People of Georgia, met in Convention

“ Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have, by a large majority, committed the Government of the United States into their hands. ”

“ It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party, while it attracts to itself by its creed, the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government; anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. ”

“ The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and safety of any other State, and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquility of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offences against the laws of nations. ”

“ Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican Party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States; we know their treachery, we know the shallow pretences under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations; if we submit to them, it will be our fault and not theirs. ”

“ The faithless conduct of our adversaries, is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union; they are content, if they can only injure us. The constitution declares, that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another, shall be delivered up on the demand of the Executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. ”

“ These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries, and all centuries. But they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past, the Abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States, have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions, and to excite insurrection and servile war amongst us. ”

“ We have their covenants, we have their oaths, to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal Officer, with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met, with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments, to elude, to resist and defeat him; claimants are murdered with impunity ”

“ Officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs, instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity. In several of our confederate States, a citizen can not travel the high-way with his servant, who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon, and being subjected to infamous punishments. ”

“ This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union, for many years past, in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union, from habit and National traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason and argument, would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from farther insults, injuries and dangers. ”

“ They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government, have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. ”

“ It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity; yet, for above twenty years, the non-slaveholding State, generally, have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property; our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals, who seek to deprive us of this property, or who use it to destroy us. ”

“ In the first years of the Republic, the navigating, commercial and manufacturing interests of the North, began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks, sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business, which yet continue—and half a million of dollars are now paid them annually out of the Treasury. ”