Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/226

 222 CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA election of 1860 all these states voted by heavy majorities for the democratic candidates ; in none of them were any votes given for the re- publican candidates, except in Virginia, where they received fewer than 2,000 in a total poll of 167,000 votes. The first public act which took place having for its avowed object the formation of a southern confederacy was the call for a state convention in South Carolina. This was issued by the legislature on Nov. 7, 1860, the day after the presidential election, when it was known that a majority of the electors chosen on Nov. 6 were in favor of Lincoln and Hamlin, the republican candi- dates for president and vice president. The call summoned the convention to meet at Co- lumbia on Dec. 17. Other Measures were then adopted calculated to put the state in a posi- tion to meet the consequences of her action. The most important of these was a bill provi- ding for an army of 10,000 men. A month later, on Dec. 10, Francis W. Pickens was chosen governor of the state by the legisla- ture, and was at once inaugurated. In his in- augural address he thus explained the cause and the reasons for the secession of South Carolina: "For 73 years this state has been connected by a federal compact with co-states, under a bond of union for great national ob- jects common to all. In recent years there has been a powerful party, organized upon principles of ambition and fanaticism, whose undisguised purpose is to divert the federal government from external and turn its power upon the internal interests and domestic insti- tutions of these states. They have thus com- bined a party exclusively in the northern states, whose avowed objects not only endan- ger the peace, but the very existence of nearly one half of the states of this confederacy. And in the recent election for president and vice president of these states, they have car- ried the election upon principles that make it no longer safe for us to rely upon the powers of the federal government or the guarantees of the federal compact. This is the great overt act of the people in the northern states at the ballot box, in the exercise of their sovereign power at the polls, from which there is no higher appeal recognized under our system of government in its ordinary and habitual opera- tions. They thus propose to inaugurate a chief magistrate, at the head of the army and navy, with vast powers, not to preside over the common interests and destinies of all the states alike, but upon issues of malignant hos- tility and uncompromising war to be waged upon the rights, the interests, and the peace of half the states of this Union. In the south- era states there are two entirely distinct and separate races, and one has been held in subjec- tion to the other by peaceful inheritance from worthy and patriotic ancestors; and all who know the races well know that it is the only form of government that can preserve both, and administer the blessings of civilization with order and in harmony. Anything tend- ing to change and weaken the government and the subordination between the races, not only endangers the peace, but the very existence of our society itself. We have for years warned the northern people of the dangers they were producing by their wanton and lawless course. "We have often appealed to our sister states of the south to act with us in concert upon some firm and moderate system by which we might be able to save the federal constitution, and yet feel safe under the general compact of union; but we could obtain no fair warning from the north, nor could we see any con- certed plan proposed by any of our co-states of the south calculated to make us feel safe and secure. Under all these circumstances we now have no alternative left but to interpose our sovereign power as an independent state to protect the rights and ancient privileges of the people of South Carolina. This state was one of the original parties to the federal com- pact of union. We agreed to it, as a state, un- der peculiar circumstances, when we were sur- rounded with great external pressure, for pur- poses of national protection, and to advance the interests and general welfare of all the states equally and alike. And when it ceases to do this, it is no longer a perpetual union, fy would be an absurdity to suppose it was a per- petual union for our ruin." The state conven- tion assembled at Columbia on Dec. 17. Its president, David F. Jamison, said in his open- ing address: "If anything has been decided by the late election, it is that South Carolina must be taken out of this confederation in as speedy a manner as possible." He had no faith in any guarantees that might be offered by the north. They could offer none more solemn or more binding than the present con- stitution, and yet that sacred instrument had not protected them from aggression on the question of slavery. "Has it saved us from abolition petitions, intended to insult and an- noy us on the very floors of congress ? Has not that instrument been trodden under their very feet by every northern state, by placing on their books statutes nullifying the laws for the recovery of fugitive slaves ? " Smallpox prevailing in Columbia, the convention after organizing adjourned to Charleston, where a committee was appointed to draft an ordinance of secession. The committee reported on Dec. 20 the following instrument : "An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of /South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled ' The Constitution of the United States of America." 1 " We, the people of the state of South Carolina, in conven- tion assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby de- clared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of the state ratifying amendments of the said constitution, are hereby repealed, and the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of ' The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved."