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THIRD EDITION. ' •> i, 
 
 i -A 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF THE BIORTH. 
 
 Fellow Onintrymrn : — "VVe appeal to you as Christians and Patriots, 
 to lend your influence in staying the storm that is sweeping to ruin 
 both our social fabric and our political existence. Already the finan- 
 cial and industrial interests of the whole country have been prostrated 
 by the shock that foretells the fury of the growing storm, and solely, 
 in sympathetic dread of a future, so pregnant with evil, men's hearts 
 have failed them from fear, work-shops are closed, spinning-wheels 
 are silent, hammers no longer ring out a merry chime to Industry's 
 jubilee, strong arms and willing hands have no employment, a hun- 
 dred thousand working men and women are idle, and five times a 
 hundred thousand human beings are reduced to the verge of starva- 
 tion, in the midst of plenty and of peace! The sturdy oak of Union, 
 with scattered leaves and broken limbs, bends its solid trunk before the 
 blast, tearing the ground as root after root breaks loose, and sways to 
 and fro with sweeps lower and lower to the earth, from whose bosom 
 its riven and prostrate form, when once fallen, can never rise again. 
 
 Notwithstanding the dread of the future thus hanging like a funereal 
 pall over every community, and wrenching from agonized hearts the 
 cry " ichi/ should these things he?" notwithstanding prophetic warnings, 
 soul-stirring appeals and earnest entreaties, notwithstanding the glori- 
 ous history of the past, the prosperity and happiness of the present, 
 and the certain prospect of dismal ruin and overwhelming desolation 
 in the future, reckless politicians are still busy, even at this perilous 
 moment, in aggravating the discord and loosening the bonds iciiich have 
 heretofore held xs together as one peoph', living in unity and concord, 
 under one government, with one country and one name. 
 
 It is too late now for discussion! The nation is in the throes of a 
 mighty convulsion. Already several States have seceded and others 
 are on the eve of severing their connection with the Federal Govern- 
 ment. The sacred tie once broken, the remaining States will fall apart 
 as so many shattered fragments. In this wreck of the Union all the 
 slave-holding States will be forced in self-defense and for mutual pro- 
 tection to confederate under a common government, and if they adopt 
 the present U. S. Constitution, they would present to the world a rich 
 and powerful people, cemented together by equality of rights, by unity 
 of interests and unanimity of sentiment. Severally dependent upon 
 each other for mutual protection, how much stronger will be the com- 
 pact, sustained as it will be, by ties of kindred, by pecuniary interest, 
 by similarity in education, by mutual confidence, by natural affinity, 
 and by a common welfare. 
 
[2] ^^^ P .^ 
 
 Would tiiere exist among the several Northern States, should the 
 present Union be dissevered, that harmony of feeling and of interest, 
 •which will thus bind the whole of the Slave-holding States together as 
 a unit? 
 
 "Would not Massachusetts, whose barren rocks and sterile soil arc 
 so genial in the prolific growth of ultra fanaticisms and of every 
 kind of religious and political intolerance, still domineer over and per- 
 secute her orphan sister States? Would not New York in the pride of 
 wealth and strength, rule, with imperial,— yea, imperious sway, her 
 weakened and impoverished New England neighbors? 
 
 Would not toil-worn and patient-enduring Pennsylvania, goaded 
 with envy and jealousy, stretch forth her strong, brawny arm to wrest 
 the sceptre from her Northern rival, enervated by luxury and fancied 
 security? Would not Ohio, impatient of law and moral restraint, 
 make Indiana her vassal and exact tribute of Illinois? 
 
 Would not Michigan erect Gibraltar defences on her peninsular 
 shores and for the protection of her own harvests, lay an embargo on 
 North-Western wheat in its transit to tide-water? Would not Brig- 
 ham Young rule the Mormon Kingdom with despotic sway, and forever 
 sever the over-land communication between the Atlantic and Pacific 
 coasts? Would not California be forced in self-protection to establish 
 an independent empire; and Oregon and Washington be left to the 
 desolating warfare of their Indian tribes? 
 
 Or would all these individual traits and popular tendencies, in striv- 
 ing and unsympathizing States be stayed, that they may unite in a 
 common warfare to subjugate the Southern States in order to extin- 
 guish slavery? Even such a combination has no terror for the South; 
 for the Southern people in the defence of their liberties and their rights 
 will sacrifice their fortunes and their lives: — and in saying this, we 
 but lioncstli/ express the feeling that noio pervades all communities in the 
 Sotith. There is a fixed and solemn determination to stand or fall in 
 defence of their rights as a sovereign people. Among those right-s 
 they claim protection from hostile interference with their domestic 
 afi"airs: that protection was guaranteed to them in the Federal Consti- 
 tution, which is the basis and the sole and only basis of Union between 
 the several States, and when that Constitution shall be perverted to an 
 instrument of oppression, they will withdraw from Union with the 
 oppressing States. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT TROUBLES. 
 
 That Constitution has been violated in act and deed, by the Northern 
 States not only by the action of State Courts and by popular mobs, in 
 preventing the arrest of fugitives from labor; and by State Laws nul- 
 lifying Constitutional and Congressional enactments for the protection 
 of the South; but it lias been openly and defiantly violated by the peo- 
 ple and the Executive Officers of several States in encouraging these 
 violations and pandering to a demoralized public sentiment. 
 
 The Constitution has been further violated in i^pirit and in sentiment, 
 by many of the Northern people. They have assumed to themselves 
 an arrogant superiority and an insulting control over the rights, the 
 conduct and the opinions of their Southern brethren. They have made 
 Northern anti-slavery views lllTS. ONE great riling IDEA in all gov- 
 
J [3] 
 
 ^ ernmcnf, in all social uit'i-roiirsr, mid in all n ligimix toleration. South- 
 
 ^ern people who honestly differed from them in opinion, have been stig- 
 
 ^matized, even on the floor of the United States Senate, as "ruffians 
 
 •^ and barbarians; " and because they dared to uphold the rights ac-eorded 
 
 "T to them by the Constitution and the Laws of their country, they have 
 
 ^ been driven off with imprecations and denunciations and excluded from 
 
 S? Christian fellowship and Church communion with their Northern 
 " brethren. Thus have all the great Christian denominations, save one 
 
 '^^ or two alone, been rent asunder, and Southern members of the same 
 household of faith, been exiled from the homes and altars of their 
 fathers, because forsooth, their presence was offensive to their ncTo- 
 worshipping brethren. Thus have great bodies of fellow-christians 
 been split in twain, and bigoted intolerance and Satanic fury have 
 usurped the dominion in Christian hearts and expelled from human 
 souls the only terms of future life, "brotherly love and Christian 
 charity." Thus have Southern churches been expelled from social 
 intercourse and religious communion with Northern churches, and 
 Southern Christians been held up to infamy and branded as felons and 
 infidels and outlaws, unworthy of association. 
 
 All bonds of affection, all kindness of feeling, all Christian good-will 
 and peace, have been counted as nothing; all justice and right have 
 been denied; all law and equity have been trampled under foot by our 
 fellow-christians and our fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Inflammatory appeals, incendiary threats, "wiora? swaston" and other 
 compulsory devices, have been used to hringthe Southern mind ix SUB- 
 JECTION to JSiortlwrn anti-slavery sentiments. Failing in these, scornful 
 tirades, merciless abuse, and insulting provocations have been resorted 
 to: all these have preyed upon the Southern heart and weaned its affec- 
 tions from its Northern brethren — all these have rankled in the South- 
 ern mind and produced distrust and suspicion in the place of confidence 
 and respect, and all these arc the foundations of the present terrible 
 commotion that is fast severing the prAitical Union between the South 
 and the A^orfh ! From year to year these insults and wrongs have been 
 growing in number and increasing in strength, and 7cifh this increase 
 there has grown vp in the North a monstrous and vnhallorced sjiirit of 
 aggression, and recklessness, that has hesitated at no wrong, even the 
 most heinous; that has justified acts, evoi the mrjst atrocious: and has 
 attempted to perpetrate crimes even the most revolting! Do the North- 
 ern people think their Southern brethren are "stocks and stones," and 
 can not feel these things? Do they think human nature can never be 
 pushed beyond the power of endurance? Verily, ''they have sown to 
 the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind." But these violations 
 were borne with patience, for a long time, by an insulted and aggrieved 
 people, because they had strong confidence in the justice and honesty 
 and ultimate repentance of their brethren of the North, and were, 
 therefore, willing to await the slow reaction of public sentiment in 
 favor of Law and Equity, in favor of good feeling and Christian fel- 
 lowship. 
 
 When, however, the Republican Convention met at Chicago, they 
 adopted, amid tumultuous cheers, a resolution, ichich was fjirust 7tpon 
 the Convention at the last moment BY THE Abolition Section, and 
 which was intended as the grand clap-trap climax to their Anti-Slavery 
 
[4] 
 
 Platform. That Resolution, tlie last to be adopted, was made the lead- 
 ing watch-word in an excited and heated political canvass, and it went 
 forth as a vital principle in an ad captdndutn creed, to still further 
 heat and excite the popular mind, and poison and alienate the popular 
 feelings of the North against the Constitutional rights and the domes- 
 tic institutions of the South. That Resolution declares, "'that all men 
 are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain ina- 
 lienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness." And irhat rights are these, which this Resolution con- 
 tends for? The Northern Republicans surely do not mean that they 
 fhemselves do not already possess and enjoy the rights of liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness? For whom, then, do they demand these 
 rights? The whole spirit of their platform, outside of the ordinary 
 questions of political economy, relates srAely tcj the jirotection of "South- 
 ern servants" against all control as j^i'ojicrfi/ ; and there is no meaning 
 and no application in the Resolution, unless the Convention meant to 
 say tlieit tlie Southern hondman was created ecpial to his Southern master, 
 and "HAD AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO IIlS LIBERTY AND HIS FREEDOM." 
 
 This, at least, is the construction which the South placed upon the 
 Resolution, and the North has never denied the correctness of that 
 interpretation. Thus for month after month, has the South felt, and 
 grieved in the heart under the painful conviction, that this noble aph- 
 orism, which inspired our Revolutionary fathers to assert their rights 
 and to fight for them against the oppressions and tyranny of their 
 mother country was wrested from the Declaration of Independence, 
 to be thus used as a taunt and a threat against the South, solely, because 
 the Southern people had jyreserved their Government and their Jnstitu- 
 tions JUST AS THEY HAD BEEN ESTABLISHED hy the signers themselves 
 of that Declaration and the very authors of that aphorism,. 
 
 This declaration of open and avowed hostility, to their Constitutional 
 rights, to their guarantees of protection, to their political equality, to 
 their domestic institutions, to their external security, to their internal 
 peace, to their social tranquility, to their lives, to their fortunes and to 
 their very existence as a people and as individuals, caused the people 
 of the South to stand aghast and think their Northern brethren were 
 indeed demented. 
 
 But patience and good will still ruled the hour! 
 
 If was for no idle cause, that this great and glorious Union should 
 be destroyed; and with strong hopes that this tide of fanaticism, urged 
 on by artful demagogues, would be rebuked by the masses in the late 
 political conflict, they anxiously awaited the issue. 
 
 Alas! how delusive were their faith and trust in man! 
 
 The Anti-Slavery party — a mere sectional party, that had not the 
 audacity to call itself national, triumphed; and that very triumph, 
 by a domineering majority, thus voting to sustain a sectional hostility 
 against the rights of the minority, was the overt act of the North, THAT 
 CRUSHED THE LAST HOPE OF THE SoUTH. The political existence oj 
 tlie South teas ignored, and its Const-itutional guarantees and its social 
 rights henceforth are to he in the lieeping of their avenved enemies and 
 THE STRONG ARM OF THE FEDERAL POWER IS TO BE ALLIED TO 
 ANTI-SLAVERY FANATICISM. 
 
 The Union of the States was a Union for peace, a Union for mutua. 
 
[5] 
 
 protection, a Union on the basis of the Constitution, a Union f(jr exact 
 justice, a Union for the uiaintainanee of tlie ri^'hts of all, (ind th'se 
 thuiijf, the North has said in its political platforms and its roli<:ioud 
 creeds, through its preachers and its politicians, and by their final tri- 
 umph at a popular election, tiiesk TIIINCs the South i^hdll nut Jua-e! 
 
 Thus has been broken the last link in the tie of mutual confidence 
 and affection, that bound the North and the South toL^ethcr as one 
 people: Thus has tho Constitution been cast aside at the ballot-box, 
 and by a formal vote of the Northern masses, the S<'uth has ban 
 ilc}>rivcd of the jmicfi- of further protection WHILE IN THE CnkiN: and 
 thus it is, that the Southern people under a conviction forced upon 
 them by passing events, that these anti-slavery precepts will 
 BE carried into PRACTICE, have risen as though by common instinct for 
 their self preservation, and now stand as one man, in an attitude of 
 gelf-defense. 
 
 This is a simple and candid statement of the political condition of 
 our country. It is true in our exposition of affairs, we have given the 
 Southern view of the question, and in so doing have borrowed the 
 language and pressed the arguments that are currently used among the 
 Southern people. These arguments may be sophistical and the lan- 
 guage may be dictated by passion and excitement. Be it so; the 
 PACTS, that heive caused this upheaving of the people, are patent to the 
 whole world — they are historical truths that can not be denied, and we 
 have drawn this vivid picture that you may better understand the tone of 
 public feeling in the South; and thus understanding it, you can the 
 more speedily allay the excitement, by kindly considering their com- 
 plaints, rather than blindly attempting to force them into submission. 
 
 THE NORTH MUST SPEAK. 
 
 If the Southern people have misunderstood the feelings and designs 
 of the North, then as honorable men, hasten to undeceive them and 
 cheerfully, freely and frankly agree to grant the guarantees they ask; 
 all that the Southern people ask of you, is an assurance of protection 
 from the aggressive hostility of your people to their rights under the 
 Constitution and the Laws of our country. 
 
 If the Northern people are unwilling to grant these, then the appre- 
 hensions of the South are well founded, and obstinate politicians, who 
 are willing to sacrifice their country, rather than lose place and power, 
 will soon bring about a conflict with an exasperated and defiant people, 
 resisting, as they verily believe, an vnlaicful attack NOT ONLY, Jijwn 
 their rights and equality as a Sovereign people, hut even UPON THEIR 
 LIBERTY and THEIR LIVES AS INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 In this national crisis, it is the duty of every citizen and every 
 patriot, to use his influence in appeasing the wrath of infuriated Sec- 
 tions, and demand an adjustm,ent of the differences between th< m, ere a 
 collision in hot blood, sweeps them beyond the control of reason, ren- 
 ders them deaf to the calls of peace, and destroys forever all hopes of 
 reconciliation. Kind words and conciliation alone, can soothe these 
 angry passions, and there is no individual however humble and obscure, 
 that can not exert some influence in bringing about a healthy reaction 
 in public sentiment in favor of a peaceful settlement of our troubles 
 in preference to a resort to the barbarous arbitration of the sword. 
 
[6] 
 
 Then let each and every individual in the North be aroused to prompt 
 action, that the pending dangers may be averted. Let the people come 
 t0"-ether in public meetings, free from party managers and intriguing 
 dema^'Offues, and if untrammelcd in the expression of their honest senti- 
 ments^ TllEY WILL GIVE JUSTICE TO THE SoUTH and will purge them- 
 selves of the ahoUtionists, icho have led them astray. Let the people of 
 the North rise en 7nasse and like true and honest patriots as they 
 ARE, extend the olive branch of peace and reconciliation to the aggrieved 
 people of the South. 
 
 WHAT HARM HAS SLAVERY DONE THE NORTH ? 
 
 Let them ask themselves and each other if this institution of 
 slavery has ever done them any harm? Did it not exist before 
 this Union was formed? Did it not exist when this Federal Con- 
 stitution was adopted? and will it not still exist even after the Union of 
 these States shall be dissolved ? Has not slavery been extended to territo- 
 ry after territory and slave State after slave State been admitted into the 
 Union under the operations of the present government? and has not 
 the North notivithsfanding all this, continued to grow in wealth and 
 prosperity, and have not Northern people spread over the common 
 territories, and 7nade of them state upon state, until the free States 
 noio oi/fnumher the slave-holding States? Has not all this been done 
 under the present Constitution and the present laws of our country, 
 a.nd tcherein has the North l>ecn injured? Did the South when it had 
 an over-ruling majority in Congress and held the Executive power of 
 the Federal Government ever interfere with the rights or the prosperity 
 or the material interests, or the social order, or the religious sentiments 
 of the North? Was not the South when it had the power, always con- 
 scientious and just to the North? Then why comes /7ii*' new order 
 OF things, these new constructums of THAT SAME OLD CONSTITUTION, 
 the mom,ent the North has an tinchecked sectional control over the Federal 
 Government? Are you fellow-countrymen, acting out the principles of 
 our fathers? Did they ever exhibit this hostility to their Southern 
 brethren? Did they ever deny to their Southern brethren equal rights 
 and equal benefits in our common country and under our common 
 government? But you are told by your political leaders, that their 
 new f angled constructions of the great constitutional laws of the country 
 have triumphed at the polls and "you must not back out from your 
 principles;" — that is from the principles of the platform adopted, — 
 NOT BY YOUR REVOLUTIONARY SIRES, — hut hj your political leaders 
 last S2m7ig at Chicago. 
 
 THE CHICAGO PLATFORlff NULLIFIES THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 And what are these principles? They are assumptions based as 
 your Southern hrethren feel and believe upon a construction of the U. S. 
 Constitution, contrary to the agreed rights of the South and against 
 the decision of the highest judicial tribunal established by that consti- 
 tution. The old bulwarks of the Constitution and the judgment 
 of the Supreme Court have been supplanted by the Chicago platform, 
 and owing to the disruption of the democratic party and the fanatical 
 delusion of a portion of the Northern people, the assumptions of that 
 platform triumphed at the last Presidential election, for the first t"me, 
 since the foundation of our Government. How, then, can these be 
 
[7] 
 
 called the principles of our forefathers, when our fore-fathers neither 
 advocated them, nor acted upon them? It is only after a lapse of three- 
 fourths of a century, that our (jovernmcnt is called upon for the first 
 time, by a popular vote, to carry them into execution: stronger evi- 
 dence of the unconstitutionality of these assumptions, could not be 
 presented, even had not the South unanimously protested against them, 
 when they were first enunciated and has C(Uitinued to this moment, to 
 denounce them as a treasonable suppression of their rights under the 
 Federal compact. 
 
 THE PEOPLE REPUDIATED THE CHICAGO PLATFORM, NOT- 
 WITHSTANDING MR. LINCOLN'S ACCIDENTAL ELECTION. 
 
 Now let us consider that Presidential triumph, and sec what it is. 
 In eighteen Northern States, Lincoln received IS.")? thousand votes, 
 and in fifteen Southern States he received only 27 thousand. 
 
 The figures seem prophetic, for 1837 was a year of disaster and ruin 
 to our country, and a repetition of these fatal figures in the vote for 
 Lincoln has brought upon us calamities, a thousand-fold greater. If 
 to 1837 we add 27, as indicating the Southern vote, we obtain 18G4, 
 the year when Lincoln's successor will be elected, and at that election 
 let us hope will terminate forever, all discord and animosity between 
 the two great geographical sections of our country. But these 18G4 
 thousand voters are not the people of the United States. With the 
 exception of the 27,000 Place-hunters in the South, who voted for Mr. 
 Lincoln and who have so annoyed him for appointments to office since 
 his election, the whole South voted against the assumptions of his 
 political platform, and in the Northern States that platform was oppos- 
 ed' by one million six hundred thousand patriots who preferred their 
 whole country, and the principles of their fathers, to the disloyal plat- 
 form of a sectional party. Thus do we find sixteen hundred thousand 
 votes in the North and twelve hundred and sixty-six thousand in the 
 South, in all 28G6 thousand votes, against the 186-1 thousand which 
 elected Mr. Lincoln. Is this a triumph to boast of? With the entire 
 South and nearly one-half of the North opposed to it, the Republican 
 party truly should be cautious in attempting to force upon the people 
 of this country untried political principles which have been repudiated 
 by nearly two-thirds of the whole nation. With the certain knowledge 
 that two millions eight hundred thousand voters, and a majority of 
 more than one million of the people, are utterly opposed to these anti- 
 slavery principles, and to these revolutionary and unconstitutional doc- 
 trines, they should not trample in defiance upon the expressed will of 
 the people, Northas well as South, and say "we have no concessions 
 to make but are determined to retract nothing, to yield not a single 
 inch, and to stand firm under every provocation and every threat, even 
 though the land be deluged with blood, and wasted and desolated with 
 fire and the sword." 
 
 With flippant tongues, these leaders who have led their deceived 
 followers away from the Constitution of our fathers, tell them "to stand 
 by the Constitution as it is," — that is as their jilatform interprets it, — 
 "and to make no compromises that would involve them in the guilt of 
 moral treason and justly render them the scorn of mankind!" What 
 then is this moral treason, which is dreaded more than actual treason 
 against their country? 
 
[8] 
 
 SHALL A NORTHERN CONCEIT OUTWEIGH 
 SOUTHERN EXISTENCE? 
 
 Fellow countrymen of the North ! let us reason together about this 
 matter. Are you willing, at the call of your political leaders, to wage 
 a war of extermination on the South, and throw away all the blessings 
 and prosperity you have enjoyed, shutupyour factories and workshops, 
 turn your teeming population out of employment, and bring them to the 
 agonies of starvation, and the madness of desperation, and let riot and 
 famine, confusion and anarchy usurp the reign of law and order, solely^ 
 SOLELY, because of the fear of yielding up a personal opinion, upon a 
 matter that concerns you in no way whatever? Is not this whole 
 question of slavery, as it exists in the South, a mere abstract sentiment 
 iclth you, without any bearing upon your freedom of conduct, your 
 liberty of action, your pursuit of happiness, or your expansion in 
 the common territories ? 
 
 On the other hand, when climate forced your forefathers to send their 
 negroes to the South, and when climate fastened them upon the South, 
 until they became incorporated in the material existence of the South 
 as much even as the land they till, did not our Revolutionary fathers, 
 regarding the question as so pregnant of good or ill to our whole country 
 expressly provide that it should work out its own solution? and, in order 
 that it might be protected from all outside interference — such as you 
 are now attempting — did they not guarantee in the Federal Constitu- 
 tion that fugitives from labor should be sent back to their homes, and 
 that each State should decide upon the question of slavery for itself, 
 and for itself alone, and no State, or people of a State, should ever 
 resist or interfere with the rights of the people of another State in 
 slave property? Under this old Federal Compact you have prospered, 
 and so has the South ; but now you are called upon by your party 
 leaders to sacrifice your prosperity, and annihilate the Constitutional 
 rights of the South, in order that you may not be guilty of the "moral 
 treason" of being inconsistent to an unlawful anti-slavery sentiment, 
 which your teachers and your preachers have thrust upon your con- 
 sciences, as if you had to answer for the sins of a people whose con- 
 sciences are as pure and undefiled in their opinion, at least, as your 
 own! 
 
 Truly, fellow countrymen of the North, is not this carrying an 
 intolerant conceit, in respect to the rights and the privileges of others 
 even beyond the pale of common decency? Does not this look like 
 that spirit of persecution which first broke out among the Pilgrims who 
 landed on Plymouth Rock, and which dictated the Blue Laws of 
 Connecticut, and burned women at Salem? Then it struggled in 
 the weakness of infancy ; now we behold it in the pride of strength, 
 and inflated with power in the full vigor of mature development. 
 
 THE POLICY OF ANTI-SLAVERY POLITICIANS. 
 
 Thetone and spiritof the appeals of your political leaders, andyourreli- 
 gious teachers, for some years past, have aimed to carry your feelings and 
 your sentiments beyond the spirit of the law, and the Ijounds of reason 
 and justice. Your politicians do not intend To give the South any 
 
 GUARANTEES OF PEACE AND SECURITY IN THE UnION. They have labored 
 
 jar years to commit you to an uncompromising hostility to slavery and 
 
(9) 
 
 to its final and total extinttion. They have done their utmost to fos- 
 ter and cherish in your bosoms a principle subversive of the rights of 
 the South, and while thus iiKulcatin<r this revolutionary sentiment, 
 they craftily prepared your minds, lor the bloody strife of section 
 against section, wliich they clearly foresaw would result whenever the 
 Federal Government stood ]>ledgcd to carry into practice this sentiment, 
 and resolve it into an actual assault upon the ri^rlits and the safety of 
 the South. That time has arrived; and your pcditieal leaders arc pre- 
 parini^ you for the conflict, by arousing a military enthusiasm and en- 
 rolling volunteers to sub)u>rate the South. The Legislatures of Ohio, 
 New York, and Massachusetts have already passed resolutions, tendering 
 to the Federal Government both men and money to force the South into 
 submission. And do you think the South can be driven by force into a 
 fraternal union with you? So far from it, these measures only tend to 
 strengthen the disunion movement, and arouse in the South, already 
 complaining of your aggression, a determined spirit of resistance. See 
 the effect of your coercive resolutions upon the Border slave States, that 
 have heretofore resisted the secession movement of the Cotton 
 States. They have, with perfect unanimity through their people and 
 their legislatures, declared that no Northern army, to coerce the South, 
 shall march through their borders, and that they will resist to the 
 utmost any attempt to coerce the South. Thus have you made these 
 States allies of the secession States, and you will make their people, in 
 resisting a mighty wrong, the aiders and supporters of disunion. And 
 yet, there are no truer States in the Union than Kentucky, "N'irginia, 
 and Tennessee. Their gallant sons have ever been the first to rally 
 around the flag of their country, and pour out their blood with a free- 
 dom amounting to recklessness in defence of their country's honor. 
 Their noble-hearted and patriotic Statesmen have ever been the first in 
 the Councils of the Nation to stay the hand of ultra fanaticism and 
 nullification, whether from the North or from the South, and with soul- 
 stirring eloquence they have ever counselled peace and conciliation. 
 Their people have ever been sound upon every question of national 
 politics that embraced the great interests of their whole country. North 
 as well as South. And even in the present crisis, Kentucky's leading 
 Statesman was the first to propose measures of peace and justice, and 
 with outbursts of thrilling eloquence he beseeched you to stay the 
 angry strife with words of peace and kindness. But your political lead- 
 ers have rejected all overtures, and have called upon you to arm for the 
 conflict, and make preparation for battle! They have said a just, and 
 honorable and peaceable compromise shall not be made, and happiness 
 and prosperity shall not be restored to our country. They have told 
 you, you shall have no voice in this matter, but you must fall into the 
 ranks and march to the South, according to the programme marked out 
 by them, for your performance. "Contemplated treason and disunion," 
 they anticipated as the necessary consequences of their political success, 
 and "the enforcement of the laws" is now the rallying cry, to gather the 
 hosts of fanaticism under the banner of the irrepressiule conflict ! 
 
 Let us look back and see if the events of even the past year do not 
 sustain this view of the strife into which your politicians arc now lead- 
 ing you. 
 
 When the great leader of the Bcpublican party shrunk from openly 
 
[lOJ 
 
 encouraging Old John Brown to make his raid upon Virginia, and seize 
 upon the Government arsenal at Harper's Ferry, he was tlicn afraid of 
 the outburst of public indignation, which he rightly apprehended. 
 But when, on his return from Europe, he found Old John Brown idol- 
 ized as a "martyred hero," and half a million of men under the name 
 of Wide Awakes, in honor of Brown's Kansas Company of Free-booters, 
 organized to carry out his doctrine of the irrepressible conflict, and 
 when, last summer this great leader made a triumphal march from the 
 Atlantic shore to Kansas, and reviewed the teeming mass, ready to do 
 battle in this unlawful and unnatural strife against their brothers in 
 the South, then, then, in the exultation of his heart, he waved his 
 hand to the assembled hosts, and shouted in tones that sent a convulsive 
 shudder throughout the Southern heart, "Who's afraid!" Afraid of 
 what? Afraid to inaugurate the bloody conflict "that was to be irre- 
 pressible until every slave that stood upon the soil of the Continent of 
 America had been liberated, and free labor should with victorious ban- 
 ner reign supreme, as the sole and only kind of labor tolerated throvigh- 
 out the length and breadth of this land, North and South, East and 
 West, from the arctic circle to the torrid zone, from the Atlantic borders 
 to the Pacific coasts ! " 
 
 Afraid of what? Afraid to raise the banner of this irrepressible 
 conflict, and march to the bloody carnage and warfare, even though the 
 Laws and Constitution of our Government should be torn to pieces as so 
 much waste paper; even though the whole South should be desolated 
 as a barren waste, its property destroyed, its homes burned, its wives 
 and daughters ravished, and its rivers overflowed with the blood of its 
 slaughtered victims. 
 
 " This is the drama of the irrepressible conflict. Let us inaugurate 
 it! Who's afraid?" 
 
 SHALL WE ACT AS STATESMEN OR AS DESPOTS ? 
 
 Brethren of the North ! there are some of us in the South who still 
 have confidence in your justice, in your sense of right, in your inten- 
 tions to abide by the principles of forbearance and concession, which 
 animated our forefathers when they established our Government, and 
 grasped within its protecting folds the diverse interests of every section, 
 however antagonistic they might be to each other. We also believe 
 that this Government is the best that ever was made, or ever can be 
 made by mortal man, and that no sacrifice that we can possibly make 
 should have any consideration whatever, when we are called upon to 
 decide whether this Government shall stand or fall ! This is the 
 decision that you and that we, are now called upon to make ; and, if 
 that decision be not in favor of peace and brotherly love, in favor of 
 justice to all, and mutual forbearance towards each other, then indeed 
 will future generations look on the record of our suicidal acts, upon 
 the pages of history and wonder that we, boasting of our enlightened 
 civilization, of our glorious freedom, of our unbounded prosperity, of 
 our unalloyed happiness and of our faith in the Christian religion, 
 should, in the folly and madness of an evil hour, have abandoned 
 them all forever, and have brought upon our country the despotisms 
 and barbarisms of the dark ages ! 
 
 We are summoned, fellow citizens of our common country, to rise 
 
[11] 
 
 above the feelings and frailties of our poor human nature, and assume 
 the duties and responsibilities of Patriots and Statesmen 1 Wo arc 
 called upon by the crisis now upon us to lay deeper and broader the 
 foundations of our Government, and strengthen its bunds so as to resist 
 in all future time the I'ury of popular lanaticisui, and the crumblinj:^ 
 process oi' disintegration. Arc you willing to make the necessary sacri- 
 fices in the performance of your part of this <ireat and mijrhty work? 
 
 You need not ask what you are to do. We have shown the feeling 
 which your political principles, and your anti-slavery creeds, have pro- 
 duced in the South, and which your dispruiscd Abolition leaders and 
 party managers have aggravated to such a pitch of excitement, until at 
 last the people of the South have been ibrccd to say to the people of 
 the North, as Abraham said to Lot, "Is not the whole land before thee? 
 Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me; if thou wilt take the left 
 hand, then I will go to the right; or, if thou depart to the right hand, 
 then will I go to the left.'' 
 
 Why this apathy and indifference to the demands of your Southern 
 brethren? Are not their complaints as just and as important as those 
 which our forefathers sent up to the Throne of Great Britain? Can 
 you learn no lesson by experience ? Do you not read on the pages of 
 history that the Government of Great Britain exasperated the American 
 Colonies by treating their petitions with contempt ? And will you, too, 
 turn a deaf ear to the appeals of your countrymen, and mock at their 
 just complaints? King George said to his American subjects, "In this 
 way you shall trade, in this way you shall think, in this way you shall 
 worship God;" and the Colonies resisted King George. Do you sup- 
 pose the South will not fight to maintain and retain rights and liberties 
 as important and as momentous to them as those, to obtain which our 
 Kevolutionary fathers fought so long and so unflinchingly? 
 
 But, you say, "the Southern States have seceded irom the Union, 
 and abrogated the laws of the Federal Government; they have taken 
 possession of the forts erected for the defence of those States, and 
 have occupied the custom houses established for the convenience of 
 their people; they have captured the government vessels, and fired 
 upon the flag of our country." 
 
 True! And all these things did also the rebellious subjects of King 
 George, and when they asked for concessions and conciliation, he 
 enforced the laws against them at the point of the bayonet, and in his 
 attempt to coerce them into submission, he only awoke from his delusion 
 when it was, alas, too late! 
 
 Do you think the arrogant advisers of King George were right in 
 resorting to coercion for the enforcement of the laws, and for the pro- 
 tection of the royal property, in preference to listening to the com- 
 plaints of the Colonists, and adopting measures for the redress of their 
 grievances? 
 
 Old George denounced his American subjects as " traitors, and scoun- 
 drels and rebels." And what do you call your Southern brethren ? 
 
 But you think you are in the right ; for your conscience does not 
 convict you of having done the South any wrong. King George said, 
 "I am in the right, and I have no wish but the prosperity of my domin- 
 ions, and to prevent anarchy." 
 
 "But," you say, "we are in the right, although King George was not." 
 
[12] 
 
 History tells us "that nine-tenths of all the tyranny of this woikl has 
 been perpetrated by persons believing themselves in the rii^ht. Aro'u- 
 ing on that convenient premise, the Dey of Al^'iers would cut off twenty 
 heads of a morning; Father Dominic would burn a score of Jews in 
 presence of the most Catholic King, and the Archbishops of Toledo 
 and Salamanca vv^ould sing Amen! Protestants were roasted, Jesuits 
 hung and quartered, at Smithfield, and witches burned at Salem, and 
 all by worthy people who believed they had the best authority for their 
 actions." 
 
 " But you say our political principles, and our anti-slavery sentiments 
 are popular, as was proved in the last Presidential election; and, having 
 the approbation of a ruling majority of the people, -we see no good 
 reason for changing those sentimens, or modifying those principles, 
 especially under the threats of the South." 
 
 "Popular! So, indeed, was the American war popular in England in 
 1775, for the address for coercing the Colonies was carried by a vote of 
 304 to only 106 against it in the House of Commons, and by 104 to 
 29 in the House of Lords." 
 
 "Popular! So was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes popular in 
 France; so was the massacre of St. Bartholomew; so was the Inquisi- 
 tion exceedingly popular in Spain." 
 
 Fellow countrymen, can you not furl your conflict banner, and estend 
 the right hand of fellowship to your brethren in the South? They 
 may be rebels and traitors in your opinion, even as our forefathers were 
 in the opinion of King George ; but for all that, they have fled from 
 your tyranny and oppression, from your hatred and aggression, and 
 are you going to treat them, even as the British treated our forefathers, 
 by trying to coerce them into obedience, under the same pretext of 
 enforcing the laws? Are you willing, fellow countrymen, to be the 
 supple tools of your political leaders, like so many Hessians, to carry 
 out their revolutionary mandates? Is it not rather your duty to de- 
 mand of your State and National Legislators that you, their masters 
 and their superiors in all primary decrees, shall have a voice in this 
 question — this great primary question — the solution of which is to 
 decide the destinies of our country, for fraternal peace or for fratricidal 
 war; for a Union as christians and as patriots; or, for an eternal dis- 
 union, with bloody wars and endless carnage, such as even the fiends of 
 hell would be ashamed of? Do not both duty and interest require that 
 you take the management and decision of this perilous question out of 
 the hands of your reckless political leaders, who have brought this 
 crisis upon you, and who are now urging you on to the final consum- 
 mation of their inhuman and blood-thirsty designs? 
 
 Nay, more! Do not every consideration, and every impulse, that can 
 animate the heart of a christian patriot, and an honest man, impose 
 upon you the obligation to ofler terms of reconciliation to your Southern 
 brethren, to soothe their aggrieved feelings, and to give assurances of 
 safety to themselves, and of security to their rights, and thus bring 
 them back to a desirable Union with you? 
 
 Nay, more ! Docs not every consideration of humanity call upon 
 you to do first all these, and then, even then, to stay the uplifted hand 
 of angry resentment that is raised against a brother's life, and to bear 
 with him in patience until his good sense and sober reflection shall 
 
[13] 
 
 have returned, until pnssion and excitement shall have suhsided, until rea- 
 son shall have resumed her sway over his thoujrhts and foeiings, until 
 patriotism shall have triumj^hed over disunion, and, Jinally, until he 
 shall renew his fealty to our Common Government, and thus unite us 
 all again, as one people, under one flair, even the same glorious old 
 Banner of the Union, no longer rent and torn and trailing in the dust, 
 by the strife of Star against Star and Stripe against Stripe ! 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF COERCION. 
 
 One single sign in the North of returning good will and good faith, will 
 accomplish more in disarming the South, and in purchasing peace, than 
 will a thousand millions of treasure expended in munitions of war, 
 for the slaughter of American citizens. One single acknowledgment 
 of the rights of the South will achieve a greater victory than can a 
 million of soldiers triumphing in a hundred pitched battles ! IJw 
 South iciU rapittdatc to friends and hrothrrs, hut uill never surmtdcr 
 to an armed for re. And how can we in Kentucky, fellow countrymen 
 of the North, roll back this secession tide, when you shut your ears to 
 the complaints of the South, and allow your politicians by the adoption 
 of coercive measures, to force our people, even our Union-loving peo- 
 ple, into the ranks of the Secessionists to fight under the banner of 
 Disunion? Are not their rights our rights? Do you think the Border 
 States can see their sister States pour out their blood, and sacrifice their 
 lives, their all, in defence of those rights, and they not join in the 
 struggle ? Because our people have more calmly borne tlieir grievances 
 and clung fast to their hopes of defence in the Union, do not trust too 
 much to their patience and loyalty, for the Border States and the Cot- 
 ton States are only divided in opinion as to the measure and mode of 
 redress, and not as to their common complaints against the Republican 
 party. 
 
 Already under the apprehension of a Northern coercion movement, 
 "Southern Rights" and anti-coercion military clubs are organizing in our 
 midst, and the secession ball rolls onward. Your Congressmen say they 
 have no compromises to make; your State Legislatures say, we will force 
 the South to submit to the laws : your Generals and your Captains 
 say our forces are ready for active service against the »South. And all 
 these things sink deep in the hearts of our people and make them 
 think there is no hope of justice from their Northern brethren. Silent- 
 ly and gloomily our people prepare to meet force with force, and the 
 secession ball rolls onward : a year ago, you told the South — '"we also 
 will laugh at your calamity; we will mock when your fear conieth,"' 
 and the people of the South are beginning to heed the warning — '-for- 
 get not the voice of thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up 
 against thee incroaseth continually," and the secession ball rolls onward. 
 
 Even those who have battled earnestly and nobly for the I'nion are 
 faltering in their devotion; and thus it is, as our people prepare for the 
 bloody ordeal, their passions become inflamed, and the secession ball rolls 
 onward — onward — onward; gathering strength and might and power, as 
 it rolls onward! And shall its fatal tread press the sacred soil beneath 
 the shades of Ashland, where repose the ashes of him, "who prayed God 
 he might die ere this glorious Union was dissolved." Shall the life cher- 
 ished hopes of this noble patriot fade away as a dream? Shall the wisest 
 
and best constructed system for the advancement of liuman happiness 
 and human prosperity ever devised by the genius of man, be thus de- 
 stroyed, in order that fanaticism may reigu on the right hand and 
 anarchy rule on the left? Shall our children crushed beneath the yoke 
 of despotism and tyranny, point the finger of sc(5rn to us, their apos- 
 tate fathers, as truckling cowards, who were afraid to acknowledire an 
 error and repair a wrong, and lost their birth-right in their pride to 
 be consistent on an abstraction? 
 
 It is for our Northern friends to answer! 
 
 They alone can settle the commotion that now upheaves the Union 
 from its very foundations and threatens to crush the Temple of Liberty, 
 at once and forever ! 
 
 ACTUAL REVOLUTION NOW EXISTS. 
 
 The people of the South are in a state of revolution ; they have risen 
 in defence of their inalienable rights to life, to liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness. Their authority for it is expressed in the Bill of Rights 
 as set forth by our forefathers and which is incorporated in the Con- 
 stitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, as the fundamental 
 principle of all Republican governments, in the following words : — 
 "That all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are 
 founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety, and 
 happiness, security and protection of property ; for the advancement 
 of these ends they have at all times an inalienable right to alter, reform, 
 or abolish their government in such manner as they think proper." 
 This is the broad basis of our several State Governments and it is the 
 very corner stone of our Federal Government. In both governments 
 the people are recognized as sovereign; and in their hands alone is 
 placed the power to alter, reform, or" abolish their government in such 
 manner as they think proper. Constitutions are but the creatures of 
 their will and Executive Officers and Legislative Assemblies, are sub- 
 ordinate instruments under the forms of those Constitutions. When 
 the people abolish a Constitution, they rise above its obligations, and 
 it* power over them ceases to exist. 
 
 This is the attitude assumed by the people of the seceding States, 
 toward the Federal Government ; they have revoked their assent 
 to the U. S. Constitution, and as a necessary consequence deny the 
 authority of the Federal powers created by that Constitution. Three- 
 fourths of the States ratifying their act would make it binding on both 
 sides. 
 
 Whether right or wrong, the fact of revolution on the part of the 
 seceding States, exists in stern reality, and the question arises, how 
 ■shall it be treated? The Secessionists say, in justification of their 
 action — "had they not withdrawn in a formal and orderly manner, 
 by conventions of the people, then, they would have continued under 
 the authority of the Federal Government, and been subject to its laws; 
 and any resistance to those laws by them as citizens, would have been 
 treason and rebellion, and punishable as such. By the act of secession 
 they have withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Federal Government 
 and are no longer amenable to its laws ; they are no longer citizens 
 and subjects, but an independent people, approachable only be media- 
 tion and conciliation, or if the dissolution is complete, through nego- 
 
[lo] 
 
 tiation by treaty." This riL;ht of tlic people of a .State or province 
 for just causes to rise above the constituted authorities and declare their 
 independence of them, was first asserted as an active principle, by our 
 Revolutionary fathers, when they threw off the yoke of Great Rritian. 
 It has since been frequently recoirnized by the American people, and 
 the Federal Government, as an inherent rij^ht bclonnitig to all people 
 and every nation. The U. S. Congress, expressed sympathy with the 
 Spanish American Provinces when they declared their independence 
 of the Government of Spain; they likewise aided and succored the 
 people of Greece, in their struggles for liberty; they encouraged the 
 people of Hungary in their revolution against the tyranny of Austrian 
 despotism and even within the past year. Garibaldi, in overthrowing 
 the Government of Naples, has been hailed as the deliverer of Italy. 
 Need a stronger instance of the application of this principle by the 
 Federal Government be cited, than that of Texas: did the U. S. Gov- 
 ernment aid and encourage Mexico, in her efforts to subdue her rebel- 
 lious province and enforce her laws; or did our Government recognize 
 the right of the people of Texas to assert their independence of Mexico? 
 The answer is to be found in the additional star emblazoned on the 
 Flag of our Union ; far better would it have been that that star had 
 never been added, if it is to be obliterated by force and violence. 
 Strange that the very error that we have condemned in other Govern- 
 ments, in their mode of treating a people resisting their tyranny and 
 oppression, should be committed by our Government. We wonder 
 why Austria did not conciliate Hungary; why Mexico did not indulge 
 Texas; why King Bomba did not cease to oppress the people of Naples; 
 why George the Third did not repeal the stamp act: we think the peo- 
 ple oppressed by these over-bearing Governments, were right in their 
 demands for a redress of their grievances and the Governments were 
 wrong, reckless and intolerant in their efforts to force their people into 
 subjection by the strong arm of the military power; and yet we, the 
 most liberal minded people on earth and with the light of these 
 examples before us, are about to commit the same old folly, of using 
 force instead of conciliation, to bring our seceding States back again 
 in the Union. 
 
 To the Noble Band of Conservative men in the North 
 we have an earnest -word to say: 
 
 In the foregoing Appeal, we have endeavored to show the causes 
 that have brought about this revolution among Southern people, and 
 how it is claimed, that they have been oppressed by the acts of the 
 Anti-Slavery Party of the North, their rights denied and their lives 
 and property imperilled; that Anti-Slavery Party will soon have the 
 Federal Government in its hands, and by the aid of the purse and 
 sword will be able to carry its unconstitutional and tyrannical policy 
 into forcible execution against the Southern States. The policy of 
 that party is in its nature and effect, revolutionary, and the South has 
 shrunk with dread from its blighting consequences and sought refuge 
 from its enforcement by a counter revolution. We, in Kentucky,' 
 have ever had an abiding confidence in the honesty of our Northern 
 brethren and would have been willing to have awaited the solution of our 
 differences at the ballot box, under a firm conviction that that was the 
 
[16] 
 
 proper mode of redress for our wrongs, and that truth, reason, and 
 justice, would there eventually triumph. 
 
 But the hasty blunder of the Cotton States in taking separate 
 action in the mode of redress thought by them the most advisable ; 
 and the determined folly of a majority in Congress, to purchase a 
 triumph for the Republican Party even over the wreck of our glo- 
 rious Union, have brought our perils to a momentous crisis, and in 
 this the hour of our danger, we beseech you, Fellow-Countrymen, 
 not to abandon us! In the struggle between the Union and the Black 
 Bepublican Party, each for its existence, you are to decide, which shall 
 live and which shall die! Thousands and hundreds of thousands of 
 true and devoted conservative men in the South, who have had to bend 
 before the secession hurricane, are waiting your action, with beating 
 hearts and anxious minds: when the howl of the tempest has passed 
 and the people are prepared for calm reflection, then the voice of those 
 men can draw the people back to their allegiance to the Federal Gov- 
 ernment, under a flag of truce from the Republican Party. But will 
 the Republican Party abandon their hostilities and proclaim peace and 
 safety to the South? It is for you, the intelligent, conservative and 
 controlling power in the public opinion of the free States to decide ! 
 
 Our hopes for the salvation of this country are centered upon your 
 exertion! The destiny of this nation is in your hands! 
 
 In conclusion, Conservative Brethren of the North, we oflfer you an 
 apology, for aught we have said in this Appeal, which seemed to charge 
 you with any agency in bringing about this unhappy and deplorable 
 crisis. Far be it from us, even to appear ungrateful to you, who havo 
 ever held fast to the principles of the Constitution as our fathers estab- 
 lished it and have fought step by step against the nullifying, and sec- 
 tional principles of the Black Republican Party. We have looked 
 with admiration upon you in your efi'orts to protect and preserve the 
 rights of the South against the assaults of a majority of your own peo- 
 ple and we grasp you to our hearts as brothers; we recognise you "as 
 brothers in lineage, as brothers in allegiance and in the midst of all 
 perils, as brothers in afiection, still!" To you the people of Kentucky, 
 by a formal vote of their Legislature, have said — '■'■Resolved — that We, 
 the Representatives of the people of Kentucky, return our cordial and 
 heartfelt thanks to the thousands of people in the Free States, who are 
 now engaged in rolling back the tide of Black Republican fanaticism ; 
 we trust they will continue their patriotic exertions, and we pledge 
 ourselves to unite our exertions with theirs in the holy work of pre- 
 serving the Union of these States." 
 
 And may the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, bless and prosper you 
 in this work and aid you in bringing it to a peaceful and happy con- 
 clusion! 
 
 A VOICE FROM KENTUCKY. 
 
 Louisville, Ky., January, 1861. 
 
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