All else is gone; from those great eyes The soul has fled: When faith is lost, when honor dies, Then, pay the reverence of old days Walk backward, with averted gaze, 81. The secession movement of 1850 [364] THE FOUR YEARS' TRUCE When Daniel Webster exclaimed: "No, Sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession " he was indulging in the extravagant optimism of the orator. On the very day before he delivered his speech, the legislature of the state of Mississippi sent out the following long-premeditated call for a Southern convention to be held at Nashville, Tennessee, to consider the feasibility of remaining longer in the Union.1 We have arrived at a period in the political existence of our country, when the fears of the patriot and philanthropist may well be excited, lest the noblest fabric of constitutional government on earth may, ere long, be laid in ruins by the element of discord, engendered by an unholy lust for power, and the fell spirit of fanaticism [abolitionists] acting upon the minds of our bretheren of the non-slave-holding States. The fact can no longer be disguised, that our bretheren of the free States, socalled, disregarding the compromises of the Constitution-compromises without which it would never have received the sanction ... 1 Daniel Webster knew of the projected convention, and in the same seventh-of-March speech said: "Sir, I hear that there is to be a convention held at Nashville"; and gave solemn warning to " any persons who [shall] meet at Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of this Union, over the bones of Andrew Jackson!" Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, Vol. X, p. 95. of the slave-holding States, are determined to pursue towards those States a course of policy, and to adopt a system of legislation by Congress, destructive of their best rights and most cherished domestic institutions. In vain have the citizens of the Slave States appealed to their bretheren of the free States in a spirit of brotherly love and devotion to that Constitution framed by our fathers and cemented by their blood. . . . The spirit of forbearance and concession, which has been for more than thirty years manifested and acted upon by the slave-holding States, has but strengthened the determination of their Northern bretheren, to fasten upon them a system of legislation in regard to their peculiar domestic institutions . . . fatal in its effects. . . . Slavery as it exists in the Southern States . . . is not a moral or political evil, but an element of prosperity and happiness both to the master and slave. Abolish slavery, and you convert the fair and blooming fields of the South into barren heaths; their high-souled and chivalrous proprietors into abject dependents and the now happy and contented slaves into squalid and degraded objects of misery and wretchedness! The Southern States have remonstrated and forborne, until forbearance is no longer a virtue. The time has arrived when, if they hope to preserve their existence as equal members of the Confederacy, . . . they must prepare to act—to act with resolution, firmness, and unity of purpose, trusting to the righteousness of their cause, and the protection of the Almighty Ruler of the destinies of nations, who ever looks benignently upon the exertions of those who contend for the prerogatives of freemen; therefore, be it Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, That they cordially approve of the action of the Southern State Convention held at the city of Jackson [Mississippi] on the first Monday of October, 1849, and adopt the following resolutions of said body. . . . [Then follow thirteen resolutions protesting against any attempt to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia or to exclude it from the land ceded by Mexico in 1848; and declaring their १९ purpose to stand by their Sister States of the South in whatever course of action may be determined."] This movement for the vigorous assertion of Southern rights did not originate in Mississippi. On the meeting of Congress immediately after the election of Taylor (December, 1848), a caucus of sixty-nine Southern representatives and senators met and issued an address to their states urging the solid resistance of the South to any attempt of the administration to force the Wilmot Proviso on the new territory. John C. Calhoun, the author of the address, was the leader of this movement for a Southern party, transcending the old dividing lines of Whig and Democrat. The following extracts are from Calhoun's correspondence: (a) TO C. S. TARPLEY OF MISSISSIPPI, JULY 9, 1849 DEAR SIR: I am greatly obliged to you for a copy of the proceeds of your meeting. I have read it with a great deal of pleasure. You ask me for my opinion as to the course which should be adopted by the State Convention in October next. I have delayed answering your letter until this time, that I might more fully notice the developments at the North before I gave it. They are more and more adverse to us every day. There has not been a single occurrence since the rising [adjournment] of Congress, which does not indicate on the part of the North a fixed determination to push the abolition question to the last extreme. In my opinion there is but one thing that holds out the promise of saving both ourselves and the Union, and that is a Southern Convention; and that, if much longer delayed, cannot. It ought to have been held this fall, and ought not to be delayed beyond another year. All our movements ought to look to that result. For that purpose every Southern State ought to be organized with a central committee, and one in each county. Ours [South Carolina] is already. It is indispensable to produce concert and prompt action. In the mean time, firm and resolute resolutions ought to be adopted by yours, and such meetings as may take place before the assembling of the Legislatures in the fall. They, when they meet, ought to take up the subject in the most solemn and impressive manner. The great object of a Southern Convention should be to put forth, in a solemn manner, the subject of our grievances, in an address to the other States, and to admonish them, in a solemn manner, as to the consequences which must follow, if they should not be redressed, and to take measures preparatory to it, in case they should not be. The call should be addressed to all those who are desirous to save the Union and our institutions, and who, in the alternative, should it be forced upon us, of submission or dissolving the partnership, would prefer the latter. No State could better take the lead in this great conservative movement than yours. It is destined to be the greatest of sufferers if the Abolitionists should succeed; and I am not certain but by the time your convention meets, or at furthest your Legislature, the time will have come to make the call. With great respect, I am etc. (b) John C. Calhoun TO JAMES H. HAMMOND,1 FEBRUARY 14, 1849 I enclosed you a copy of our Address, which I hope you have received, and that it meets your approbation. I trust it will do something to Unite the South, and to prepare our people to meet and repel effectually and forever the aggressions of the North. . . . Now is the time to vindicate our rights. We ought rather than to yield an inch, take any alternative, even if it should be disunion, and I trust that such will be the determination of the South. 1 Governor of South Carolina 1842-1844 and United States senator 1857-1860; an ardent advocate of negro slavery as the "mud-sill" on which the edifice of civilization rested. MY DEAR SIR: I would regard the failure of the Convention, called by Mississippi, to meet, from the want of endorsement by the other Southern States to be a great if not fatal misfortune.1 It would be difficult to make another effort to rally, and the North would consider it as conclusive evidence of our division or indifference to our fate. The moment is critical. Events may now be controlled; but it will be difficult, if not impossible to control their course hereafter. This is destined to be no ordinary session." We shall need the backing of our constituents: and the most effectual we can have would be the endorsement by the other Southern States of the Mississippi Call. . . . (c) FROM JAMES H. HAMMOND, MARCH 5, 1850 MY DEAR SIR: I am greatly rejoiced to hear of your improved health and by the Telegraph that you were in the senate day before yesterday. . . . If I may judge of your views by the three or four sentences which the Telegraph devotes to your speech on Monday, I should regard your retirement at this moment as a peculiar calamity to the South. . . . I have no sort of faith with any Constitutional Compacts with the North. She never has 1 Nine Southern states heeded the Mississippi call, and sent one hundred and seventy-five delegates to Nashville in June, 1850, who published a strong set of resolutions and adjourned till the end of the session of Congress, meanwhile inviting all the Southern states to complete their delegations. But when the second session met (November, 1850), President Taylor was dead, the danger of the Northern Whigs forcing the Wilmot Proviso through was over, the compromise measures had passed Congress, and the Southern Whigs were already at work encouraging Union sentiment in the South on the basis of the compromise. Only seventy members attended the Nashville meeting, where they affirmed the right of a state to secede from the Union, and called for a general congress of Southern states. 2 The 31st Congress, which met in December, 1849. See Muzzey, An American History, p. 358. 3 Calhoun's famous fourth-of-March speech on the Compromise of 1850. See Muzzey, An American History, p. 360. |