Chapter III

Secession of Mississippi and Other States.--Withdrawal of
Senators.--Address of the Author on taking Leave of the
Senate.--Answer to Certain Objections.

Mississippi was the second State to withdraw from the Union, her ordinance of secession being adopted on the 9th of January, 1861. She was quickly followed by Florida on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, and, in the course of the same month, by Georgia on the 18th, and Louisiana on the 26th. The Conventions of these States (together with that of South Carolina) agreed in designating Montgomery, Alabama, as the place, and the 4th of February as the day, for the assembling of a congress of the seceding States, to which each State Convention, acting as the direct representative of the sovereignty of the people thereof, appointed delegates.

Telegraphic intelligence of the secession of Mississippi had reached Washington some considerable time before the fact was officially communicated to me. This official knowledge I considered it proper to await before taking formal leave of the Senate. My associates from Alabama and Florida concurred in this view. Accordingly, having received notification of the secession of these three States about the same time, on the 21st of January Messrs. Yulee and Mallory, of Florida, Fitzpatrick and Clay, of Alabama, and myself, announced the withdrawal of the States from which we were respectively accredited, and took leave of the Senate at the same time.

In the action which she then took, Mississippi certainly had no purpose to levy war against the United States, or any of them. As her Senator, I endeavored plainly to state her position in the annexed remarks addressed to the Senate in taking leave of the body:

"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 it were otherwise;
and yet it seems to become me to say something on the part of
the 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 their 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 opinions 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 purpose through a
stated line of conduct--chose 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 I
will say to her, Godspeed, 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 to 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. That
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. So stands the compact which binds us together.

"Then, Senators, 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 unencumbered by 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."

There are some who contend that we should have retained our seats and "fought for our rights in the Union." Could anything be less rational or less consistent than that a Senator, an ambassador from his State, should insist upon representing it in a confederacy from which the State has withdrawn? What was meant by "fighting in the Union" I have never quite understood. If it be to retain a seat in Congress for the purpose of crippling the Government and rendering it unable to perform its functions, I can certainly not appreciate the idea of honor that sanctions the suggestion. Among the advantages claimed for this proposition by its supporters was that of thwarting the President in the appointment of his Cabinet and other officers necessary for the administration of public affairs. Would this have been to maintain the Union formed by the States? Would such have been the Government which Washington recommended as a remedy for the defects of the original Confederation, the greatest of which was the paralysis of the action of the general agent by the opposition or indifference of the States? Sad as have been the consequences of the war which followed secession--disastrous in its moral, material, and political relations--still we have good cause to feel proud that the course of the Southern States has left no blot nor stain upon the honor and chivalry of their people.

"And if our children must obey,
They must, but--thinking on our day--
'Twill less debase them to submit."