Chapter VII (2)

2. If a convention of the State were assembled, the proposition to
secede from the Union, independently of support from neighboring
States, would probably fail.

3. If South Carolina should first secede, and she alone should take
such action, the position of Mississippi would not probably be changed
by that fact. A powerful obstacle to the separate action of
Mississippi is the want of a port; from which follows the consequence
that her trade, being still conducted through the ports of the Union,
her revenue would be diverted from her own support to that of a
foreign government; and being geographically unconnected with South
Carolina, an alliance with her would not vary that state of the case.
[_Sic._]

4. The propriety of separate secession by South Carolina depends so
much upon collateral questions that I find it difficult to respond to
your last inquiry, for the want of knowledge which would enable me to
estimate the value of the elements involved in the issue, though
exterior to your State. Georgia is necessary to connect you with
Alabama, and thus to make effectual the coöperation of Mississippi. If
Georgia would be lost by immediate action, but could be gained by
delay, it seems clear to me that you should wait. If the secession of
South Carolina should be followed by an attempt to coerce her back
into the Union, that act of usurpation, folly, and wickedness would
enlist every true Southern man for her defense. If it were attempted
to blockade her ports and destroy her trade, a like result would be
produced, and the commercial world would probably be added to her
allies. It is probable that neither of those measures would be adopted
by any administration, but that Federal ships would be sent to collect
the duties on imports outside of the bar; that the commercial nations
would feel little interest in that; and the Southern States would have
little power to counteract it.

The planting States have a common interest of such magnitude, that
their union, sooner or later, for the protection of that interest, is
certain. United they will have ample power for their own protection,
and their exports will make for them allies of all commercial and
manufacturing powers.

The new States have a heterogeneous population, and will be slower and
less unanimous than those in which there is less of the Northern
element in the body politic, but interest controls the policy of
States, and finally all the planting communities must reach the same
conclusion. _My opinion is, therefore, as it has been, in favor of
seeking to bring those States into coöperation before asking for a
popular decision upon a new policy and relation to the nations of the
earth._ If South Carolina should resolve to secede before that
coöperation can be obtained, to go out leaving Georgia, and Alabama,
and Louisiana in the Union, and without any reason to suppose they
will follow her, there appears to me to be no advantage in waiting
until the Government has passed into hostile hands, and men have
become familiarized to that injurious and offensive perversion of the
General Government from the ends for which it was established. I have
written with the freedom and carelessness of private correspondence,
and regret that I could not give more precise information.

Very respectfully, yours, etc.,
JEFFERSON DAVIS.

Mr. Davis remained in the Senate, a friend of peace, and, until the last moment, laboring for adjustment, when he received the summons of Mississippi, forbidding the longer exercise of the trust which she had given to his keeping. Mississippi seceded on the 9th of January, 1861. Mr. Davis, receiving formal announcement of the event, withdrew on the 21st, after pronouncing an impressive valedictory to the Senate. Its dignified, courteous, and statesman-like character has challenged the unqualified eulogy of the enlightened world.

SPEECH OF HON. JEFFERSON DAVIS, ON WITHDRAWING FROM THE U. S. SENATE.
JAN. 21, 1861.

MR. DAVIS. I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the
Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of
Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people, in convention
assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under
these circumstances, of course, my functions are terminated here. It
has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate
to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little
more. The occasion does not invite me to go into argument; and my
physical condition would not permit me to do so, if otherwise; and yet
it seems to become me to say something on the part of a State I here
represent, on an occasion so solemn as this.

It is known to Senators who have served with me here, that I have, for
many years, advocated, as an essential attribute of State sovereignty,
the right of a State to secede from the Union. Therefore, if I had not
believed there was justifiable cause; if I had thought that
Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an
existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the Government,
because of my allegiance to the State of which I am a citizen, have
been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I
do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I
conferred with her people before that act was taken, counseled them
then that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist
when the convention met, they should take the action which they have
now adopted.

I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with the
advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union, and to
disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the
law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and secession, so often
confounded, are, indeed, antagonistic principles. Nullification is a
remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the
agent of the States. It is only to be justified when the agent has
violated his constitutional obligations, and a State, assuming to
judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and
appeals to the other States of the Union for a decision; but when the
States themselves, and when the people of the States, have so acted as
to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights,
then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in
its practical application.

A great man, who now reposes with his fathers, and who has often been
arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, advocated the doctrine of
nullification because it preserved the Union. It was because of his
deep-seated attachment to the Union--his determination to find some
remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound
South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the
doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful--to be
within the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only
to be a means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of the States
for their judgment.

Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a
time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a
better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the
inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one
from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the
grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.

I, therefore, say I concur in the action of the people of Mississippi,
believing it to be necessary and proper, and should have been bound by
their action if my belief had been otherwise; and this brings me to
the important point which I wish, on this last occasion, to present to
the Senate. It is by this confounding of nullification and secession,
that the name of a great man, whose ashes now mingle with his mother
earth, has been evoked to justify coercion against a seceded State.
The phrase, "to execute the laws," was an expression which General
Jackson applied to the case of a State refusing to obey the laws while
yet a member of the Union. That is not the case which is now
presented. The laws are to be executed over the United States, and
upon the people of the United States. They have no relation to any
foreign country. It is a perversion of terms--at least it is a great
misapprehension of the case--which cites that expression for
application to a State which has withdrawn from the Union. You may
make war on a foreign State. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, they
may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but
there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the
limits of a seceded State. A State, finding herself in the condition
in which Mississippi has judged she is--in which her safety requires
that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the
Union--surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be many),
deprives herself of the advantages (and they are known to be great),
severs all the ties of affection (and they are close and enduring),
which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every
benefit--taking upon herself every burden--she claims to be exempt
from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her
limits.

I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before
the bar of the Senate, and when the doctrine of coercion was rife, and
to be applied against her, because of the rescue of a fugitive slave
in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. Not in a
spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influenced, in my
opinion, because the case is my own, I refer to that time and that
occasion, as containing the opinion which I then entertained, and on
which my present conduct is based. I then said that if Massachusetts,
following her through a stated line of conduct, choose to take the
last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go,
and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but
will say to her, God speed, in memory of the kind associations which
once existed between her and the other States.

It has been a conviction of pressing necessity--it has been a belief
that we are to be deprived, in the Union, of the rights which our
fathers bequeathed to us--which has brought Mississippi into her
present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are
created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her
social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has
been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.
The Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the
circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were
declaring their independence; the people of those communities were
asserting that no man was born, to use the language of Mr. Jefferson,
booted and spurred, to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were
created equal--meaning the men of the political community; that there
was no divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to
govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended
to families; but that all stations were equally within the grasp of
each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they
announced; these were the purposes for which they made their
declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation was
directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how happened it,
that, among the items of arraignment against George III, was, that he
endeavored to do just what the North has been endeavoring of late to
do, to stir up insurrection among our slaves. Had the Declaration
announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the prince to
be arraigned for raising up insurrection among them? And how was this
to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the colonies to
sever their connection with the mother country? When our Constitution
was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable; for there we
find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they
were not put upon the footing of equality with white men--not even
upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was
concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be
represented in the numerical proportion of three-fifths.

Then, Senators, we recur to the compact which binds us together; we
recur to the principles upon which our Government was founded; and
when you deny them, and when you deny to us the right to withdraw from
a government, which, thus perverted, threatens to be destructive of
our rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim
our independence, and take the hazard. This is done, not in hostility
to others--not to injure any section of the country--not even for our
own pecuniary benefit; but from the high and solemn motive of
defending and protecting the rights we inherited, and which it is our
duty to transmit unshorn to our children.

I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling of my
constituents toward yours. I am sure I feel no hostility toward you,
Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever
sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I can not now
say, in the presence of my God, I wish you well; and such, I am sure,
is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you
represent. I, therefore, feel that I but express their desire, when I
say I hope, and they hope, for peaceable relations with you, though we
must part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as
they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring
disaster on every portion of the country; and if you will have it
thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from
the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and
thus, putting our trust in God, and in our firm hearts and strong
arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may.

In the course of my service here, associated, at different times, with
a great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have
served long; there have been points of collision, but whatever of
offense there has been to me, I leave here--I carry with me no hostile
remembrance. Whatever offense I have given, which has not been
redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have,
Senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you my apology for any
pain which, in the heat of discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence
unincumbered of the remembrance of any injury received, and having
discharged the duty of making the only reparation in my power for any
injury offered.

Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement which the
occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid you a
final adieu.

A frequent accusation alleged against Mr. Davis and other Southern Senators who adopted his course of a formal withdrawal from the Senate, is that they thus gave the Republican party control of the Senate, and voluntarily surrendered its power to the hostile administration soon to be inaugurated. It is a sufficient answer to this statement that the mere admission that the administration was hostile to Southern interests, and menacing to Southern safety and honor, or even that the South had good reason for so believing, is to fix the responsibility of disunion elsewhere than upon the Southern leaders.

To have retained his seat under such circumstances would have been altogether inconsistent with Mr. Davis' conception of the nature of the position. He was committed, by public announcement, to a very different view of the obligations of the representative of a State in the Federal Congress. Holding it to be a point of honor not to occupy such a relation, with the object of hostility to the Government, years ago he announced, in connection with an allusion to a calumnious insinuation, that he would answer in monosyllables the man who would charge him with being a disunionist.

Entertaining his view of the character of the American political system, of which the foundation was the doctrine of a paramount allegiance of the citizen to his State, when Mississippi withdrew from the Union, he had no other alternative than to vacate the position which he held by her commission, and which was, at once, the sign of the equality and sovereignty of the States, and of the adherence of each to the league by which she was united to the others. To represent a State adhering to the Union, and use the position to make war upon the Government, or to retain a seat in Congress when the State had, by its sovereign fiat, revoked its grants, and withdrawn from the league, were offenses belonging to the last stage of decadence in political morality and personal honor.

Retiring from the Senate, Mr. Davis returned, within a few days thereafter, to his residence in Mississippi. The State was not unmindful of the necessity of preparations for a war which, though not deemed inevitable, was yet extremely probable. Mr. Davis was honored by an appointment to the command of the militia of the State, with the rank of Major-General. His retirement upon his plantation thus promised to be of short duration, but before he could assume the responsibilities which Mississippi, in this reiteration of her confidence, had conferred, the voice of millions invoked his guidance of their destinies in the hazardous experiment of independent national existence.

Secession, in its rapid progress, confirmed the threadbare theory of the progressive tendency of revolutionary movements. Acquiring impetus as it advanced, before the first of February, 1861, six States had declared themselves no longer members of the Union.[20] Representatives from these States met, in convention, at Montgomery, Alabama, on 4th February, 1861, for the purpose of forming a provisional government. On the 8th February, this body adopted a constitution, and proclaimed an addition to the family of nations, under the title of THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

The next day the Congress of the Confederate States announced its choice of the two highest constitutional officers of the new Government:

President, JEFFERSON DAVIS, of Mississippi.

Vice-President, ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, of Georgia.