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
schoolhouses 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 established
Abolition Societies...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....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....And in every conceivable
way, the whole Northern people, as 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....
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 today; she cannot
afford to wait.
Charleston Mercury, 1860
The prevailing ideas entertained
by...most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation
of the old Constitution was that the enslavement of the African
was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in
principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil
they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion
of the men of that day was that somehow or other, in the order
of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass
away.... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite
idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the
great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that
slavery--subordination to the superior race--is his natural
and normal condition.
Alexander Stephens of Georgia,
1861
The Constitution makes no provision
for secession.... Constitutionally, there can be no such thing
as secession of a State from the Union. But it does not follow
that because a State cannot secede constitutionally, it is obliged
under all circumstances to remain in the Union....If for any
cause the Government...should become inimical to the rights
and interests of the people, instead of affording protection
to their persons and property, and securing the happiness and
prosperity, to attain which it was established, it is the natural
right of the people to change the Government regardless of Constitutions.
What then is the South to do? Suffer the compact which brought
them into the Union to be violated with impunity, and without
means of redress; submit to incursions into their territory
and trespass upon their property by northern abolitionists?...Who
expects, who desires the South to submit to all this?
Dubuque Herald, 1860
No state can legally leave the
Union. What is called "the right of secession" has
no existence. It means the right of revolution, which belongs
to every people....If the revolution succeeds, history justifies
them; if they fail, it condemns them, even while not condemning
their motives of action....If South Carolina should rebel,--and
secession is rebellion,--and if other states should join her,
it would be the duty of the general government to compel them
to observe the law....
Boston Daily Traveler, 1860
I hold that, in contemplation
of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these
States is perpetual....There needs to be no bloodshed or violence;
and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national
authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy,
and possess the property and places belonging to the government,
and to collect the duties and imports; but beyond what may be
necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using
of force against or among the people anywhere....
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though
passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels
of our nature.
President Lincoln's First
Inaugural Address
The contest is really for empire
on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the
South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between
the North and the Government of George III, and the South and
the Thirteen Revolted Provinces.
London Times, 1861
The Government liberates the
enemy's slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken
them in the coming conflict....The principle asserted is not
that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot
own him unless he is loyal to the United States.
London Spectator on the Emancipation
Proclamation
