Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/22

 16 Southern Historical Society Papers.

in hurried review the origin and progress of the idea of Disunion, indulging the hope that the sweet spirit of charity will prevail while we consider any sins for which all sections may be brought to con- fession. It is true, indeed, that signs of sectional strife and threats of disunion were made during even the administration of Washing- ton, but these sentiments did not come from the South. In 1796, while the Presidential election was pending, a lieutenant-governor, referring to the probable election of Jefferson, said: " I sincerely declare that I wish the Northern States would separate from the Southern the moment that event shall take place"; but it was not the governor of any Southern State who first declared that the elec- tion of a President was a cause of secession. There was a secret junto formed within less than twenty years after the Union was orga- nized, composed in part of eminent men pledged to bring about the dissolution of the Union, but that junto did not have one Southern member. There was a convention of prominent leaders held during the war of 1812, to consider a plan for withdrawing all the East from the Union, but that convention was held at Hartford, not at Rich- mond, and had not one Southern supporter. There was one attempt at nullification in one Southern State in 1832, on the debatable plea that certain measures of General Government violated the Constitu- tion, and that attempt was promptly suppressed by a Southern Pres- ident; but there were many actual nullifications of Federal law by Legislatures of Northern States after 1850, without pretense of sus- taining the Constitution, which no President seriously tried to forbid. There were open threats to disrupt the ties that bind the States together on account of the annexation of Texas, which the South- ern people so much desired; but the Union-loving South went on to greaten the Nation with new and rich territory, and then arrested the cry of secession by concessions to Northern opinion. There were some fanatical disunionists who said that the Constitution of our happy country was " an agreement with hell; " but that profan- ity did not fall from Southern lips. Some madmen called our starry flag "a flaunting lie;" but it was no Southern fire-eater who blis- tered Old Glory with that lurid insult. Disunion was somewhat rampant in 1848, but its fires burned in the bosoms of fanatics about slavery who did not care enough for the negro to buy him back into freedom with the money they had sold him for into slavery. Mean- while, let it be frankly admitted that the disunion spirit began to grow in the South after 1850. The example of threatened secession had been set before it, and new agitations, invasions and other irri-