South Carolina Secession Convention

“ There must be conflict; and the weaker section of the Union can only find peace and liberty, in an independence of the North. The repeated efforts made by South Carolina, in a wise conservatism, to arrest the progress of the General Government in its fatal progress to consolidation, have been unsupported, and she has been denounced as faithless to the obligations of the Constitution, by the very men and States, who were destroying it by their usurpations. It is now too late, to reform or restore the Government of the United States. All confidence in the North, is lost by the South. ”

“ Citizens of the slaveholding States of the United States! Circumstances beyond our control, have placed us in the van of the great controversy between the Northern and Southern States. We would have preferred, that other States should have assumed the position we now occupy. Independent ourselves, we disclaim any design or desire, to lead the counsels of the other Southern States. Providence has cast our lot together, by extending over us an identity of pursuits, interests and institutions. South Carolina, desires no destiny, separated from yours. ”

“ South Carolina acting in her sovereign capacity, now thinks proper to secede from the Union. She did not part with her Sovereignty, in adopting the Constitution. The last thing, a State can be presumed to have surrendered, is her Sovereignty. Her Sovereignty, is her life. Nothing but a clear express grant, can alienate it. Inference is inadmissible. Yet it is not at all surprising, that those who have construed away all the limitations of the Constitution, should also by construction, claim the annihilation of the Sovereignty of the States. ”

“ To be one of a great Slaveholding Confederacy, stretching its arms over a territory larger than any power in Europe possesses—with a population, four times greater than that of the whole United States, when they achieved their independence of the British Empire—with productions, which make our existence more important to the world, than that of any other people inhabiting it—with common institutions to defend, and common dangers to encounter—we ask your sympathy and confederation. ”

“ It is true, that amongst those who aided in his election, there are various shades of anti-slavery hostility. But if African slavery in the Southern States, be the evil their political combination affirms it to be, the requisitions of an inexorable logic, must lead them to emancipation. If it is right, to preclude or abolish slavery in a Territory,—why should it be allowed to remain in the States? The one is not at all more unconstitutional than the other, according to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. ”

“ That identity of feelings, interests and institutions, which once existed, is gone. They are now divided, between agricultural—and manufacturing, and commercial States; between slaveholding, and non-slaveholding States. Their institutions and industrial pursuits, have made them, totally different peoples. That Equality in the Government between the two sections of the Union which once existed, no longer exists. We but imitate the policy of our fathers in dissolving a union with non-slaveholding confederates, and seeking a confederation with slaveholding States. ”

“ The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle, self-government,—and self-taxation, the criterion of self-government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies, were different and antagonistic. Great Britain was desirous of carrying out the policy of all nations towards their Colonies, of making them tributary to her wealth and power. ”

“ A free people, cannot submit to such a Government. And the more it enlarges the sphere of its power, the greater must he the dissatisfaction it must produce, and the weaker it must become. On the contrary, the more it abstains from usurped powers, and the more faithfully it adheres to the limitations of the Constitution, the stronger it is made. The Northern people have had neither the wisdom nor the faith to perceive, that to observe the limitations of the Constitution was the only way to its perpetuity. ”

“ To extend the scope of its power over sectional or local interests, is to raise up against it, opposition and resistance. In all such matters, the General Government must necessarily be a despotism, because all sectional or local interests must ever be represented by a minority in the councils of the General Government—having no power to protect itself against the rule of the majority. The majority, constituted from those who do not represent these sectional or local interests, will control and govern them. ”

“ Experience has proved, that slaveholding States cannot be safe, in subjection to non-slaveholding States. Indeed, no people can ever expect to preserve its rights and liberties, unless these be in its own custody. To plunder and oppress, where plunder and oppression can be practiced with impunity, seems to be the natural order of things. ”

“ We prefer, however, our system of industry, by which labor and capital are identified in interest, and capital, therefore, protects labor—by which our population doubles every twenty years—by which starvation is unknown, and abundance crowns the land—by which order is preserved by an unpaid police, and many fertile regions of the world, where the white man cannot labor, are brought into usefulness, by the labor of the African, and the whole world is blessed by our productions. ”

“ The very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to restrain the majority. Constitutions, therefore, according to their theory, must be most unrighteous inventions, restricting liberty. None ought to exist; but the body politic ought simply to have a political organization, to bring out and enforce the will of the majority. ”

“ In their reckless lust for power, they seem unable to comprehend that seeming paradox—that the more power is given to the General Government, the weaker it becomes. Its strength, consists in the limitation of its agency to objects of common interest to all sections. ”

“ Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. ”

“ And when it is considered, that the Northern States will soon have the power to make that Court what they please, and that the Constitution never has been any barrier whatever to their exercise of power—what check can there be, in the unrestrained counsels of the North, to emancipation? There is sympathy in association, which carries men along without principle ”

“ If they prefer a system of industry, in which capital and labor are in perpetual conflict—and chronic starvation keeps down the natural increase of population—and a man is worked out in eight years—and the law ordains, that children shall be worked only ten hours a day—and the sabre and bayonet are the instruments of order—be it so. ”