that no Utopian pro-
jector of a Southern Confederacy has ever yet had the ingenuity to suggest
even the plausible semblance of any compensating benefit to those three
iStates.
KO, IlL — THE SOUTH CAROLINA DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE.
Vriiy all this load modern c5amor against the attempts of certain States to
nullify rlie Fugitive Slave law? Is an attempt at nullification such a novelty
Vn Snulli Carolina? Some of her Fire-eaters have recently declared, in her
^'(mvcntion, that they had always considered the law unconstitutional, and if
so, it cannot be very blameworthy to attempt its nullification. But if other-
wise, why has S(.nth Ciivolina never formally protested against those attempts?
Why has her delegiitidu never asked Congress to unite with her in such pro-
test? And why has she never resorted to the remedy for such grievances,
that retaliatm-y legislation advised by her great leader, Calhoun? With what
decency can pIio clr-im such abortive attempts at nullification, as sufficient
c-nuse for disunion, when her own people, and those of all the other extreme
.Suutiioni States, have for years been successfidhj nullifying our neutrality
laws, and laws against the piratical slave trade, which she and they have
practically re-opened? With what greater propriety can she, or those other
States, complain of obstructions to the recovery of fugitives by mobs of free
negroes and the dregs of Northern States, when she, and those her neighbors,
allow mobs, under the countenance of the most respectable members of theii-
society, to haliitually insult and maltreat Northern men and deprive them of
their constitutional rights? The instances are very numerous where Northern
men of respectability, have, without causp, other than that of their Northern
residence, been compelled to leave unfinislicd business and depart from those
States under the threat of lynch law. Some men who have been settled in
those States with their families have been compelled so to leave for no cause
but their Northern birth, or, perhaps in addition, because when interrogated
rhey would not admit that slavery was a divine institution. How many have
been actually murdered for no other cause is a dark secret which will never
be fully disclosed. It is suspected that there has been nearly as many of
such murders as there has been of owners obstructed in the recovery of fugi-
tives. The instances of the latter are certainly not one in twenty, perhaps
not one in fifty, when compared with the instances in which Northern men
and women have been causelessly driven from the extreme Southern States,
in contempt and despite of the express constitutional guarantee of their right
to be there. Yet it is expected that we shall adopt the quarrel of men who
thus perpetrate actual, effective nullification, and aid them in ruining this
great nation and ourselves, because of attempted nullification by others.
We had thought, we of the border States had thought, that we had some-
thing beside our large interest in slavery that was v/orthy our care and even
our affection. Among these are, our whole country, our whole nation, our-
several States, the great cause of civil liberty here and elsewhere, now and
hereafter, the great cause of Republican confederated Government, the love
of peace and odium for civil war, the love for our children and their postei-itVj
the strong desire for national, state, and individual prosperity, all dependent^
together with the safety and permanent success of the slave institution itself,
upon the preservation of the Union. But even if the slave institution were
not thus dependent, we have no reason to deem it so transcendently import-
ant as to require us to overlook, or disregard entirely, for its sake, all those
other great interests and natural feelings. Still less should it require us to
discard all sense of justice, approving indiscriminately everything done in the
cause of the shivery propaganda, and censuring everything done by the par-
tisans of free-soilism. We have the right, as it is our duty, impartially to
weigh the faults on both sides, and many of us certainly do believe that the
presentcrisis is full as much the fault of the Fire-eater Disunionists as of the
Republicans; and on the score of nullification, that the former are more cul-
• __^ pable than the latter.
/' The only other great cause of complaint made by South Carolina is the
t election of Lincoln. This cause for disunion has beeia so often discussed, and
/ its insufiiciency proved as a thing by itself, that it need not be dwelt upon.
But it is alleged that the election of a man of his principles indicated such
hostility against slavery as to prove a settled purpase to abolish it. He ac-
knowledges to a strong prejudice against it, that he believes it to be morally,
socially, and politically wrong, that it would be all the better for the country
if it had never existed; but as it has grown up under the sanction of law, that
Congress ought not to interfere with it in the States, even if it had the power,
which he distinctly says it has not. He further says that the South is enti-
tled to an efficient fugitive slave law, which it is the duty of the Government
to enforce, and if all power over the subject of slavery were given to him, he
dpes not know what he could do with such power for the permanent benefit of
either the_ blacks or whites, and certainly should not exert it for the purposes
of immediate emancipation. Now, however objectionable to the So-U'th some
of these opinions may be, yet it is an undoubted fact that these very same
opinions were held by every President we have ever had, unless Jackson.
Tyler, Taylor, and Polk be exceptions.
But then it is said, there is his "irrepressible conflict" doctrine, vdiich is
a novelty unknown to any of our Presidents. True it is a novelty, and what
is much worse, as arrant nonsense a.s ever fell from the l\^ of man. It first
came from a Virginian, now a member of Congress, of imputed disunion pro-
clivities, and probably uttered in behalf of disunion. Mr. Lincoln adopted
the significant phrase, together with the theory it implies, as an argument ir,
favor of free-.soil, and Air. Soward took it from him and became its putative
father. But with ]\Ir. Lincoln it is a mere absurd theory of which he pro-
poses no further practical application than as a justification for slavery pro-
hibition in the Territories. The Fire-eater Disunionists raised such a clamor
8
against the phrase as to make it a most potent bug-bear all through the South.
Yet strange to say, no sooner did they cast off their disguise, and avow them-
selves disunionists, than they adopted the whole theory in its fullest extent,
and use it as a main argument in favor of disunion. They now sav sure
enough there is an irrepressible conflict between free and slave labor, and
therefore the Union ought to be dissolved on the slave line. Thus they con-
vert his absurd speculative theory into an indisputable fact, though it is
clearly disproved by the nation's long experience of more than a century, and
make it the pretext for most tremendous practical action. Free and slave
labor have been operating side by side for eighty long years, in adjoinino-
States and in the same State, even closely intermixed in towns and on farms,
with a prosperous success.
But they further charge that Lincoln was ridiculous enough to say that
a house divided against itself must fall — that the States must become all slave
or all free — and as the Northern States wont become slaveholding, and as the
house wont fall, slavery is in the process of ultimate extinction. Seward was
silly enough to adopt also, this absurd, unstatesmanlike theory; but neither
of them proposed to aid the theory, or the verification of their fanciful opin-
ions by any action on the institution within the States, but spoke of it as
what was to occur in the remote future, centuries hence, from natural causes
alone, such as the irrepressible conflict. The disunionists have also adopted
this shallow theory of the divided house. They insist upon it as a certainty
that the house must fall — that there is no use in waiting to see whether it is
going to fall; and, therefore, they hasten out of it.
They have fully adopted and put into practical use the "higher law" doc-
trine imputed to Seward in its worse sense. They have succeeded in listen-
ing great odium upon him by inculcating the belief that he meant there was
a higher law which would justify him in disregarding the Constitution.
They are now doing themselves the very thing, for the supposed desire to do
which they heaped such unstinted abuse upon him. They too now avow a
higher law, which justifies them not merely in disregarding the constitution,
but in breaking it down and trampling it under foot. The right of secession,
on which they are acting in their efforts to accomplish our destruction, is
their higher law, and of a so much worse type than his. that whereas his only
contemplated probable evasion, theirs is to be carried out by actual treason
and civil war.
By thus fully adopting the doctrines of the irrepressible conflict, the divided
house and the higher law, the disunionists are vindicating Lincoln's preten-
tions as a true prophet, and dignifying the je-june sciolist vagaries of him
and Seward as the teachings of the true philosophy of government.
There can be no truer utterance than that of a resolve of the Democratic
legislature of Tennessee, which says: "all the evils of the intense slavery
agitation — all the discord, alienation, and bitter hatred between North and
South — are the legitimate fruit, not of any necessary conflict between free
and slave labor, but of a conflict between rival aspirants for official power and
plunder." That great vice of a Republic party feuds, together with the
dextrous management of the Disunionists have brought about the present
crisis. For party and disunion purposes the slavery question has been agita-
ted until the whole nation has been sectionalized, by playing upon the oppo-
site prejudices of North and South. The chagrin and hate caused by the
defeat of the Democratic party, has been a great aid to the Disunionists in
•precipitating the rebellion with such surprising rapidity. If disunion should
(iome, it will be properly ascribable to the scramble of parties "for official
power and plunder," rather than to the irrepressible conflict. Aversion to
and apprehension of the Democratic party is one of the main reasons why
conciliatory concessions cannot now be obtained from the North. If the
Democratic party could be disbanded, tliere is no doubt that the Republican
party would be prostrated before the next Congressional election.
The South Carolina manifesto says that when Lincoln becomes President,
"the slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self government or
self-protection." Her apologists also sa3^ more distinctly what she means,
that if not now, the South soon will be unable to protect its slave property
against Northern aggression. This, if it were really felt, would be a dastard
fear. Bat they who pretend to feel it are no cowards, and are hypocritically
simulating an apprehension not felt. There are no words to express the scorn
due to the affectation of such fear as a paltry pretext for disunion. Kentucky
lies right in the path of any such aggression, and must be the first to bear the
brunt, yet she feels no fear for her property. In the calm self-reliance of
proper manhood she scorns all such danger. Her property is amply secured
by the Constitution against all approaches of the law, and she cannot con-
ceive of any body of men having the temerity to cross her border without
law, to rob her of her property. She has the most undoubting confidence in
her ability to protect herself against such lawless violence. Even supposing
that most improbable event that the Federal (xovernment should become
active participants in such an aggression against the South, are not her eight
millions of people competent to their self protection within the Union against
so inefficient a government? If not, how can they pi'otect themselves against
the North when it becomes a hostile, seperate nation ; how protect herself
against any other powerful nation? Within the Union we should always have
a divided North to resist, whilst out of the Union the united strength of the
whole North would be arrayed against us. No Kentuckian would abate a
single dollar in the price of his slaves on account of any such danger. The
fear ought to be still less, if possible, farther South than with us. There is
really no such fear felt, it is all pretence, gotten up as a pretext for disunion.
What a slender inducement do they afford us to join a Southern Confedei-acy,
when thus avowing its incompetency to self-pi'otection.
Though the eight millions are superabundantly able to protect themselves
within the Union, jct their ability to properly protect themselves out of it
against the eighteen millions who will be made inveterate enemies by the
very act of separation, may well be doubted. By a very probable union with
the British possessions, the North would at once become the owner of the
largest commercial marine in the world, and upon that basis could soon create
a naval marine equal to that of England. With a hardy, enterprising popula-
tion of more than twenty millions, and with such a navy, or even the tenth of
it, how could our eight millions cope with them; how, indeed, even without
such a junction with the British colonies? With our ports blockaded, our
whole commerce stopped, our agricultural products left to rot on our hands,
the sincAVs of war dried up among us, we could be coerced into an ignomini-
ous submission without even an invasion of our long line of undefendable
inland border. If we wanted the con.solation to be derived from the glory of
well stricken fields of battle, we should have to incur all the disadvantage of
being ourselves the invaders. The South would exhibit the impetuous valor
of the French, but it would be met by the stubborn courage of the English.
The ultimate victory would be on the side of the greater numbers and the
largest purse, aided by the only naval force. Tliough only little more than
double our numbers, the North would have more than quadruple our military
strength. Yet we are seriously asked to give up our present prosperous con-
dition, our present position of perfect security in the very center of a power-
ful nation, to join an imbecile confederacy that must forever remain in a con-
dition of degrading, mortifying inferiority to its more powerful neighbor.
And all for what? For the shallowest, flimsiest pretexts that ever were urged
for severing a great prosperous nation into two hostile parts.
Aye, but the Republicans threaten that if they ever get the power slavery
shall be excluded from the Territories, and though the laws of climate and
trade have inexorably proclaimed the exclusion Avithout any aid from liepub-
licans, still the threat is an insult to the South, and Southern honor cannot
brook an insult — we must dissolve the Union for revenge. Jf this be insult
or injury, it is one which the South patiently and prosperously endured for
sixty-four years, and in the instance of the I\!issouri Compromise it was in-
flicted by the procurement of nearly all the eminent men of the South. For
4his the Government of this great nation must be broken up, and the vast
10
commercial and political interests of the South thrown into irretrievable ruin.
This may be Fire-eater chivalry, but with other people it will pass under a
less polite designation. Kentucky will never put herself under the gui-
dance of men who advise blie cuttini; of her own throat to revenge an insult
actually given; still less will she follow the guidance of those who would ad-
vise a man to blow out his own brains to avoid an insult or an injury which i.^
only threatened. This insult and Southern honor doctrine, if it is accompa-
nied with a particle of practical sense, must mean to dissolve the Union for
the purpose of enabling the Sonth to declare war against the North; for oth-
erwise the honor will be lost, and the insult unavenged, just as much as if the
South remains in the Union. Let the proposition, then, be stated in plain
terms — the South secedes that she may go to war with the North.
NO. IV. — A MISSISSIPPI VALLEY CONFEDERACY.
When a sensible people break up an old Government for the purpose oi
forming a new one, among the most important subjects for consideration will
be the probable stability of the proposed new Government. To pull down an
existing Government, even when bad, is an achievement of coraparativelv
little merit ; but to erect upon its ruins a stable, good Government, is the very
highest achievement of human wisdom. It is for such an achievement that
our fathers have, heretofore, stood as the exemplars of the world, and received
its admiration and applause. Let us then inquire into the probable stability
of a Confederacy of all the Southern States. As to that ricketty concern, :'i.
Cotton State Confederacy, its probable duration is not worth talking about.
Its durability and prosperity would be just what ought to be expected from
tire-eator wisdom.
A Southern Confederacy would commence its career with a dower of hate
among its citizens towards each other, which has seldom prevailed in a nation
without bringing civil war. This might not, and probably would not be tht
result in this instance, because they could and would be avoided by the milder
modern process of secession. The hate which the Union men would bear to
those wljSl had dragged them into the Confederacy, would be just what the
Fire-eater now bears the Abolitionist. Hate begets hate, and Fire-eaters would
reciprocate the feeling most cordially. There would be no great interest of
reciprocated benefits, such as that now subsisting between the North and the
South, to silence and overcome such feelings. The Eastern and Western
Cotton States would be mere rivals and competitors in the same branch of
business without any commercial intercommunication. The two cities of
Charleston and New Orleans, who are the promised recipients of nearly all
the anticipated benefits, would start as rivals, and make the eifects of their ri-
valry felt before the Confederacy was even clothed with its new harness. The
small amount of trade that would ever reach Charleston from Kentucky.
Tennessee, and Missouri, would be a constant bone of contention between
them. Louisiana would soon agitate, and successfully agitate for a South-
western Confederacy. The thing certainly would not last through the fifst
vigorously contested Presidential election between an Eastern and a Western
candidate. There would be nothing to keep it together, no love of country,
no mutual pride in a powerful, prosperous country, no bright memories to
stimulate a national feeling, but in lieu thereof the enduring hate of those
Union-loving men who had suifered under the violation of all the patriotic
feelings they ever knew, or wish to know, and the rending assunder the
strongest ligaments of the human heart. Even the fact of slaveholding,
though so violent an incentive to jealous sectional passion, and the main cause
of the Confederacy, M-ould do little to keep it together, because it would cease
to be even a peculiarity where all would be slaveholders Its disadvantage-
ous comparison with its more prosperous neighbor, its proven incapacity to
take rank among the more respectable nations, together with the disappoint-
ment of all those golden dreams with which we were seduced into disunion,
would make its citizens contemplate the Confederacy with contempt and
11
loathing. The smallest amount of sectional jealousy, of conflicting sectional
interest would at once rend it into two parts. How many other sub-divisions
it would ultimately fall into it is needless to speculate.
Gloomy as the prospect is, we must make up our minds to the stern fact,
that in less than ninety days eight Cotton States will have agreed to unite in
another Confederacy, and the chances are that during the present year, Vir-
ginia and North Carolina may join them. The question then will be up for
consideration by our three border States, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri,
what shall they do? The question is already agitating all their citizens in
every neighbox'hood. Neighbor and neighbor, friend and friend, brother and
brother, and even father and son, are already quarreling over it. They are
doing this upon a false issue. The}' are quarreling as if the only alternative
for these three States was to remain in the Union, or join the South. This
is a great error. Such is not our only alternative. We have a choice vastly
better for us than either of those in such a contingency. It is to aid in form-
ing a Mississippi Valley Confederacy.
As a relief to the manual labor of composition to an old man, he will re-
produce here what he wrote on this subject two years ago, and published in a
series of letters addressed to Hon. J. J. Crittenden:
lu answer to a claim made on you, Mr. Crittenden, as a Southern man, to aid the
South in perpetrating the Lecomptoii iniquity, you properly said you could not be
iufiuenced by such consideration ; but, even if you could, that the South had no
such claim on you ; that Kentuckians were neither Northern or Southern, but were
Western people. You reminded them that there was such a section of our country
as the great valley of the Mississippi, that Kentucky was in the center of that val-
ley, and that, if she belonged to any section, the whole of that valley was her sec-
tion. In so acting and in so urging, you have earned the thanks of every Kentuek-
ian. It was time that the politicians should bo informed of these facts ; and that,
in their treasonable machination for splitting up our country into separate confed-
eracies, they must bear in mind that our great vallej^, our section, is one and indi-
visible.
An eminent Democratic Senator from South Carolina, in projecting, in debate, a
Southern confederacy, seemed to have remembered our valley, and to have had
some appreciation of'its value. In setting forth the magnitude and importance of
his proposed Southern confederacy, he very complacently appropriated the whole
valley as a mere apjmnagc of the more Southern cotton-growing States. The ex-
treme modesty and reasonableness of this appropriation will be apparent when we
recollect that' those States are only nine in number, with a white population of not
more than three million, — whilst the great valley, with its appendages, Michigan
and Texas, already contains fourteen States, with a large portion of two others, and
a white population of more than eleven millions. Leaving out its four cotton
States, the v^alley contains a white population of more than ten millions. Count-
ing only the settled portion of its territory, excluding all but a third of Texas, and
going no further west than Kansas, the valley contains double as much territory as
all the States east of it. When its population is only half as dense as that of Ken-
tucky, or one-tenth that of Massachusetts, it will contain a population of one hun-
dred million. If the rate of increase indicated by the last two decades of the cen-
sus is kept up, it will, in the short space of ten years, have fifteen millions of whites.
If not so now, it is the predetermined seat of American empire. In less than ten
years its absolute sway as mistress of American power will be uncontrollable and
indestructible.
The diversity of climate in the valley, and of agricultural, commercial, and in-
dustrial pursuits among its people, serves to produce a homogenity of commercial
interest; whilst its geographical position compels it into unity as the common home
of one, and only one, people. A most prosperous home it has been. It has in-_
creaised in population and wealth with a rapidity never paralleled in the history of
the world. Unmixed prosperity reigns throughout its wide bound. Its march is
onward, rapidly onward, to still greater strength, wealth, and prosperity. It knows
no stagnation any where. It is rearing a hardy, industrious, vigorous race of free-
men, such as the world never saw. It honors, encourages, and rewards all honest
labor, whilst it scorns the sluggard.
This is the mighty home ofVurs which this modest Carolinian would appropriate
as a mere appendage to his nine cotton States, with their three millions of whites,
in the formation ef his proposed Southern confederacy. States, one-third of whom
are laboring under a lethargic paralysis, like that of their worn-out, poor land;
who d-ishonor and decry manual labor among whites, and sent senators to Congress
12
to denouuee all -white men as slaves " who live by the wagca of their labor ; " States
that have not sufficient mechanical skill and industry to maniifacture theif own
plows and axes, nor their hats and shoes ; States Who know no manual industry but
that of the slave, and the bulk of whose population that have not made their es*
cape to richer lands are sluggishly attenuating a languid, sluggard existence under
the enervating influence of their climate. The least arrogant shape in which the
Senator's idea can be presented is, that our ten States, with their ten millions of
whites, will permit their future destiny to be controlled and dictated to them by
those nine States and their three millions of white. The impudence of the assump-
tion is on a par with the iniquity of the scheme.
Land-locked though wc are, our prosperity, like that of every other portion of
the Union, depends upon our access to foreign markets. Let us shape this proposed
Southern confederacy, and then see what it promises us by way of outlet and pro->
tection to our commerce on the ocean. To avoid a mere geographical line of sepa-
ration, and for other obvious reasons, Maryland and Delaware would be compelled
to go with the JSTorth. The Carolina Senator does not seem to expect, v/ith any con-
liden.ce, that the free States of our valley will join his Southern confederacy. We
know certainly that they would not. To say nothing of their prejudices, their
commercial interests preponderate decidedly the other way. The Potomac and the
Chesapeake would be the northeastern, whilst the Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas Would
be the northwestern boundary of the Southern confederacy. The whole Atlantic
and Gulf coast, from the Chesapeake to Mexico, has Norfolk for its only commer-
cial harbor that can float a frigate. The States bordering that long line of coast
have comparatively very little shipping, and no means of creating either a com-
mercial or naval marine. The most paltry naval power, Spain, Portugal, or even
Denmark, could blockade all our ports, and prevent our access to the ocean. The
little ocean commerce of our own that we should have would be the prey of pirates.
We should have to buy a transit for our commerce from the iNorthern confederacy,
or, as has been recently suggested by a South Carolina paper, ignominiously place
ourselves under the protection of some foreign power, and hire its aid to relieve us
from the blockade. What a nation this would be 1 What a proud, prosperons con-
federacy the scheme promises us!
The scheme is that Kentucky and Missouri shall give up their enviable central
position in the very heart of a great, prosperous nation, and become the mere fron-
tier appendages of an impotent confederacy, and prevent, if we can, the Northern
hordes from invading its Southern climes. Suppose the sej)aration to have taken
place, and the inevitable war with the Northern confederacy to have ensued, what
aid would Kentucky and Missouri receive from South Carolina, Georgia, and Ala-
bama in protecting our long line of indefensible frontier? An old Kentuckian an-
swered the question by saying, they would ofi'er us any number of gentlemen with
epaulets, but not a single man with knajisack and musket.
Why are Kentucky and Missouri to adopt such a position as that, in lieu of their
present one of absolute security against foreign invasion, with free access to the
ocean at the North and the South, and a iiowerful nation to protect their access to
foreign markets? What is the compensating benefit? There is none, in fact, noi'
do the disunionists even pretend that there is. All that we are to achieve is to get
rid of associating, under the same government, with the Northern people, who do
not admire negro slavery, and have the ill manners or the impudence to tell us so,
This is the whole grievance from which we are suffering, and which would be rem-
edied by a separation. Wrong to us, or aggression upon our rights as slaveholders
by the Federal Government, there has been none, absolutely none.
Aye, there are those among us, the tools of party, who have had the impudence
to upbraid us with imputed want of proper sectional sympathy, that vre will not
blindfolded aid these bad men in hastening our perdition. Let it be known by
these revilers, and all others, from this time forth, that the people of Kentucky.
Tennesse, and Missouri owe no fealty to any section which is not in strict subor-
dination to the higher, nobler, worthier fealty which they owe to their country,
their whole country — that is, to the Union. But if there is any section, above all
others, to which they are bound in close sjnnpathy by the ties of aftection and per-
manent interest, it is their ov/n section— that of Avhich they are the heart and cen-
ter, tkc great Valley of the Mississippi. When that section calls for disunion, Ken-
tucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, will respectfully give ear to the reasons for such a
national calamity, — for calamity it certainly will be, come when and how it may.
Till then, till that sad day comes, Kentuckians, Tennesseana, and Missourians will
listen to no counsels, make no combinations touching the Union, except from and
with their brethren of the valley, — and that, too, only for its preservation and its
security.
What complaint have we of this valley to make of our countr}'' or our position?
When did such rapid growth in wealth and numbers, — such peace, plenty, happi-
ness, and prosperity, individual and collective, ever attend the career of any other
people? All history affbrds no parallel. Of all the regular pursuits of industry
"#
13
iinong us, which have most certainly and most rapidly yielded large fortunes, cot*
•on-growing stands pre-eminent. Yet, strange to say, it is among the cotton-grow-
•^rs of three of the States of our valley that alone is to be found, anywhere through-
:)Ut the valley, the least taint of disloyalty to the Union. They amongst us who
'lave been most benefited by the Union, they who have most prospered under it,
¦hey who are most dependent upon its great, undivided strength for the sale, con-
inuous export of their great staple, they are its only revilers. Nineteen-twen-
i.ieths, aye, ninety-nine hundredths of their IS'orthorn brethren of this great val-
ley cry shame upon them, not merely for disloyalty to our section, but for the far
worse disloyalty to our common mother, to our great, prosperous, glorious, all-lov-
•ible country.
Can it be that any portion of these men are blinded with the foolish belief that
'he Delta of the Mississippi, that great key to the commerce of our valley, belongs
¦o the ])eople of Mississippi and Louisiana, and that they can so use it as to coerce
>ur submission to their suicidal projects? Surely they cannot be sane, if au}^ there
'¦)e who so think. They are the occupants, not the proprietors. The proprietorship
is with the whole eleven millions of whites who occupy the great valley. To assert
H separate, exclusive proprietorship in themselves would be as wise as to attempt
t.o stop the flow of the great Father of Rivers. Any puny eflort, with such an ob-
iect, would not be more futile than an attempt by them to resist that ^^orthern hu-
man torrent wich will certainly pour upon them whenever it becomes necessary to
r>rove the true ownership and niasterdom of the Delta.
All sectional conventions are more or less impolitic, whatever may be their ob-
ject. They tend to engender sectionalism, the great bane of our country. The
iieople of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri have seduously abstained from them
with the most laudable pertinacity. But when so many secret and indirect, overt
•ind direct efforts are constantly being made to foment jeialousies, ill-will, and dis-
f.ffection among the people of our valley— in fact, to separate us upon the slave-
line, which runs straight through the center of the valley — shall nothing be done
'0 counteract these machinations, nothing to evoke an expression of popular sen-
I iinent in their condemnation ? \yhilst such efforts are making to pull us to pieces,
vhilst to that end unscrupulous use is made of that vile but powerful lever, party
eeling, and of that still viler and more pov/erful agent, sectional feeling, shall
nothing be done to revive and keep alive and pure that old-fashioned national feel-
ing and patriotism that have made us what we are ? "Whilst insidious enemies are
doing all they can to pull as asunder, shall we do nothing towards hugging closer
und more firmly together ? This thing has been too long neglected ; it has been too
long left to political parties to play upon our passions and prejudices for their selfish
pnrU' ends. The occasion is worthy of a great stir and political revival among the
whole people of the valley. Either through legislative resolves, or the action of
primary assemblies, something should be done to manifest the iixed, almost unani-
mous rei?olve of the people of this great valley to continue together and remain for-
'•ver one and indivisible. Let that mighty word be once spoken ; let all the people
•'f the valley, with comparative unaminity, confirm the fiat of nature, and pro-
¦'iounce our valley one and indivisible, and you strengthen, if you do not virtually
vcestablish, the "foundation of our Government. Whilst the valley hangs together,
'>ur commerce will forever bind to us, in willing bonds, all the people between the
Hudson and the Potomac; and our CDiumeroe, as one power, will equally biud to
Hi-, in willing or unwilling bonds, the Slates of the lower Mississippi. The narrow
•urip lying south of the Potomac and oast of the valley, would be too iusignficant,
13 to population and national resources, ever to desire to become a separate confed-
-•racy, even if a rational motive could I)e conjectured for desiring separation upon
¦iuch a geographical basis as that. If our valley remains firmly united, no human
ingenuity can devise a line of probable separation. It may even be affirmed that,
-•o long as our valley continues united, the Union toill be imicstricctible.
It 13 time that the su<:,
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