whether submission would not be the better policy. Such is my love of peace, such my almost superstitious reverence for the Union, that I might be willing to submit if this was to be the end of our troubles. But I know it is not to be the end. I know it has not been the end thus far. What have we seen? On the passage of all these bills through Congress, the North stood shocked and overawed at the enormity of the wrong done the South; but Washington city rejoiced, Baltimore rejoiced, Richmond rejoiced. Instead of the thunder notes of resistance coming back upon the capitol, we were greeted with songs and shouts, and the merry peals of hearts filled with joy. Seward, the abolition senator from New York, encouraged by these indications, introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. It got only five votes. The North had not yet recovered from the shock which a glance at her own bold work had inflicted on her. After a few more days, the news of rejoicing at Louisville, at Augusta, and Nashville, came rolling back upon the wings of the lightning, and Seward asked another vote, and the result was nine in the affirmative. The cautious Dayton, and the still more cunning Winthrop, and men of that class, all the while protesting that it was yet too soon to urge that measure. They saw and knew full well that the firing of cannon and beating of drums were empty signs. They judged rightly, that no people rejoice in heart at their own degradation. But this rejoicing still went on; they fired the cannon, and beat the drums, and flung out their banners all over the South at Natchez and New Orleans, at Mobile and at Jackson, at Memphis and Montgomery, Not only were the Giddingses and the Sewards, the Chases, Hales, and Kings, and all the enemies of the South, thus assured that there would be no resistance, but, in the echo of the booming cannon and in the shrill notes of the merry fife, they were assured that the South was filled with rejoicings and merry songs. What was the effect of all this? Why, fellow-citizens, the vote was taken in the House on the bill to abolish slavery out-and-out in the District of Columbia, and it got fifty-two votes, and there were twenty-nine of its friends absent the largest vote ever given in Congress on the direct proposition. Look at these things. Look to the fugitive slave law in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and elsewhere. Look to the late extraordinary triumph of Seward in New York. Look to the success of the Free Soilers in the late elections. Listen to the notes of preparation everywhere in the Northern States, and tell me if men do not wilfully deceive you when they say that the slavery agitation is over. I tell you, fellow-citizens, it is not over. It never will be over so long as you continue to recede before the pressure of northern power. You cannot secure your rights; you cannot save the Union or the Constitution, by following the timid counsels of the submissionists. Pursue these counsels, and they will lead to a sacrifice of all that we hold dear-of life, liberty, property, and the Union itself. By a submission you may secure, not a union, but a connection with the North. It will be such a connection as exists between Ireland and England, Poland and Russia, Hungary and Austria. It will not, it cannot be the Union of our fathers-it cannot be a union of equals. You can save the Union, fellow-citizens, and you can do it by a stern resistance to wrong. I have seen the Free Soil elephant of the North. He is governed by the instincts of his species. He never crosses a bridge without first pressing it with his foot to see if it will sustain his ponderous frame. Make the bridge strong, and he will cross; but let it be weak, and he will stay on his own side. If you want this Free-Soil elephant among you, make the bridge strong, give him assurance of submission, convince him that he may pass the gulf that divides you in safety, and he will come among you and destroy you. If you would keep him out, show him the yawning chasm, and convince him that if he attempts to cross he will be precipitated to the bottom, and, my life upon it, he will be content to remain at home. The North will inflict all that the South will bear, even to a final emancipation of the negro race. She will inflict nothing that you will not bear. I am detaining you, fellow-citizens, beyond the time which I allotted to myself; allow me to bring these remarks to a close. I am for resistance. I am for that sort of resistance which shall be effective and final. Speaking to you as a private citizen, I shall not hesitate to express my individual opinions freely and fearlessly as to the best mode of resistance. I do not ask-I do not expect any one to adopt my opinions. They are the result of my own best reflections, and they will not be abandoned, except to embrace others more likely to prove effective in practice. I approve of the governor's convocation of the legislature. The measure was called for by the emergencies of the hour, and was, in my judgment, eminently wise and proper. Give the I trust the legislature will order a convention of the state. people a chance to speak. Let the voice of the sovereign state be heard speaking through a regularly-organized convention, and it will command. respect. Our bane has been our divisions. We never can unite as one man-our people are too much imbued with the early prejudices of their native homes. Congregated from all the states of the Union, and from many foreign countries, they never can unite on one common platform. But the majority can speak, and if that majority speaks through a convention legally elected, its voice will silence dissension. It will be the voice of a sovereignty-it will command respect. What if three-fourths of the people of Mississippi are for resistance, the other fourth makes as loud a noise, and their voice sounds as large in New York or Massachusetts. What if five-sixths of your delegation in Congress have spoken the sentiment of the state, the other sixth has protested that he speaks the voice of the state. Let the people speak! Let them speak through the ballot-box. Let a convention be called, and through that convention, let us speak the sentiments of the sovereign state.. I should hope that such a movement in Mississippi would be responded to in most, if not all the Southern States. I should have great confidence that South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, would meet us on a common platform, and resolve with us to stand or fall together. I speak with great deference, but with the utmost freedom as to what course Mississippi and the other states should pursue. I speak for myself alone, and no man or party is in any way responsible for what I say. We should demand a restoration of the laws of Texas in hæc verba over the country which has been taken from her and added to New Mexico. In other words, we should demand the clear and undisputed right to carry our slave property to that country, and have it protected and secured to us after we get it there; and we should demand a continuation of this right and of this security and protection. We should demand the same right to go into all the territories with our slave property, that citizens of the free states have to go with any species of property, and we should demand for our property the same protection that is given to the property of our northern brethren. No more, nor less. We should demand that Congress abstain from all interference with slavery in the territories, in the District of Columbia, in the states, on the high seas, or anywhere else, except to give it protection, and this protection should be the same that is given to other property. We should demand a continuation of the present fugitive slave law, or some other law which should be effective in carrying out the mandate of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive slaves. We should demand that no state be denied admission into the Union, because her constitution tolerated slavery. In all this we should ask nothing but meagre justice; and a refusal to grant such reasonable demands would show a fixed and settled purpose in the North to oppress and finally destroy the Southern States. If the demands here set forth, and such others as would most effectually secure the South against further disturbance, should be denied, and that denial should be manifested by any act of the Federal Government, we ought forthwith to dissolve all political connection with the Northern States. If the Southern States, in convention, will lay down this or some other platform equally broad and substantial, and plant themselves upon it, I know there are hundreds and thousands of good men and true at the North, who will take positions with them, and stand by them to the last. In the present condition of our counsels, we can never expect support from the North. Distracted and divided at home and in Congress, those at the North who are disposed to aid us, are left in doubt as to which is the true southern side of the question. Suppose Mr. Dallas, Mr. Paulding, or some other friend of the South, should undertake our defence, would he not be met with language like this: "Look at Clay, look at Benton, look at Houston, look at hundreds in the South-listen to the roar of their cannon and the music of their drums, and do you, sir, pretend to know more of southern rights than the South knows of her own rights." What could our northern friends say to a speech like this? No, fellow-citizens, no! Do not place your friends at the North in this condition. Erect a platform on which they may stand and fight your battles for you. When the Free-Soiler points to the Clays, the Bentons, the Houstons, and others, enable your friends to point to Mississippi and Georgia, and Alabama, and South Carolina, assembled in conventions. And when the Free-Soiler appeals to the cannon roaring and the drums beating, let your friends appeal to the voice of sovereign states demanding justice, equality, and liberty on the one side, or disunion on the other. If I hesitate to embrace the doctrine of disunion, it is because the North has, to some extent, been inveigled into her present hostile position towards the South by our own unfaithful representatives, and encouraged to persevere in the mad policy by the ill-advised conduct of some of our own people. A portion of the southern senators and representatives voted for the admission of California, and large numbers sustained the Texas spoliation bill. The whole advantages of these measures inured to the benefit of the North, and we could not reasonably expect northern men to do more for us than our own representatives. We have great reason to complain of the North, but we have much greater reason to complain of our own unfaithful servants. The North is deceived as to the true condition of southern sentiment, but they have been deceived by our own people. Let us undeceive them. Let us prepare to strike for justice, equality, liberty. But let us first give fair warning, and let that warning be given in an authentic and authoritative form. Let us do this, and if then we are forced to strike, we shall be sustained by all good men, we shall be sustained by God, and our own clear consciences. These are my opinions, fellow-citizens, freely expressed. I do not ask you to sanction them or to adopt them as your own, unless you approve them. I have but one motive, and that is to serve my afflicted country. Wholly and entirely southern in my sentiments and feelings, I have never debated with myself what course it were best for me to pursue. Ambition might have led me to the North, but as I loved the land of my birth more than the honors and emoluments of power and of place, I · have taken sides with the South. Her destiny shall be my destiny. If she stands, I will stand by her, and if she falls, I will fall with her. THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT-MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 14, 1852, ON THE Ir is not my purpose, Mr. Chairman, to address the House at all in reference to the bill now before it. I propose, in the opening of my remarks, to take a brief retrospect of the rise, progress, and fall, of the southern movement. It is very well known, sir, not only to the members of Congress, but to the whole country, that the continued action of the northern people, and of the Northern States, upon the subject of the domestic relations existing in the South, between the master and the slave, had at one time wrought up the southern mind to a very high degree of exasperation. Apprehensions were freely expressed, and doubtless generally entertained, that some great disaster was likely to befall the country, growing out of this excitement. In this state of public feeling, during the Thirtieth Congress, a gentleman, then a representative from one of the districts in the state of New York [Mr. Gott], introduced a resolution, preceded by what the southern members believed to be a most insulting preamble. This preamble, insulting though it certainly was, did not propose any legislative action. The resolution directed a very simple, but a very important inquiry to be made. It directed the committee for the District of Columbia, to inquire into the expediency of abolishing the slave trade in this District. The passage of this resolution gave offence to the whole southern delegation, and they commenced, at once, manifesting their hostility to this movement in a manner not to be misunderstood. A distinguished gentleman in the other branch of the legislature, from my own state, and now its governor, came, as the older members of Congress know very well, into this House and solicited members of Congress to sign their names to a call for a meeting of southern senators and representatives. In obedience to this call, a meeting assembled in the Senate Chamber, over which a venerable senator from the state of Kentucky [Governor Metcalfe] was called to preside. Here, sir, I date the rise of the southern movement. From this point it commenced its progress. But for this movement, I undertake to say, the southern Democracy was not responsible. That meeting was a joint assemblage of the southern Whigs and of the southern Democrats. There were Whigs who absented themselves; and there were Democrats who absented themselves; but the southern delegation in Congress generally, and without reference to party, was responsible for the meeting and for its proceedings. That meeting put forth an address to the southern people, written, as it is said, and I have no doubt correctly, by the late venerable and distinguished senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun]. It was such a paper as was intended to produce, as it certainly did produce, a most profound sensation upon the southern mind. Upon my return to Mississippi, I found a very high degree of excitement-an excitement not confined to the Democrats, but pervading all parties, Whigs as well as Democrats. A proposition had already been made, and was then being actively urged, for a convention of our state-a popular convention-to take into consideration the relations then subsisting between the North and the South, growing out of the institution of domestic slavery. A number of gentlemen, of both political parties, published a call to the people, inviting them to assemble in convention. This call was the first advance step of the southern movement, and for it, both Whigs and Democrats in my state were alike responsible. In obedience to it, the people, without reference to party, assembled in primary meetings and appointed delegates to a state convention, and, in every instance, the delegates to that convention were appointed of equal numbers, Whigs and Democrats. The convention assembled in the month of October, 1849. and This, sir, was the second step in the progress of the southern movement. Up to this period neither party could claim the exclusive credit, up to this time it was all credit-there was no debit. That convention put forth another address to the people of Mississippi, and from that address I propose just in this connection to read a very short extract. For this address, bear you in mind, both the Whig and the Democratic parties of Mississippi were responsible, so far as they could be made responsible by their delegates in convention. It bore the honored signatures of leading Democrats and leading Whigs. It was a document which bore the signature of a very distinguished member of the UNION party, now high in the confidence of the administration, and its representative as chief consul on the Island of Cuba-Judge Sharkey. After disclosing to the people what had been done and what was proposed for the future, Judge, now Consul, Sharkey and his associates said:- |