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Luther J. Glenn, Secession Commissioner
from Georgia, March 4, 1861
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the
Missouri Convention: On the 19th
day of January, a Convention of the people of the State of
Georgia adopted an ordinance of secession, which I beg leave to
read and present to this Convention. They also adopted a
resolution appointing commissioners to the various States, which
I will read. [Mr. Glenn read the ordinance of secession passed by
the State of Georgia, and the resolution referring to his
appointment as Commissioner.] Under that resolution, gentlemen of
the Convention, I had the honor to be appointed a Commissioner
from the State of Georgia to the State of Missouri, and having
read and presented to you the ordinance of secession and the
resolution, my duty might be considered as having been performed.
It is, perhaps, however, due alike to the State which I
represent, and the State of Missouri, that, with your permission,
I shall accompany the execution of my duty with a few brief
remarks. I propose to trespass upon your patience but a short
time.
Georgia has not assumed this position
because of any dissatisfaction with the Constitution, because of
any dissatisfaction with the General Government when administered
in accordance with the spirit of that Constitution. If her
Northern confederates had been true to that instrument, if they
had carried out the Federal Constitution according to its spirit
and letter, Georgia, having been among the first to adopt the
Federal Constitution, would have been among the last to have
abandoned the General Government. The causes which have operated
to induce and impel the State of Georgia, one of the old thirteen
States, one of those which passed through the fire and blood of
the Revolution, to sever the ties that bound her to the
Government of her fathers, have been enunciated, and read and
understood of all men.
I do not, gentlemen, propose to enter
into anything like a detailed history of the rise and progress,
and present position of the anti-slavery feeling of the North. To
do so would be a reflection upon your intelligence–an abuse
of your indulgence, and an assumption on my part of an
unnecessary task
The first occasion upon which this
feeling of hostility among the people of the Northern States
assumed a position of hostility was, I believe, the application
of your own people, then a Territory, for admission into the
Federal Union. With the history and result of that struggle you
are familiar. I need not recite it. Without assuming a political
aspect or organization, the Abolitionists a few years after this
event formed societies; they established newspapers at different
points. In New York, Boston and other places, they began to teach
the mind of the rising generation. They began to preach their
doctrines from the pulpit, and but a few years elapsed before
this anti-slavery feeling had so far overcome and taken
possession of the religious mind of the North that (as you
remember in 1844) they deposed from office one of their ablest
men, to-wit; Bishop ANDREW, of Georgia, for no other reason than
that he had intermarried with a lady in Georgia who was possessed
of a few negroes in her own right. It was then, you recollect,
that the Southern Methodists dissolved their connection with
their fanatical brethren of the North. The same feeling and
spirit of opposition to the Southern interest and
institutions–the same fanatical spirit if you
please–entered into the Baptist church and soon after
brought about an effective separation of that denomination. And,
in truth, gentlemen of Missouri, so far has this feeling taken
possession of the mind of the North, that at this time there are
but few places and few churches to be found on the Northern soil,
where the Southern church, however, pure and upright and devoted
to its cause, would be allowed to proclaim its holy mission. As
might have been expected, this feeling entered into the political
organization of the country. The Abolition party of the North,
for many years, only held the balance of power between the
political organizations of the country, but it soon took
possession of one of them and you know, as every man knows who
has read the history of the political parties of the country,
that the untimely end of the old Whig organization was
attributable alone to this cause. Even Mr. Clay, with all his
power, and with all his influence could not save the Whig
organization from the withering effects and influence of this
party. Gentlemen, some years thereafter another political
organization, the American party, arose–as was said, on the
ruins of both the old political organizations, discarding the
evils of both, and combining the virtues of both. It lived for a
while, so long as it was confined within the limits of State
Governments, and you remember that no sooner than the delegates
of this party from the North and South, in 1856, met in
convention in the city of Philadelphia, than they disagreed and
differed in reference to the slave question, and it was then that
the delegates from the Northern States, or most of them withdrew
and went into a convention with those of more congenial
principles and tastes in the city of Pittsburgh, and there Mr.
Fremont was nominated. You remember the platform upon which he
was nominated, I will not take up your time by reading it. You
will remember that the principle therein advocated was that it
was the duty, the right and power of Congress to exclude the men
of the South with their property from the common territory of the
Union. You will further remember, gentlemen, what a contest there
was in the election that followed. You vividly recollect that
struggle, and that it was only after the most superhuman effort
on the part of the Democratic party, the conservative portion of
the people of the North, that Mr. Buchanan was elected.
Well, gentlemen, four years passed
away. Within that time does the anti-slavery feeling of [sic] the
North subside? Is there any abatement of hostility of the
Northern people towards the institutions and rights of the South?
Why, within those four years what have the people of Georgia seen
and witnessed? They have witnessed the formation of Emigrant Aid
Societies for the purpose of sending men into the common
Territories of the country for no other object than to exclude
the men of Georgia and men of Missouri there from with their
property. In that same time they have witnessed their own and
your own people shot down, and the soil of Kansas moistened with
the blood of your own people, for no other crime than the
assertion and vindication of their own constitutional rights.
Within that time, gentlemen, we have seen the Governor of a
non-slaveholding State refusing to deliver a fugitive from
justice upon the demand of the Governor of the State of Kentucky,
for the reason, as they hold, that it is no crime to entice your
slaves to leave you. Within that time Georgia has witnessed more
than sixty Representatives of this organization at the North,
endorsing and recommending the infamous sentiments contained in
the Helper Book, and but for the indomitable perseverance of one
of the Missouri Representatives in urging his resolution to that
effect, she would have witnessed one of the men who endorsed the
book elevated to the Speakership. She has witnessed, moreover,
within these four years almost every State North of Mason and
Dixon’s line pass under the influence and power of the
Republican organization of the North. She has seen within that
time the true men, the constitutional men of the North cut down
one after another, and in every case and on every occasion where
the opportunity has occurred, every true and constitutional man
in the Senate of the United States, with but one exception within
the last four years, has been swept away and his place filled and
occupied by a Representative of the Republican party.
She has seen within that time, as I
have already stated, the States of the North pass under the
influence and into the hands of this organization. It has seen
their Executive, their Judicial and their Legislative
Departments–all their offices, from the highest to the
lowest, from the constable up through every intermediate grade to
the Executive–filled with the representatives of the
Republican organization. Not only so, but, within these four
years, Georgia has seen an organized band descending upon the
soil of Virginia, taking possession of the arsenal and property
of the Government, and there pouring out the blood, shedding the
innocent blood, of Virginia’s citizens, for the avowed
purpose of liberating the slaves of the South.
But, gentlemen, these four years have
passed away, and the Republican organization–a sectional
organization–existing alone in the Northern States; with the
exception of a few thousand votes in the South; I say this
organization, sectional, geographical–an organization
against the formation of which, the Father of his Country warned
the American people, met in Convention at the city of Chicago,
and there proclaimed and published a platform of principles to
the world. And, gentlemen, this same platform is to be found one
in spirit and in object, to the one which was adopted in
Pittsburgh in 1856; whereby it is asserted that Congress has the
power and right, aye, and that it is the duty, to exclude the
Southern man and his property from the Territories, belonging
alike to the North and the South, to the East and the West. They
nominated their candidates on this platform. They go before the
people–the ideas of November roll around–what is the
result? Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Hamlin are elected by an overwhelming
majority of the popular vote in the North.
Now, gentlemen, we have not only to
look to the platform of this party for the principles and objects
which they avow, but we must also look (and so the State of
Georgia has done) to the principles and objects avowed by the
candidates who have been elected by the Republican organization.
Mr. Lincoln, the President elect, subscribes to the platform
adopted in Chicago. Not only so, but he avowed the principles
contained in it long before he was nominated, and enunciated the
doctrine that Congress had the power to exclude the Southern man
from going into the Territories with his property. He said that
if he were a member of Congress he would vote
to effect this exclusion, regardless of the decisions of the
Supreme tribunal of the country. Not only so, but he has avowed
the irrepressible conflict. Georgia saw all this and declared
that the Northern mind would never become easy and quiet upon
this question until it was satisfied that slavery was put in a
course of ultimate extinction. Georgia has looked to his
published declarations and opinions in order to ascertain the
objects and views and opinions of the Republican organization.
Not stopping there, she has looked to the declarations of the
representative men of the Republican organization. She has looked
to the views and opinions as expressed by Mr. Seward, Mr. Sumner,
Mr. Wilson and others, both in and out of Congress, for the
purpose of arriving at and ascertaining what was the ultimate
object of the Republican organization in reference to the
institution of slavery. She has not confined herself to them, but
in order to ascertain more clearly, if you please, the object,
she has gone into the county meetings and State Conventions,
which may probably be a more true reflex of the principles and
objects of the party, than the declaration of its representative
men, and considered their action and resolutions. Looking at all
these things–looking at the national platform; at the county
and State platforms; at the declarations published of Mr. Lincoln
himself; at the declaration and avowals of the representative men
of the party, Georgia came to the conclusion that it was the
avowed object of the Republican organization to put slavery and
the government upon such a track as that slavery might ultimately
be put in a course of ultimate extinction–that it was their
object to surround the slaveholding States with a circle of free
States, and thereby cause the institution (to use their own
language) to sting itself to death. Seeing these things,
believing, gentlemen of Missouri, that there was no hope in the
future–looking to the end and seeing nothing but danger and
destruction to her people and hee [sic] best interests–aye,
seeing that there was an antagonism, an irreconcilable
antagonism, if you please, between the two sections of the
country–believing, if you please, that there is a difference
of principles, of civilization between the North and South, and
feeling that this difference would never be reconciled, Georgia
thought it was best there should be a peaceable separation.
Hence, gentlemen, she has adopted her ordinance of secession, and
she invites all slaveholding States to unite with her, and among
them the State of Missouri–to unite with her in forming a
Southern Confederacy–believing that, if they all will unite
in forming a Southern Confederacy, we shall thereby have a
government combining, as it were, every variety of soil and
climate, embracing, as it will, a people homogeneous in views, in
feelings, in sympathies and interests. With a government securing
equal rights to all and every State and every citizen, she thinks
that a future will be presented full of power and greatness to
the Union, of happiness and prosperity to the people.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the
Convention. In the name of my State and for myself individually,
I beg you to accept my grateful acknowledgment, for the kind
reception and respectful hearing you have given me (mingled
applause and hisses among the audience, which lasted for some
time, and was subdued with some difficulty by the President).
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