deny. If there are any who think that the time has not yet arrived "when patience ceases to be a virtue," and when we, as a free people, should not cry out against the insults and impositions of the North, and declare our independence to the world, they must indeed have charitable and forgiving souls. Isn't it enough that the rights of the South, in the sovereign capacity of her several States, have been most persistently denied her for forty years? Have we not, as a section, been insulted and oppressed, not only at home, but in every Foreign Court in Christendom, by abolition fanatics, who should, as citizens of the same Government, regard us as brothers? The leaders and oracles of the most powerful party in the United States have denounced us as tyrants and unprincipled heathens, through the whole civilized world. They have preached it from their pulpits. They have declared it in the halls of Congress and in their newspapers. In their school-houses they have taught their children (who are to rule this Government in the next generation) to look upon the slaveholder as the especial disciple of the devil himself. They have published books and pamphlets in which the institution of slavery is held up to the world as a blot and a stain upon the escutcheon of America's honor as a nation. They have established Abolition Societies among them for the purpose of raising funds — first to send troops to Kansas to cut the throats of all the slaveholders there, and now to send emissaries among us to incite our slaves to rebellion against the authority of their masters, and thereby endanger the lives of our people and the destruction of our property. They have brought forth an open and avowed enemy to the most cherished and important institution of the South, as candidate for election to the Chief Magistracy of this Government - the very basis of whose political principles is an uncompromising hostility to the institution of slavery under all circumstances. They have virtually repealed the Fugitive Slave Law, and declare their determination not to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court, guaranteeing to us the right to claim our property wherever found in the United States. And, in every conceivable way, the whole Northern people, as a mass, have shown a most implacable hostility to us and our most sacred rights; and this, too, without the slightest provocation on the part of the South. Never, in a single instance, has the South, in any shape or form, interfered with the North in her municipal regulations; but, on the contrary, has tamely submitted to paying tribute to the support of her manufactures, and the establishment of her commercial greatness; yet, like the "serpent warmed in the husbandman's

bosom," she turns upon us and stings us to the heart. If Great Britain, or any foreign power, had heaped upon us the long catalogue of insult and abuses that the North has, there is not a man in the whole South who would not have long since shouldered his musket, and, if necessary, spilt his heart's blood to have avenged them. But because we are members of the same political family it is contended we must not quarrel, but suffer all the impositions at their hands that in their fanatical spleen they may choose to heap on us. Has a man's own brother, born of the same parents, a right to invade the sacred precincts of his fireside, to wage war upon him and his family, and deprive him of his property? And if he should do so, the aggrieved brother has not only a right, but it is his duty, sanctioned by every principle of right, to cut off all communication with that unnatural brother, to drive him from the sanctuary of his threshold, and treat him as an enemy and a stranger. Then why should we any longer submit to the galling yoke of our tyrant brother— the usurping, domineering, abolition North!

The political policy of the South demands that we should not hesitate, but rise up with a single voice and proclaim to the world that we will be subservient to the North no longer, but that we will be a free and an independent people. Here, then, would be an end to all political dissensions among us, because our interests, feelings, institutions, wants and pursuits, would be identical. Manufactures would be encouraged at home, our commercial interests enhanced, and our national importance established. Our towns would grow into cities, and our cities soon grow to be respected among the great commercial emporiums of the world. We should then have a national right to demand respect from the North, and the restoration of our property when it is abducted by them, or escapes into their territory. And we should no longer be compelled to pay tribute to the support of a corrupt predominant power, whose boasted principles are based upon an opposition to our interests. All admit that an ultimate dissolution of the Union is inevitable, and we believe the crisis is not far off. Then let it come now; the better for the South that it should be to-day; she cannot afford to wait. With the North it is different. Every day adds to her sectional strength, and every day the balance of power becomes less proportionate between the two sections. In a few more years (unless this course is speedily adopted by us) there will not be an inch of territorial ground for the Southern emigrant to place his foot on. Our doom will be sealed; the decree shall have gone forth: "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther."

M

But the territories are now the common property of the Government, and in a division of the Union, we should be entitled to our legitimate share in the division, over which, thenceforth, the South would have exclusive jurisdiction, to the exclusion of the meddlesome and powerloving North.

Charleston Mercury, September 18, 1860.

COMMON SENSE.

52. Result of the Election (1860)

BY REPRESENTATIVE JOHN SHERMAN

As representative, senator, and cabinet officer, Sherman enjoyed an unbroken political career of forty-three years. The letter from which this extract is taken was addressed to his brother, W. T. Sherman, then in Louisiana. It shows the views of a young, but prominent, Republican statesman. - For Sherman, see John Sherman's Recollections. Bibliography: Channing and Hart, Guide, § 207. For the views of an older Republican statesman, see No. 65 below.

WELL,

MANSFIELD, OHIO, Nov. 26, 1860. JELL, Lincoln is elected. No doubt, a large portion of the citizens of Louisiana consider this a calamity. If they believe their own newspapers, what is far worse, the lying organs of the Democratic party in the free States, they have just cause to think so. But you were long enough in Ohio and heard enough of the ideas of the Republican leaders to know that the Republican party is not likely to interfere directly or indirectly with slavery in the States or with the laws relating to slavery; that, so far as the slavery question is concerned, the contest was for the possession of Kansas and perhaps New Mexico, and that the chief virtue of the Republican success was in its condemnation of the narrow sectionalism of Buchanan's administration and the corruptions by which he attempted to sustain his policy. Who doubts but that, if he had been true to his promises in submitting the controversy in Kansas to its own people, and had closed it by admitting Kansas as a free State, that the Democratic party would have retained its power? It was his infernal policy in Kansas (I can hardly think of the mean and bad things he allowed there without swearing) that drove off Douglas, and led to the division of the Democratic party and the consequent election of Lincoln.

As a matter of course, I rejoice in the result, for in my judgment the

administration of Lincoln will do much to dissipate the feeling in the South against the North by showing what are the real purposes of the Republican party. In the meantime, it is evident we have to meet in a serious form the movements of South Carolinian Disunionists. These men have for years desired this disunion; they have plotted for it. They drove Buchanan into his Kansas policy; they got up this new dogma about slave protection; they broke up the Charleston Convention merely to advance secession; they are now hurrying forward excited men into acts of treason without giving time for passion to cool or reason to resume its sway. God knows what will be the result. If by a successful revolution they can go out of the Union, they establish a principle that will break up the government into fragments. Some local disaffection or temporary excitement will lead one State after another out of the Union. We will have the Mexican Republic over again, with a fiercer race of men to fight with each other. Secession is revolution. They seem bent upon attempting it. If so, shall the government resist? If so, then comes civil war, a fearful subject for Americans to think of.

. . . I know we will have trouble this winter, but I intend to be true to the moderate conservative course I think I have hitherto undertaken. Whatever may be the consequences, I will insist on preserving the unity of the States, and all the States without exception and without regard to consequences. If any Southern State has really suffered any injury or is deprived of any right, I will help redress the injury and secure the right. They must not, merely because they are beaten in an election, or have failed in establishing slavery where it was prohibited by compromise, attempt to break up the government. If they will hold on a little while, they will find no injury can come to them unless, by their repeated misrepresentation of us, they stir up their slaves to insurrection. I still hope that no State will follow in the wake of South Carolina. If so, the weakness of her position will soon bring her back again or subject her to ridicule and insignificance.

It may be supposed by some that the excitement in the South has produced a corresponding excitement in the North. This is true in financial matters, especially in the cities. In political circles, it only strengthens the Republican party. Even Democrats of all shades say, The election is against us; we will submit and all must submit. . . .

The Sherman Letters, 1837-1891 (edited by Rachel Sherman Thorndike, New York, 1894), 85-88 passim.

CHAPTER IX-DOCTRINE OF SECESSION

53. A Southern Opponent of Secession (1860)

BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS

Down to the Rebellion, Stephens's political career was nominally that of a Whig, but he usually advocated or voted for such measures as harmonized with his own doctrine of pro-slavery and states'-rights. He believed in the abstract right of secession, but declaimed against the expediency of nullification in 1832 and of secession in 1860. When his state seceded in 1861 he followed, and became vice-president of the Confederacy. This extract is from an extemporaneous speech delivered before the Georgia legislature. - For Stephens, see Johnston and Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens; on Lincoln's interest in the speech, Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, III, 270-273.- Bibliography: Channing and Hart, Guide, § 205.

FELI

ELLOW CITIZENS: I appear before you to-night at the request of Members of the Legislature and others, to speak of matters of the deepest interest that can possibly concern us all, of an earthly character. . . . Had I consulted my personal ease and pleasure, I should not be before you; but believing that it is the duty of every good citizen, when called on, to give his counsels and views whenever the country is in danger, as to the best policy to be pursued, I am here. For these reasons, and these only, do I bespeak a calm, patient, and attentive hearing.

My object is not to stir up strife, but to allay it; not to appeal to your passions, but to your reason. Let us, therefore, reason together. It is not my purpose to say aught to wound the feelings of any individual who may be present; and if in the ardency with which I shall express my opinions, I shall say anything which may be deemed too strong, let it be set down to the zeal with which I advocate my own convictions. There is with me no intention to irritate or offend. . .

The first question that presents itself is, shall the people of Georgia secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that