OVERT ACT OF AGGRESSION
. ''w
RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN SLAVES:
I
THE SOUTH URGED TO ADOPT CONCERTED ACTION FOE FUTURE SAFETY (
A SPEiCH
MR "
BEFORE THE
PEOPLE'OF ALBEMARLE, ON THE 2D DAY OF JANUARY.
BY JAMES P. HOLCOMBE,
I
PROFESSOR OF LXJV IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGIN
THE ELECTION
OF A
BLACK REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT
AN
OVERT ACT OF AGGRESSION
ON THE
THE EIGHT OF PEOPEETY IN SLAVES:
The South urged to adopt Concerted Action for Future Safety.
A SPEECH
Before the People of Albemarle on the 2nd day of January, I860,
By JAMES P. HOLCOMBE,
PROFESSOR OF LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
Fellow- Citizens,—
As I do not appear before you at my own instance, but in def¬
erence to your wishes, I may fairly claim a liberal and thoughtful
consideration of the suggestions I shall make. The opinions I shall
express are honestly entertained, and have been maturely formed,
and, if any apology is necessary for their utterance, I offer it in
the sentiment of a revolutionary patriot, that however little able
to speak a man may feel himself to be, if he thinks the liberties
of his country are in danger, it ought to be more difficult to keep
silent. All the signs of a great popular revolution are around
us. Whether that revolution shall terminate in an abiding tri¬
umph of the principles of constitutional freedom, so that hereafter
we may sit under our own vine and fig tree, with none to make
us afraid, or whether it will rend this glorious confederacy in
twain, either by the voluntary separation of exasperated sections,
or through the fearful tragedy of a civil war—what are to be its
issues will depend upon the prudence, the decision, and the
patriotism which the American people shall display in this event-
2
ful hour of their history. Our whole Southern country, in a
season of profound peace, is bristling with military array and
preparation.
Are we buying arms to protect ourselves from our slaves ? We
treat the insinuation with scorn. Have we no other object than
to prevent the recurrence of outrages like those of John Brown ?
A vigilant and permanent patrol is necessary, and is all that is
necessary to crush such muffled and clandestine conspiracies in
the future. Do we fear an invasion of our territory from the
North, by large bodies of men, in open day, with a view of ex¬
citing servile insurrection ? My respect for my Northern fellow-
eitizens does not allow me to entertain the apprehension for a
moment. \ The Black Republican Party itself proposes to incor¬
porate an article in its next platform, deciding the existence of
an obligation to punish such invasions. We are in arms, because
recent events have convinced the most unbelieving amongst us
that there is danger to our constitutional rights in the Union,
and because, to a man, our people are resolved to maintain those
rights. ) I trust I am not wanting in a proper appreciation of
those great bodies of patriots who have assembled in the Northern
cities, and proclaimed their unabated affection to the men of the
South, and their unbroken, loyalty to the Constitution of our
country. May the eloquent voices, which have been so boldly
and nobly lifted up for truth and justice, waken a spirit in the
North which shall utterly wither, with its indignant rebuke, all
power of mischief in the enemies of a fraternal and equal govern¬
ment. Whatever fortune shall attend them in the battle with
fanatlcism^they will be sustained, through all the heat and bur¬
den of t*he conflict, by the prayers of Southern Christians and
the benedictions of Southern freemen. But our Northern friends
should distinctly understand, that no demonstrations can satisfy
the just demands of public sentiment at the South, so long as a
sectional party, whose very bond of organization is a principle of
hostility to our institutions, receive the sympathy and support of
great masses of their people.
< The existence of such a party is a standing menace of aggres¬
sion upon our rights; nor can we feel secure as to their perma¬
nent and undisturbed enjoyment, so long as it possesses a degree
of public confidence, which gives it respectability. But we see it
at this moment, undismayed by its recent bloody wTork, preparing
to convulse the country with another deadly struggle of sections.
The very breezes wfflich bring to our ears the grateful echoes of
fraternal sentiments, expressed in union meetings, waft to them
also the applauding shouts with which thousands upon thousands
have welcomed back, to the renewal of his mission of strife, the
public man who, more than any other of his day, has disturbed
the peace and harmony of the country.
3
Attempt to establish in power a purely sectional party.
The party to which I have referred has the unenviable distinc¬
tion of being the first in American history which, contemplating
a permanent existence, has been organized upon a basis of purely
sectional principles. Such a party could not have been formed
until that comprehensive spirit of patriotism which was inculcated
by the Father of his Country, in his parting words of warning
and counsel, had lost its early warmth and vitality. The North
and the South have been frequently divided upon isolated ques¬
tions of constitutional right and policy. During the Missouri
controversy, they confronted each other in an angry spirit, which
threatened the very existence of the Union, and filled the bosoms
of the departing sages of the Revolution with anxious fears for
the future of the Republic. But the ordinary relations of parties
were disturbed only in reference to the pending issue, and when
that was closed, the country was restored to peace. One illus¬
trious statesman, indeed, with that prophetic insight into the
workings of great principles Avhich characterized his mind, pre¬
dicted that a geographical line, coincident with a marked prin¬
ciple, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the
angry passions of men, would never be obliterated; and that
every irritation would make it deeper and deeper, until it would
kindle such mutual and mortal hatred as to render separation
preferable to eternal discord.
This melancholy foreboding is rapidly becoming a reality. We
now behold the spectacle of a purely Northern party grasping at
the possession of the Government with a declared purpose of
using it to promote their interests at the expense of ours. I be¬
lieve that this party comprehends thousands of good men and true,
who contemplate no direct interference with slavery in the States;
but what they do propose will be immediately subversive of our
constitutional rights, and ultimately fatal to the security of this
institution within our own limits. The invitation just issued by
the National Committee to send delegates to the Chicago Con¬
vention is described, by the most conservative presses of the
party, as a document of great temperance and moderation. The
objects avowed in that paper are the exclusion of slavery from
the territories, whatever expansion beyond its present limits the
well-being of both races may require in the future; the repudia¬
tion of the constitutional rights of slaveholders, affirmed in the
Dred Scott decision, a result only to be accomplished by sec-
tionalizing the Supreme Court itself, and the securing to the free
negroes of the North, the rights and privileges of citizenship
under the Federal Constitution. This is the programme, mode¬
rated and toned down to suit the more conservative temper of
4
the North at this juncture, upon which the leaders of the party-
are willing to go before the people in the approaching canvass.
The number of violent men returned to the National Councils,
the tone of leading journals, the open nullification of the Fugitive
Slave Law by legislation in several States, and the riotous and
treasonable assemblies in others, which make it necessary for a
slaveholder to risk his life and spend twice the value of his pro¬
perty beffere the provisions of the Constitution can be executed—
these and similar facts furnish just grounds for thinking that yet
more extreme views find favor with the masses.
Now, I have little doubt that if all the elements of opposition
to this organization could be combined, as I pray they may be,
the friends of the Constitution would carry the next Presiden¬
tial election by a large majority. But can any man reasonably
anticipate a triumph so signal and decisive as to give assurance
of abiding peace and security ? It has been said of old, that
ignorance and prejudice have a front against which the gods
themselves fight in vain. The ignorance of the true character
of Southern slavery is too general, the hostility towards it is too
ancient and inveterate, the difficulty of disabusing the public
mind growing out of the few points of contact between the peo¬
ple of the North and South, is too extreme, to allow any hope of
repose, so long as slavery can be reached, to any extent, under
the forms of the Constitution, through a political organization.
The Black Republican party cannot attain any of its ends—it
cannot be elevated into power, or retain possession of office,
without feeding the fires of fanaticism with the aliment of per¬
petual agitation. The struggle would be renewed at the expira¬
tion of the next Presidential term with as much violence as ever,
and unless the unrolling of some new chapter of crime and
blood should cause the North to recoil before the dark images
which foreshadow the results of this strife, with more hope of
success.
Southern States should confer as to some Constitutional Safe¬
guard, as delay is steadily adding to the Abolition party.
Now, when we remember that with every Presidential term the
present disparity of physical strength in favor of the North is
increased by the addition of a population twice that of the State
of Virginia, that her constitutional influence is growing in the
same proportion, and that this inequality arises in a large mea¬
sure from the operation of causes which depend upon the exis¬
tence of our federal Union, can a graver question be presented
to a Southern patriot, than whether it is wise to protract a defi¬
nite settlement of this controversy to a remote day? That man
must be sanguine, indeed, who can expect to defer the issue
5
indefinitely. For whatever period we may occupy a margin of
safety, it must be with the feelings of men who stand upon a
shore which the next swell of the tide may cover with its waves.
" Of all things," says Burke, " wisdom is most terrified by epi¬
demic fanaticism, because, of alb enemies, it is that against which
she is least able to furnish any kind of resource." No people
ever had more at stake. In the maintenance, in all its integrity,
of the relation of master and slave between the white and black
races of the South, it is our universal sentiment that property,
liberty, honor, and civilization itself, are involved. Providence
has committed the guardianship of these great interests to our
hands, and we cannot, without infidelity to the sacred trust, shift
the dangers and the responsibilities of their defence upon a
generation which shall be less able to meet them.
For myself, in the brief but expressive language of the Rich¬
mond Whig, I want "peace or separation." If the Union can¬
not be preserved without an eternal strife between the North
and the South, it cannot be abandoned too soon. It would be
infinitely better for both sections that we should live as inde¬
pendent nations, and peaceful, if not friendly, neighbors, than
that with all the bonds of natural brotherhood severed, we
should cherish, in the bosom of a common government, an irre¬
concilable feud. It seems to me that instead of wasting their
strength in expedients to procrastinate the evil day, the wisdom
and patriotism of the country should seek to remove this cause
of dissension from among us, and thus to heal the animosities of
sections and quicken the almost extinct love of Federal Union.
It is not possible, but through years of fire and blood, to put an
end to African slavery ; but it is possible to extinguish all induce¬
ments to form political combinations by which it may be affected,
directly or indirectly. Here lies our only solid security. The
South should assemble in convention, without regard to party,
those of her sons in whose prudence, firmness, sagacity and devo¬
tion to her institutions she reposes most confidence, to determine
whether a constitutional safeguard may not be devised which
shall place the rights of both sections upon an impregnable basis,
and, by its tendency to terminate the political agitation of this
question, bind up the now shattered arch of Union.
An amendment has been suggested by an eminent citizen
of our own State, which would go very far to secure this
object. Let the Senate be divided into two chambers, one from
the free and the other from the slave States: let a majority,
or even two-thirds of either chamber, have a right to call for
a vote by chambers upon any subject referred to the Senate;
and in such cases the concurrence of each chamber be made
necessary: and let this provision, with those relating to the
powers of the Senate, be made unalterable, except with the
6
consent of a majority of the slave States. This provision
would not only protect us from injustice in the enactment
of laws and the negotiation of treaties, but from an abuse of
the power of appointment by the Executive. By rendering it
impossible to use the Federal Government in any form for the
overthrow of slavery, it would remove all inducement to intro¬
duce that subject as an element into the formation of parties.
The North might elevate the most violent enemy of the institu¬
tion to the Presidency, but the South could compel him, through
the Senate, to observe the limits of justice and moderation.
There is so much variety in the industrial interests of the South¬
ern States, that this power could never be used to inflict any
wrong upon the North. Might we not hopefully appeal to its
patriotism and justice for a concession which would involve no
danger to its own rights, and which, by banishing the apprehen¬
sions from our bosoms that we have so much reason to entertain
at present, would bring back our old harmony and friendship?
If to the completeness of this adjustment it should be thought
necessary, to settle our conflicting claims to present or future
territories, it would not be difficult to frame a constitutional pro¬
vision, depending upon geographical lines, which would be fair
and equal between the two sections. No doubt there are formi¬
dable obstacles in the way of such an amendment. Every great
work is difficult. In a period of tranquility I should be hope¬
less of its adoption ; but with our political fabric rocking to its
base, there is no labor and there are few sacrifices from which
patriotism should shrink, if they may result in establishing
peace and perpetuating the Union.*
Conference will 'prevent one State acting with indiscretion, and
thus involving others.
But there is another and decisive reason for the assembling
of a Southern Convention at this time. We are unanimous in a
determination to resent or resist, in some form, the transfer of
the power and patronage of the government into the hands of a
Black Republican President; but we are divided in opinion as to
the mode and measure of resistance. Some propose to prevent
his inauguration by force—others to suspend all intercourse of
friendship or business with the North, and wait with arms in our
* Since the above was written, I have seen Gov. Letcher's message, in which
he recommends the call of a general convention. I see no inconsistency
between giving both invitations. Two-thirds of the States must concert to
induce the call of a general convention, and I fear that this concurrence can¬
not be obtained, unless the grave appeal of an united South demonstrate the
momentous importance of the application. But there are other reasons for a
Southern Convention beside the suggestion of amendments to the Constitution,
which are subsequently referred to.
7
hands for some positive aggression in the shape of law—others
to withdraw at once from a confederacy which, so far from in¬
suring domestic tranquility, establishing justice and promoting
the general welfare, is being actually used for the destruction of
those great ends of its formation. If there are any who desire
that the existing relations between the two sections should remain
undisturbed by so deliberate and injurious an expression of pur¬
pose from the Northern people, and that we should rely only for
our future security upon appeals, hitherto unheeded, to their sense
of justice and good faith, if there are men to be found amongst
us who would be willing thus to place the great interests of our
society at the mercy of a sectional and fanatical, majority, I can
only say that, like the dark spots on the disc of the sun, their
very presence is unobserved amid the wide-spread blaze of loyal
devotion to Southern rights and honor.
Now, it is impossible to give vigor and efficacy to our resolutions
without imparting to them unity, and unity can only be attained by
conference, in which, whilst wisdom shall restrain the spirit of rash¬
ness, a generous magnanimity may preserve prudence from degen¬
erating into ignoble fear. A determination which shall obtain the
general sanction of the slaveholding States, will either secure to us
our rights in the Union, or will enable us to leave it in peace and
honor. In the absence of such a convention, our distracted
counsels may bring us to the very brink of ruin. I see frequent
reference to resistance in the Union. If peaceful measures, such
as non-intercourse, are intended by this phrase, they meet my
hearty approbation, so long as there is any likelihood of their
producing the desired result, and as it may be safe to rely upon
them alone. If it is meant that we should remain in the Union,
and resist the inauguration of a Black Republican President by
force, a more dangerous and injudicious policy could not, in my
judgment, be suggested. The appeal to arms must necessarily
lead to a general civil war, of which no man could foresee the
end. If successful, the interregnum during which all the func¬
tions of the general government would be suspended, must be a
period of anarchy, from whose paralyzing influence, if constitu¬
tional forms should ever regain their ascendancy, the energies of
the country could not recover for generations. But I am far
from contemplating submission, if an event so much to be depre¬
cated should occur. Submission would involve the loss, first of
independence, and eventually of property. To withdraw from
the Union peacefully, unless compelled to take arms in defence
of our rights, appears to me, in that contingency to be at once
the path of honor and the path of safety. Are there any obli¬
gations of duty to forbid this course ? It is said, that we are
bound to submit to the decision of a constitutional majority ! I
answer that when all a people value or cherish is in danger, they
8
cannot be controlled bj technicalities. According to tbe prin¬
ciples of free government, the best evidence of the will and the
interest of all which can be ordinarily procured, is the voice of
a constitutional majority. But the theory presupposes the ex¬
istence of a substantial identity and harmony of interest between
the people of a State, and divisions of opinion only as to the
policy which will promote it.
Where there is a great natural and permanent antagonism
between the interests of different sections, the only escape
which is open to the weaker section, is to establish a dis¬
tinct government—or to obtain adequate constitutional limita¬
tions upon the power of the majority. Representation accord¬
ing to their numbers in the British Parliament would not
have reconciled the patriots of the Revolution to the claim
of legislative authority, for it would have been a worthless se¬
curity against oppression. Between the North and the South
there is no real antagonism, but the Black Republican organiza¬
tion proceeds upon the assumption of one. It declares that be¬
tween the free labor of the North, and the. slave labor of the
South an irrepressible conflict must take place until one gives
way to the other. There is no analogy between this party and
any other, Federal, Republican, Whig or Democratic, which
ever sought the favor of the American people. All previous par¬
ties have been founded upon different views of common interests,
and the citizens of every State in the Union have been more or
less equally ranged under their respective banners. But this
party is composed exclusively (with exceptions too insignificant to
deserve remark) of the citizens of the North, and its declared
purpose is through the sheer force of numbers to maintain the
institutions and build up the prosperity of the North, at the
expense of the South. It is a faction in the worst and gravest
sense of that term—nor could it be more perfectly described than
in Mr. Madison's admirable definition. "A faction," says he in
the Federalist, " is a number of citizens, whether amounting to
a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated
by some common impulse of passion or interest, adverse to the
rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate in¬
terests of the community." And he goes on to prove that where
the impulse and the opportunity coincide (as in this instance,
under our Constitution as it now stands,) no cure from its mis¬
chiefs is possible. Now when party degenerates into a faction
which must be fatal to liberty, submission ceases to be the duty
of freemen.
But it is said, this action of the people will be clothed with
the authority of constitutional forms.—That man has read his¬
tory to little purpose, who does not know that the worst despotism
may be worked with the machinery of freedom. The forms of
9
the Roman Republic survived the first Csesars. Even the coins
of Nero, were stamped with the image of Liberty. We shall
have lost even the love of independence, when the empty pa¬
geantry of a free government shall compensate us for the absence
of its living spirit. It is the most dangerous feature in the
Seward policy, that it proposes to accomplish its purposes through
the agency of the constitution. As the constitution is now in¬
terpreted, a law which should exclude the slave-holder from the
Territories of the Union would be null and void. But how long
would it take a Black Republican President and Congress, by
dividing circuits where the actual condition of business is such
as to require additional judges, and filling vacancies in the present
court, to change its composition, and give us decisions which
should bring the exclusion of slavery from the Territories, its
abolition in the District, and the prohibition of the trade between
the States, within the range of Federal legislation. A longer
time must elapse before the preponderance of the North would
enable it through an amendment of the Constitution to take into
its own hands the control of this whole subject of slavery, but
sooner or later it will come; and Mr. Seward, in his exposition
of the "irrepressible conflict," significantly alludes to the fore¬
sight which was displayed in the construction of this part of the
instrument. When we recollect that every step in this policy of
wrong and ruin, even to its consummation in the abolition of
slavery, may be taken within the limits, and under the sanction
of the constitution, as moulded by Anti-slavery courts, and en¬
larged by the authority of a Northern majority, we must either
prepare for a disgraceful and unconditional surrender of our
rights ; or we must make up our minds to begin resistance, at
some point, to measures and proceedings which are perfectly
constitutional in form.
The Election of a BlacTc Republican President will be an overt
act of aggression on the right of property in slaves.
But there is another delusive phrase which is used to lull our
people into a deceitful security. Let us wait, it is said, for an
overt act of aggression, and then we will be prepared for resis¬
tance. This, if we may credit Burke, was not the temper of our
fathers. " They augured misgovernment at a distance, and
snuffed the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze." I do
not suppose that those who advocate this policy of delay, con¬
template submission to every indignity and injustice, which does
not involve an actual interference with the possession of our
slaves. They think, no doubt, they will be prepared to dissolve
the Union, if the fugitive slave law is repealed, or slavery abol¬
ished in the District of Columbia. I say, dissolve the Union,
10
because I cannot imagine that when the alternative is distinctly
presented between a direct appeal to force in the Union, and a
peaceful separation from it, there can be two opinions as to our
course of action. The repeal of the Fugitive Slave law could
not be resisted in the Union. Nor can I believe that after sub¬
mission to the degrading vassalage of a Black Republican admin¬
istration, we would provoke a civil war for any other outrage,
even the abolition of slavery in the District, than a direct attack
upon its existence in the States. Is there anything short of this,
which would be a more serious aggression, whether we look at its
immediate or future consequences, than the election of a Black
Republican President ? Can men be in earnest who declare that
this would not be for every substantial purpose, an overt act of
injustice ? Would it not be a declaration by the Northern people
of their final and deliberate intention to deprive us of our rights
and privileges under the constitution, as ascertained and settled
by the judgment of the highest court in the land ?
To exclude the slave-holder from the territories of his country,
and to establish for the free negro of the North, a right not
simply to an equal participation in Federal honors and offices
with the white man, but a right to go and come when it suits
him, into any Southern community, for business or pleasure, per¬
manently or transiently, are cardinal points of Black Republican
doctrine. Would not the inauguration of a government com¬
mitted to the maintenance of such principles, at once and seriously
impair the enjoyment of our property ? It would render the
tenure of slavery more precarious, its support more onerous.
Would we think it safe to lay aside our arms? And is it no act
of aggression that in time of peace, we should be compelled to
endure the burthens of war? If the centre of this agitation was
removed from New York and Boston to Washington; if the Dis¬
trict of Columbia was filled with an army of Federal office-holders
imbued with anti-slavery sentiments, and the most moderate re¬
presentative of the party could not resist the ardor prava civium
jubentium which would clamor for these spoils, would not a more
vigilant patrol, and a larger military reserve be demanded by
the most obvious considerations of prudence ?
But is it no overt act of injustice to place the whole power and
patronage of the general government, the command of the army
and navy, at the disposal of a man who is pledged to use them
for aggressive and unconstitutional ends ? If it is no overt act
in a sectional majority to give the Presidency to a Black Repub¬
lican, it can be no overt act in him to exercise his appointing
power upon the same principle, and to fill every cabinet office,
every foreign mission, every judicial vacancy, with a view to the
same object. If it is no overt act of aggression upon the South
to place the whole government in the hands of a hostile faction
11
for one term of four years, it would be no overt act to give it to
the same faction in perpetuity. The only difference would be as
to the duration of the wrong.
Would it be no overt act of aggression to make anti-slavery
sentiment through the agency of a sectional majority, a qualifi¬
cation for office ? If the constitution of Virginia conferred upon
the Governor the right of appointing judges, sheriffs, and mag¬
istrates, and the West should undertake a crusade against slavery
in the East, through an organization founded upon similar prin¬
ciples, much as we love the unity of this dear old commonwealth,
could our sentiment of affection stand the strain of such a policy?
Valuable as our rights of property, sacred as they are in this
instance from their inseparable association with civilization itself,
they are not the only rights of freemen. Sir James Mackintosh
tells us in his noble oration on the trial of Peltier, that when
England was threatened with invasion by Spain, " the great heart
of Queen Elizabeth disdained to appeal to the low and sordid
passions of the people, even for the protection of their low and
sordid interests, because she knew, or rather she felt, that these
are effeminate, creeping, short-sighted passions, which shrink
from conflict even in defence of their own objects. In her mem¬
orable address to her army, this woman of heroic spirit, disdained
to speak to them of their ease and their commerce, their wealth
and their safety. No; she touched another chord, she spoke of
their national honor, of their dignity as Englishmen, of the foul
scorn that Parma, or Spain, should dare invade the borders of
her realm." I do not believe that the people of this proud and
chivalric Commonwealth have become degenerate to its ancient
fame and virtue. Their bosoms still glow with lofty and mag¬
nanimous sentiments of honor and independence, and if they
could take a bond from fate, to-morrow, that upon condition of
suffering their children to be excluded from all share in the honors
of the Federal Union, until they were purified from the stain of
slave-holding interests and sympathies, they should be permitted
"to keep base life afoot" by retaining their slaves to the day
of doom, my life for it, sir, they would spurn the inglorious
compact.
If I live to read a message emanating from that high office
which has been so nobly filled by those slaveholding Presidents
of our history, whose broad patriotism embraced with equal
warmth the North and South, the East and West, in which the
country is congratulated that the long struggle is over, and the
government planted, (as the cant phrase runs by which the con¬
stitution is repudiated,) "on the side of freedom;" to see the
missionaries of fanaticism, like Wade, or Wilson, sent to every
foreign court, to inflame to a yet higher pitch the existing hostility
of foreign nations to our institutions; to behold in the high office
12
upon which the purity, wisdom and justice of Marshall and Taney
have shed lustre, some minion of abolition, who, paltering with
the plain language of the constitution, will "keep its word of
promise to the ear, but break'it to the hope;" when that common
public authority which should cover with a defensive shield our
property and character, is turned like an aggressive sword against
each, sustaining with its patronage the men who traduce our
character and falsify our institutions, I repeat, that whenever
this climax of injustice has been reached, as well it may be under
any Black Republican administration, whatever may be the sen¬
timents of others, I shall feel, that the Worth has begun its work
of converting African slaves into freemen, by converting South¬
ern freemen into slaves. Upon the day that shall witness the
inauguration of this policy by the Worth, and the quiet submis¬
sion to all the degradation that must follow in its train by the
South, there will dwell through all the years of history, a cloud
of shame. The free and equal Commonwealths which rejoiced
in its morning light, will vanish with its evening rays; for as
darkness wraps the earth in its shadowy curtain, another sun
than that of nature, will sink below our Southern horizon, the
quickening and ennobling sun of liberty and glory.
If you are prepared to submit to the election of a Black Re¬
publican President, when, may I ask, ought resistance to begin ?
The constituency which places him office, can give the Senate to
the same party, before the expiration of his term. Will you be
ready, when he fills his cabinet, the foreign missions, and the
judicial vacancies with men of his own party and principles ?
Will you resist, when the public printing is given to Greeley, and
your own money appropriated to sustain a press which makes
relentless war upon your rights and honor ? or when Beecher is
appointed chaplain to the Senate, and preaches insurrection in
ear-shot of your slaves ? When Chase is nominated to the Su¬
preme Court, would you not hope that the possession of inde¬
pendent office would render him conservative, and think it prudent
to wait for unconstitutional decisions ? If you permitted the
bulwark which you now have in the Supreme Court, to be pros¬
trated by the elevation of jurists who have studied in the schools
of the higher law, could you believe the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia, or the repeal of the Fugitive Slave
Act, worth the costly sacrifice of peace and Union? When
would the cup of humiliation and wrong be full enough to justify
freemen in dashing it from their lips ? If there is any point at
which submission in your judgment would cease to be a virtue, is
it not worth considering, whether the prestige of established
authority, the possession of the public revenue, the direction of
the public force, which we shall have permitted to pass quietly
into the hands of our adversaries, may not be sufficient to turn
13
the scales of victory in their favor ? And will not this circum¬
stance at least increase the probability that any stand which you
may afterwards make in defence of your rights, must be referred
to the stern arbitrament of the sword ?
If the South is united, separation would be peaceful.
But it may be said, for there is nothing we hear more fre¬
quently, that a peaceful dissolution of the Union is impossible.
The future, Mr. Chairman, is known only to that Being who
rules alike the hearts of men and the courses of history; but
whilst I admit that the separate action of a single State would
render the danger of civil war imminent, I can conceive nothing
more improbable than an effort by the North to keep the entire
South in the Union by force. Let our people in that language,
both in dignity and sorrow which the occasion would inspire,
without menace or reproach, announce their unalterable resolu¬
tion upon the occurrence of this contingency, to suppress the
exercise of all Federal authority within their limits; let them
invite every State which may be willing to establish justice and
equality between all interests, and all sections, to unite in the
formation of a new Confederacy; and proffer to adjust all open
questions of debt, property or territory, by negotiation upon
fair terms ; and there must be madness in the head and worse
than folly at the heart, before the North could seriously enter¬
tain the thought of forcible aggression. She must prepare for a
long and bloody war. She must raise a great army of invasion,
for a small one could not pass the border. She must collect this
army, when thousands upon thousands of her own sons would
refuse to profane the God-given strength of freedom, in the un¬
natural strife. She must support it by direct taxation, in a period
of general bankruptcy. And what could she hope to accomplish
by these costly sacrifices ? What is she to gain by carrying fire
and blood through a region with which she is deeply interested
in maintaining a peaceful and lucrative commerce ? Why should
she desire to subjugate the South, and maintain a Union between
free States and vassal States, which would prove to her a source
of weakness in peace, and of danger in war ? Her sober second
thought would recall the eloquent and wise words of one of her
most gifted sons, Fisher Ames, uttered in reference to this very
contingency of civil war—" Tyrants may be dethroned, and
usurpers expelled and punished; but the sword once drawn can
not be sheathed. Whoever holds it, must rule by it, and that
rule, though victory should give it to the best men, and the hon-
estest cause, cannot be liberty. Tho' painted as a goddess, she
is mortal, and her spirit once severed by the sword can be evoked
no more from the shades." The North would see at once that
14
any injury to our material prosperity would bring blight and
ruin upon her own, and that it would be far better for her to
form a new Union, which, if less intimate, would be more equal,
or to contract an alliance offensive and defensive with the South,
than to open an issue of blood.
But is there no reason to fear an interruption of the public
tranquility, by civil strife, if we fail to hold a Southern Con¬
vention ? If we take no counsel with our sister States of the
South, we cannot complain if they determine for themselves the
form and measure of redress. Have we not strong reason to
believe that some of those States, South Carolina, Georgia, Ala¬
bama, Florida, or Mississippi, may consider the election of a
Black Republican President, a sufficient cause to withdraw from
the Union ? If this course is taken by a few States only, before
the Northern mind has time to deliberate upon the true course of
policy, the folly of a Black Republican administration may pre¬
cipitate a collision between the State and Federal authorities.
With the shedding of blood it would become more difficult to
restrain the passions of either section, and civil war once com¬
menced, its flames would spread over the whole country. Whether
you would condemn or approve this separate action of a few
States, it would be impossible to isolate yourselves from its con¬
sequences. The Federal government could not compel the small
State of Florida, to remain in the Union after this event by
force, but through an exterminating war upon the entire South.
" Commune periculum,
Una salus ambobus, erit."
Whatever we may think about it now, when no passion disturbs
the balance of judgment, no Federal army, recruited from the
sympathizers with John Brown, could shed the blood of our
brethren in any slave State in this quarrel, without a universal
rising of our people. Every man, young and old, in this county
of Albemarle, would be ready to resist their passage through our
borders to the death, and if they went by sea, there would be
some of the sons of liberty from our mountains to welcome them
to the shore. \
The truth is, that those who are calculating upon submission
have not appreciated the length and breadth, the height and
depth of that love of constitutional liberty which is the master-
passion of our people. The echoes of those immortal words with
which our revolutionary patriots thrilled the world, are yet ring¬
ing through these hills. We would be false to the traditions and
memories of patriotism, false to the principles of liberty, false to
that glorious sentiment which our fathers first baptized in their
blood and then emblazoned with their fame, upon the arms of
our State, not only to express their own love of freedom, but to
15
cherish its flames to the latest generation of their posterity, if in
this trying hour of our history, we did not take counsel of our
honor and our duty, and not of our danger or our fears.
Mr. Chairman, I venerate the Constitution of my country, and
with my whole heart I love the Union which it established. But
when I hear these sacred names invoked to excuse the enormity
of Northern injustice, or to cover the reproach of Southern sub¬
mission, I know that the lips which thus profane the holiest sen¬
timents of patriotism, were never touched with fire from those
hallowed altars. Our fathers worshipped Liberty ages before this
Union was formed, as will their sons I trust, ages after it may
have perished. They worshipped her in a rude and infant col¬
ony, amid the privations of the wilderness and the ever impend¬
ing danger of savage warfare. For her sake they severed bonds
of love, and hope, and strength, and glory, by which, through
centuries, their every heart string had been woven around the
► homes, and sepulchres, and throne of England. For her habita¬
tion, they built this magnificent temple of Union, and hung its
walls with the beautiful and majestic images of a common coun¬
try. But had they lived to see the goddess of their idolatry
driven by impious hands from her own favorite shrine, they would
have followed her retreating steps, though she led them to the
waste sands of the desert, or the barren rocks of the ocean. And
for you, their children, I trust I may say in words which I have
uttered before, that this Union cannot endure, if it is to be pre¬
served by submission to a fixed policy of injustice, and acquies¬
cence under an accumulating burthen of reproach. We are willing
to give much for Union. We will give territory for it; the broad
acres wc have already surrendered would make an empire. We
will give blood for it; we have shed it freely upon every field of
our country's danger and renown. We will give love for it; the
confiding, the forgiving, the overflowing love of brothers and
freemen. But much as we value it, we will not purchase it at
the price of liberty or character.
Liberty is security against wrong. So long as Northern
sentiment upon African slavery remains unaltered, the Constitu¬
tion, as it stands, furnishes us no permanent security against
Northern injustice. Upon the election of a Black Republican
President, the Supreme Court will be the only remaining out¬
work of our constitutional independence ; and that, if not stormed
by legislation, must crumble as rapidly as human life. Cannot
our people be roused to the fact, that we are unable through the
Constitution to maintain our rights ? Without some change in
its provisions, they will soon lie at the mercy of Northern power,
to be defended, if at all, by Southern swords. May that Provi¬
dence which has guarded us through all the past, protect us in
the future, inspiring the South with wisdom and firmness, and
16
the North with moderation and justice. A private citizen, who
has no wish but to enjoy unmolested and transmit unimpaired the
liberty to which he was born, I offer for my country the prayer
of the old Roman,
" The honor'd gods
Keep Rome in safety ; and the chairs of justice
Supplied with worthy men! plant love among us !
Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,
And not our streets with war!"