Re: HUMOUR> General History of French Warfare

"Wooly Baa Lamb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[  ]> I dunno.  The Confederate Revolution?
> The 2nd War for Independance?
> 

That's what some folks called the War of 1812, so it'd have to be the
3rd War for Independence, surely.

[  ]> 
> > Lest anyone think otherwise, I am NOT arguing that the South was right.
> Only that their position had a valid legal argument.  Prior to the civil
> war, there was no assumption that the U.S. as indivisible.  States had
> the ultimate authority, not the federal government.  Thus if a state
> wanted to leave the union, there is a valid argument that they had the
> right to do so.
> 
If you had lived in the south in the early 1800's and voiced this
opinion, your fellow southerners would have called you a traitor. 
Really.  Prior to the Civil War there was indeed a widespread
assumption that the union was indivisible.

Have you heard of the Hartford Convention?  

http://www.scds.org/resources/US-History.htm  has several historical
documents, inluding the Hartford Convention's resolutions.  This often
referred to by neo-confederates as the Northern attempt at secession.
Certain northern states really objected to the WAr of 1812, and
several politicians suggested, sort of, that they should secede.  This
suggestion and their careers faired very badly indeed and was pretty
much wrapped up at the Hartford Convention.

That's when, in 1814, a group of Northerners, mostly members of the
Federalist party, met to discuss their complaints against the Federal
Government.  They had economic issues, they objected to the way the
South monopolized the Federal Government, but, as I said, they mostly
objected to the War of 1812.  A few of them advocated secession,
though this was not unanimous.  Their final resolutions hinted at
secession, but stopped far short of it.

Even though they stopped short of demanding secession, the fact that
they'd even considered it or hinted at it created an uproar, and their
resolutions were so poorly received by the *entire* nation, that they
were labeled as traitors intent on destroying the Union.  This
crippled the Federalist party permanently.   Amongst their loudest
detractors were the Southern politicians, who argued that they could
not legally secede, the Union was indivisible, that there was no
provision for dissolution of the Union in the Constitution, and that
any who advocated secession should be viewed as traitors.  Fifty years
later, of course, the South suddenly realized that there was no reason
why they couldn't secede.
Another brief description of the Hartford Convention is here:
http://civilwar.bluegrass.net/secessioncrisis/hartfordconvention.html

An indispensable book to read: Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle
in the United States Congress
by William Lee Miller   I cannot recommend this book highly enough. 
One of the best historical books I have ever, ever read.  Must
reading.   Did you know that in the 1830's and 40's the Southern led
Congress imposed an unconstitutional gag rule on any and all petitions
which mentioned slavery?  The topic was not to be discussed.  The
Constitution guarantees the right to present petitions to the
government, but the Southern-led Congress saw fit to deny this
Constitutional right.  Miller's book documents the arguments over this
gag rule that occurred- and the fight of one man to overturn this
illegal order.

So, the Gag Rule violated  the constitutional freedom to petitition
the government guaranteed to all individuals (this one was guaranteed
even to women and slaves)

The Fugitive Slave Law certainly violated state's rights.

The South also wanted the local postmasters everywhere to be able to
open all mail, for the purpose of suppressing the expression of any
anti-slavery sentiment.

[   ]> 
> Side note: who saw the movie "Gods and Generals"?  I thought it was one
> of the best movies of the year.
> (the movie exemplifies the difference in how history is presented)
> 

We saw it, and we loved it enough to buy it, in spite of its serious
flaws in addressing the issue of slavery, which was, indeed, a
significant issue in the Civil War.  I used to believe, like you, that
it wasn't, and that it was primarily about States' Rights.  One thing
that changed my mind was reading the documents published by the
southern states stating why they were seceding, their grievances, and
their goals for the new confederacy.  Repeatedly, the Seccesionists
point to slavery as *the* issue.

We have another video tape we enjoy.  It's a debate on the Civil War. 
Peter Marshal vs Steve Wilkins (I think that's the name- it's the
gentleman who did the cassette tape series titled America's First 350
Years).

Mr. States' Rights insisted all the way through the debate that the
issue was not slavery, it was the violation of southern freedoms by
the oppressive north.  Mr. North outlined the many areas where it was
actually the South imposing its views on the North, and suppressing
freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience,
freedom of illegal search and seizure all over the country.  Mr.
States' Rights continued to insist that it was the North who was
violating the Southern States freedoms and rights.  Mr. North asked
Mr. States' Rights to name one right that the north had denied the
south, just one......

The *only* one Mr. States' Rights could name was......

The denial of the right of Southerners to take their property into the
territories.  What property were Southerners forbidden to bring into
the territories?

Enslaved human beings.  That's all.  And why were they forbidden to
bring them into all the territories?  Because of the Missouri
Compromise, which *they* had agreed to previously, partially in order
to preserve the Union.  Now they wished to overturn their agreement.

I was surprised that this was the only issue Mr. States' Rights could
name, so I then spent a lot of time hunting up and reading source
documents- those documents where the Southern States outline their
reasons for Secession.  I noticed that in those documents whenever the
South refers to property rights, the only property right being
challenged was the right to own human beings.  When their documents
speak of fugitives and criminals, they are referring to slaves and
those who worked to free them.  When they speak of seditionist
pamphlets they mean *any* writing which professed, however mildly,
that slavery was a undesirable state of affairs.  There was no freedom
of speech in the South on this issue.  There was no freedom of speech
on this issue in the Federal Government for thirty years or so under
the Southern controlled Senate and Congress.

While there were a few other differences the South had with the North
(tariffs, for example) slavery was THE largest single issue.  The idea
that slavery had little to do with Southern secession is primarily a
post-war revisionist creations. Consider these speeches and documents
from the time:

>From a message to the Confederate Congress, delivered by Confederate
President Jefferson Davis:
…When the several States delegated certain powers to the United States
Congress, a large portion of the laboring population consisted of
African slaves imported into the colonies by the mother country. In
twelve out of the thirteen States negro slavery existed, and the right
of property in slaves was protected by law. This property was
recognized in the Constitution, and provision was made against its
loss by the escape of the slave. . . .
As soon, however, as the Northern States that prohibited African
slavery within their limits had reached a number sufficient to give
their representation a controlling voice in the Congress, a persistent
and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the
owners of slaves in the Southern States was inaugurated and gradually
extended. A continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted
for the purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in
slaves. . . . Emboldened by success' the theatre of agitation and
aggression against the clearly expressed constitutional rights of the
Southern States was transferred to the Congress. . . . Finally a great
party was organized for the purpose of obtaining the administration of
the Government' with the avowed object of using its power for the
total exclusion of the slave States from all participation in the
benefits of the public domain acquired by... the States in common'
whether by conquest or purchase; of surrounding them entirely by
States in which slavery should be prohibited; of those rendering the
property in slaves so insecure as to be comparatively worthless' and
thereby annihilating in effect property worth thousands of millions of
dollars. This party' thus organized' succeeded in the month of
November last in the election of its candidate for the Presidency of
the United States.
…In the meantime' the African slaves had augmented in number from
about 600'000' at the date of the adoption of the constitutional
compact' to upward of 4'000'000. In moral and social condition they
had been elevated from brutal savages into docile' intelligent' and
civilized agricultural laborers' and supplied not only with bodily
comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision
of a superior race their labor had been so directed as not only to
allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition' but to
convert hundreds of thousands of square miles of the wilderness into
cultivated lands covered with a prosperous people; towns and cities
had sprung into existence' and had rapidly increased in wealth and
population under the social system of the South; the white population
of the Southern slave­holding States had augmented from about
1'250'000 at the date of the adoption of the Constitution to more than
8'500'000' in 1860; and the productions in the South of cotton' rice'
sugar' and tobacco' for the full development and continuance of which
the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable' had swollen to
an amount which formed nearly three­fourths of the exports of the
whole United States and had become absolutely necessary to the wants
of civilized man. With interests of such overwhelming magnitude
imperiled' the people of the Southern States were driven by the
conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert
the danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view the
Legislatures of the several States invited the people to select
delegates to conventions to be held for the purpose of determining for
themselves what measures were best adapted to meet so alarming a
crisis in their history...
. . . In the exercise of a right so ancient, so well­ established, and
so necessary for self ­preservation, [remember, that 'right' is the
right to own African human beings] the people of the Confederate
States' in their conventions' determined that the wrongs which they
had suffered and the evils with which they were menaced required that
they should revoke the delegation of powers to the Federal Government
which they had ratified in their several conventions. They
consequently passed ordinances resuming all their rights as sovereign
and independent States and dissolved their connection with the other
States of the Union....


ROBERT TOOMBS represented Georgia as both a senator and a congressman
before the war.  During the war he was a member of the Confederate
Congress and Secretary of State of the Confederacy. In 1862 he was
appointed Brigadier­General, and served at the second battle of Bull
Run, and at Antietam. In 1864, Brigadier­General was in command of the
Georgia Militia.
He gave a speech on secession, delivered to the U.S. Senate on JANUARY
7, 1861
He said: 
The success of the Abolitionists and their allies, under the name of
the Republican party, has produced its logical results already. They
have for long years been sowing dragons, teeth, and have finally got a
crop of armed men. The Union, sir, is dissolved. … (he goes on at
length to explain that its dissolution is actually the fault of those
nasty Abolitionists, a single issue focus group- and that single
issue, of course, was the abolition of slavery.)

…What do the rebels demand? First, "that the people of the United
States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present
or any future acquired territories, with whatever property they may
possess (including slaves), and be securely
protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such territory may be
admitted as a state into the Union, with or without slavery, as she
may determine, on an equality with all existing states… (Toombs, who
initially supported the Missouri Compromise is now renigging.  The
only ‘inequality' the southerners suffered is that they were not to
being their slaves into free territories.)

…The second proposition is, " that property ­in slaves shall be
entitled to the same protection from the government of the United
States, in all of its departments, everywhere, which the Constitution
confers the power upon it to extend to any other property….

" …A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime,
who shall flee from justice and be found in another state, shall, on
demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be
delivered up to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the
crime.,, But the non­slave­holding states, treacherous to their oaths
and compacts, have steadily refused, if the criminal only stole a
negro, and that negro was a slave, to deliver him up. It was refused
twice on the requisition of my own state as long as twenty-­two years
ago. It was refused by Kent and by Fairfield, governors of Maine, and
representing, I believe, each of the then Federal parties. We appealed
then to fraternity, but we submitted: and this constitutional right
has been practically a dead letter from that day to this. The next
case came up between us and the state of New York, when the present
senior Senator (Mr. Seward) was the governor of that state; and he
refused it. Why? He said it was not against the laws of New York to
steal a negro, and therefore he would not comply with the demand. He
made a similar refusal to Virginia. …
It is natural we should want this provision of the Constitution
carried out. The Constitution says slaves are property ; the Supreme
Court says so ; the Constitution says so. The theft of slaves is a
crime; they are a subject­matter of felonious asportation. By the text
and letter of the Constitution you agreed to give them up. You have
sworn to do it, and you have broken your oaths. Of course, those who
have done so look out for pretexts. Nobody expected them do otherwise.
I do not nothing to determine but that he is legally charged with a
crime and that he fled, and then he is to be delivered up upon demand.
White people are delivered up every day in this way; but not slaves.
Slaves, black people, you say, are entitled to trial by jury; and in
this way schemes have been invented to defeat your plain
constitutional obligation. * * *

http://templeofdemocracy.com/Declarations.htm
The states themselves publicized statements explaining the cause of
secession.  You can read more at the website above, but here are some
excerpts:
Mississippi: it [the north] has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in
almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the
compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes
issurection and incendiarism in our midst.

Texas: 
She (Texas) was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and
protecting the institution known as negro slavery -- the servitude of
the African to the white race within her limits -- a relation that had
existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race,
and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her
institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties
between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. those
ties have been strengthen by association. But what has been the course
of the government of the United States and of the people and
authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connections
with them?

…The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various
pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude
the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and
unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in
common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose
of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a
means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister
slaveholding States. [Wendi's note: the ONLY restrictions so
administered were the restrictions on bringing slaves into the
territories, which were to remain free, as agreed on by the South
previously]

…The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin,
Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have
deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the
2nd section of the 4th article of the federal constitution, and laws
passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of
the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate amity between the
members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the
slave-holding States in their domestic institutions—a provision
founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which
the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of
those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any
of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that
provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance
therewith. [The 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article of
the Constitution requires the return of runaway slaves, in evasive
euphemisms. Free states passed personal liberty laws of various sorts
to attempt to block the infamous Fugitive Slave act of 1850 in which
any African American could be seized on a pretext and sent to a slave
holding state to be judged free or slave there.]

…In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith
and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the
people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong
enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States,
based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States
and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery,
proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men,
irrespective of race or color—a doctrine at war with nature, in
opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the
plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of
negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political
equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their
determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro
slave remains in these States. [I find it interesting that Texas
thought Lincoln wanted to free the slaves.  At the start of the Civil
War, I don't think he did.  The South's actions kind of pushed him
along in that direction, but if the South had not seceeded, I don't
think he would have lifted a finger to free Southern Slaves ]

…For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing
the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal
congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the
slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding
States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered
representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their
exactions and encroachments. [What Southern rights would an abolition
organization threaten?]


…We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various
States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by
the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African
race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully
held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that
condition only could their existence in this country be rendered
beneficial or tolerable. .

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to
be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of
the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial
to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by
the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty
Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction
of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our
sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and
desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.


South Carolina (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/reasons.html#SouthCarolina):
…We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted
have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made
destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States.
Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of
our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property
established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the
Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of
slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of
societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign
the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and
assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who
remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile
insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing,
until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common
Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party
has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department,
the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line
has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line
have united in the election of a man to the high office of President
of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to
slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common
Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot
endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind
must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate
extinction. …

Georgia: …The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its
present name and organization, is of recent origin. 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. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the
state.
…The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general
among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it
needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This
question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by
successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in
relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This
state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment
throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men
of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the
territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and
efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and
unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by
the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its
acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri
restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These
propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the
public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The
price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections--
of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of
equity and justice. …
…The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of
slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other
parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the
announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public
domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States.
The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with
which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit,
restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists.
The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the
principle of prohibition to the last extremity.
…The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it
everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of
all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by
its leaders and applauded by its followers.
With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their
lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall
receive them as our rulers.
The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal
principle of this organization.
For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the
halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the
tribunals of justice. The majority of the people of the North in 1860
decided it in their own favor. We refuse to submit to that judgment,
and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our
country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude
us.
…yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States 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….

…A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender
fugitives from labor. This provision and the one last referred to were
our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States.
Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the
Constitution. In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law
to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision. This
act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in
the several States for its efficiency. The non-slave-holding States
generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act,
and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the
Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their
duty. Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete
execution of this duty by Federal officers. This law, which their own
bad faith rendered absolutely indispensible for the protection of
constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and
all conceivable modes of hostility. The Supreme Court unanimously, and
their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and
temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its
constitutionality in all of its provisions. Yet it stands to-day a
dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding
State in the Union. We have their convenants, 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….[this is
regarding the Fugitive Slave Law, a violation of biblical law and
principle]

…The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this
bargain, this contract;[the constitution and the Union] they have
never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto
sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to
maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through
and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights
in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to
the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because ***by their declared
principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our
property [slaves]  in the common territories of the Union; put it
under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of
the protection of Federal law everywhere…***



The Confederate Constitution:
http://templeofdemocracy.com/CONCONST.htm

4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or
impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
Section II
1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges
and immunities of citizens in the several States, and shall have the
right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with
their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said
slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

3. No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or
Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping
or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave
belongs, or to whom such service or labor may be due.

Section III
3. The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress
shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the
inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States,
lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them,
at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form
States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the
institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate
States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the
territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate
States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory
any slaves, lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories
of the Confederate States.
This complaint of John C. Calhoun refers to efforts to keep slavery
out of the territories and to abolish it in the District of Columbia.
(http://templeofdemocracy.com/SouthernAddress.htm)
JOHN C. CALHOUN, ADDRESS OF THE SOUTHERN DELEGATES IN CONGRESS 
The leading spokesman of the South, Senator John C. Calhoun, penned
the address which described the calamities that emancipation would
bring on the South.
If the determination avowed by the North to monopolize all the
territories, to the exclusion of the South, should be carried into
effect, that of itself would, at no distant day, add to the North a
sufficient number of States to give her three­fourths of the whole;
when, under the color of an amendment of the Constitution, she would
emancipate our slaves, however opposed it might be to its true intent.
To destroy the existing relation between the free and servile races at
the South would lead to consequences unparalleled in history. They
cannot be separated, and cannot live together in peace, or harmony, or
to their mutual advantage, except in their present relation. Under any
other, wretchedness, and misery and desolation would overspread the
whole South. The example of the British West Indies, as blighting as
emancipation has proved to them, furnishes a very faint picture of the
calamities it would bring on the South. . . .
Very different would be the circumstances under which emancipation
would take place with us. If it ever should be effected, it will be
through the agency of the Federal Government, controlled by the
dominant power of the Northern States of the Confederacy, against the
resistance and struggle of the Southern. It can then only be effected
by the prostration of the white race; and that would necessarily
engender the bitterest feelings of hostility between them and the
North. But the reverse would be the case between the blacks of the
South and the people of the
North. Owing their emancipation to them, they would regard them as
friends, guardians, and patrons, and center, accordingly, all their
sympathy in them. The people of the North would not fail to
reciprocate and to favor them, instead of the whites. Under the
influence of such feelings, and impelled by fanaticism and love of
power, they would not stop at emancipation. Another step would be
taken-to raise them to a political and social equality with their
former owners, by giving them the right of voting and holding public
offices under the Federal Government. We see the first step toward it
in the bill already alluded to-to vest the free blacks and slaves with
the right to vote on the question of emancipation in this District.
But when once raised to an equality, they would become the fast
political associates of the North, acting and voting with them on all
questions, and by this political union between them, holding the white
race at the South in complete subjection.
On March 1st, 1860, Mr. Davis, later President of the Confederacy, as
Senator from Mississippi, submitted the following resolutions:
2. Resolved , That negro slavery, as it exists in fifteen states of
this Union, composes an important portion of their domestic
institutions, inherited from their ancestors, and existing at the
adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as
constituting an important element in the apportionment of power among
the states, and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of
the non­slaveholding states of the Union, in relation to this
institution, can justify them, or their citizens, in open or covert
attacks thereon, with a view to its overthrow; and that all such
attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to
protect and defend each other given by the states respectively on
entering into the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and
are a manifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most solemn
obligations….
.
4. Resolved, That neither Congress nor a territorial legislature,
whether by direct legislation, or legislation of an indirect and
unfriendly character, possess power to annul or impair the
constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his
slave property into the common territories, and there hold and enjoy
the same while the territorial condition remains….

7. Resolved, That the provision of the Constitution for the rendition
of fugitives from service or labor, without the adoption of which the
Union could not have been formed, and that the laws of 1793 and 1850,
which were enacted to secure its execution, and the main features of
which, being similar, bear the impress of nearly seventy years of
sanction by the highest judicial authority, should be honestly and
faithfully observed and maintained by all who enjoy the benefits of
our compact of union; and that all acts of individuals or of state
legislatures to defeat the purpose or nullify the requirements of that
provision, and the laws made in pursuance of it, are hostile in
character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their
effect….

He then gave a speech which he concluded:
…I ask, in the name of reason and constitutional right-I ask to be
pointed to authority by which a discrimination is made between slave
property and any other. Yet this is the question now fraught with
greatest danger to our country. This has raised the hurricane which
threatens to sweep our political fabric before it, to blot out the
constellation of the Union from the political firmament of mankind.
Does it not become us, then, calmly to consider it, justly to weigh
it; to hold it in balances from which the dust has been blown, in
order that we may see where truth, right, and the obligations of the
Constitution require us to go?
------------------------


---Finally, I found it very interesting to read Robert E. Lee's words
written in a letter of January, 1861- before the South seceded:

"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our constitution
never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its
formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it
was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will.
It was intended for "perpetual union" so expressed in the preamble,
and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can
only be dissolved by revolution, nor the consent of all the people in
convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would
have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton,
Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution."



Kanga, former Rebel