To your... interrogatory I answer: that Lincoln stands
before the country the representative of the anti-slavery ideas
and agitators of the times-- that his election or defeat must
rest alone upon the people of the free States to carry out those
ideas and to execute the purposes of the agitators, or to
repudiate those ideas and arrest that agitation. The one idea of
opposition to negro slavery brought the republican party into
existence, and holds it together. His election by a purely
sectional vote of the people of the free States would pledge his
administration and party and section to carry out the doctrines
upon which he was run and would be elected. The doctrines of his
party, are that negro slavery, as it exists with us, is
religiously, morally, socially, and politically wrong. It is
proclaimed by the great leaders of that party, by its political
conventions, by its ministers of the Gospel, and by every other
means they have of giving currency and importance to the
declaration, that it is its mission to abolish slavery in the
Union. Their legislation in most of the free States, and their
efforts at legislation in Congress, prove that the Federal
Constitution presents no barrier to the accomplishment of their
purpose, where they have the power to override and disregard its
provisions. They are pledged to exclude slavery from the common
Territories, to abolish it in the District of Columbia, in the
Forts, Dock Yards, &c., and to prevent the inter-State slave
trade. They have no power over this question in the States where
it exists. The Federal Constitution recognizes our right of
property in slaves in the common Territories, in the District of
Columbia, and in the Forts, Dock Yards, &c. The Constitution
confers no power on Congress or any other political body to
interfere with or destroy that right of property. The successful
application of the republican doctrines would violate the plain
specific provisions of the Federal Constitution in several
particulars. They would strike down the sovereignty and equality
of the States by denying them the right to regulate and control
their own domestic institutions in their own way. They would take
away and destroy our right of property in negro slaves in the
Territories, in the District of Columbia, &c., in violation
of that provision of the Constitution which declares that no
citizen shall be deprived of his property except by due process
of law, and another which declares that private property shall
not be taken for public uses without just compensation. They deny
the equality of the people of the slaveholding with those of the
non- slaveholding States, in respect to their rights to go into
and occupy the common Territories so long as they remain in a
Territorial condition, with their negro property, recognized as
such by the Constitution and declared to be such by the Supreme
Court of the United States. The Constitution of the United States
was made by white men, the citizens and representatives of twelve
slaveholding and one non-slaveholding State; and it was made for
white men. It denied the right of citizenship to the negro race
whether bond or free, and recognized them as property when they
are held in bondage. The people of the Southern States now own
near five millions of these negroes, and they are worth to them
near three millions of dollars. They constitute an important
element in society as well as the wealth of the Republic, and are
the chief producers of more than two-thirds of the foreign
exports of the Union. They are and ever have been, under all
circumstances, and probably ever will be, incapable of free
self-government. They are now more intelligent, better fed,
better clothed, and more contented and happy than any other equal
number of that race in any other part of the world, whether bond
or free. The success of the republican doctrines would liberate
among us this large number of negroes, would strike down our
agriculture and commerce, involve us inevitably in a war of
races, which would result in the murder of many of the white race
of all ages and of both sexes, and in the burning and destruction
of a large amount of property, and in the ultimate extermination
of the negro race among us. The success of those doctrines would
also subvert the Federal Constitution, change the character of
the Federal Government, and destroy our rights in respect to
slavery. And all this would be done to gratify the passions, and
prejudices, and malice of the party of which Mr. Lincoln is the
head and representative in this contest, and not because of any
pretence even that they have any material or political rights
involved in the question.
Some of the recent evidence of the ultimate purposes
of the republican party may be found in the fact that Senators
and Representatives in Congress, sixty odd in number, and
republican Governors and Legislators of States-- leading
republican Editors and republican preachers-- endorsed within the
last year and sent forth the Helper Book, with its
recommendations of treason, blood, and carnage as a proper
campaign document for that party, and that John Brown and his
followers attempted to put its bloody doctrines into full
operation in the State of Virginia.
Looking at these facts, and others which I will not
now present; I am bound to conclude that the doctrines of the
republican party are unconstitutional, unjust, cruel to both
races, revolutionary and destructive of the best interests of the
South as well as of the Union, and that the election of Lincoln
would be the success of a revolution which must destroy our
present constitutional Government, and with it our rights,
equality, and security as a people. So regarding his election, I
am for resisting it, in case it should occur, by the best and
most effective means which can be adopted by the States to be
injured; and of adopting such a course as will secure our rights,
in the Union if we can, but out of it if we must. Every instinct
of self preservation demands of us to demand and insist on this
security, and to obtain it peaceably if we can, and if reason and
peaceful means should fail, then it is equally our duty to
maintain our rights by all the means which God and nature have
placed at our command.
The plan of action which I would recommend to meet
such an emergency is this: that if Lincoln should be elected as
soon as that fact shall be ascertained, for the Governors of all
the slaveholding States to convene the Legislatures at once for
the purpose of enabling them by law, to provide for State
conventions. And that those State conventions should provide for
a general convention of delegates from all the States aggrieved.
And that this general convention should submit to the free
States, propositions requiring a renewal of the original
guarantees of the constitution in favor of our rights in such
specific form as to settle forever the question as to the extent
and character of the rights of the slave States and of the owners
of slave property. One of the conditions should be that we would
not continue our political connection with any State which would
not repeal all of its laws intended to hinder the recapture of
fugitive slaves; another should be to demand an equal
participation in the settlement and occupation of the common
territory, and a safe guarantee for the admission of future slave
States into the Union; another should be the suspension of the
agitation of the question about abolishing slavery in the
District of Columbia; in the Forts, Dock yards, &c.; and
another that the inter- State slave trade should not be
interfered with by Congress. If they would agree to these, we
should remain in the Union and support and cherish it as
heretofore. If they should refuse these guarantees, then my
judgement is, that we should form a separate confederacy of such
States as would unite in the movement.
If the Southern States would adopt this course
promptly, I believe the free States would renew these guarantees
of the constitution to us; and upon such an issue crush out and
annihilate abolitionism, and that the Union of the States would
be preserved. But if I am mistaken in this, then their refusal to
do so would assure us of our fate if we should remain in their
power, and warn us of the necessity of self preservation.
I indicate this as the plan which meets my approval,
but will, if the emergency shall arise, agree to such other plan,
if this be not the best, as may be adopted by the people of the
South, to resist the establishment of the doctrines of the
republican party. I have thought this would be the best, because
it would rest on the will of the people, and be supported by the
authority of State sovereignty, acting in support of their own
reserved rights and powers, and maintaining the rights of their
people against palpable and dangerous violations of the
Constitution.
If we fail to adopt some such course, on the happening
of such a contingency, and adopt the timid and foolish policy of
compromising away our rights for the sake of peace, no one can
doubt the early and complete abolition of slavery, and the
visitation upon us of all the calamities which must follow such a
result.
I fear the evil day is upon us, and believe duty and
patriotism alike require us to face the danger and prepare to
avert it.
I may be excused for adding, for myself, that I am one
of those who have clung to every reasonable hope for the Union.
That I have resisted as I am still ready to do, every measure
which I supposed would endanger it, whether proposed in the North
or the South, without enquiring for the consequences to myself. I
clung steadfastly to the hope that the democratic party would
maintain its nationality and preserve the Constitution and the
Union. But unbridled ambition, preferring self to country, and
appealing to the freesoil sentiment of the Northern wing of the
party, has destroyed its unity if not its nationality, and with
it, there is but too much reason to fear, prepared the way for
the separation of the States.
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