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[254] in the Democratic party, so great had been the calm which the compromise measures of 1850 had produced. In 1856 he again went as a delegate from the State of Alabama to the Cincinnati Convention, with his old ultimatum in his pocket. Contrary to his wishes and expectations, it was incorporated into the Cincinnati platform, and being thus left without an excuse, he supported Mr. Buchanan for the Presidency in the fall of that year. In the mean time, however, that fatal measure, the repeal of the Missouri compromise, had been consummated. It was brought about by the extremists of the South, aided by a few partisan Democrats of the North. The avowed object of its authors was to open to Slavery the territories north of the Missouri compromise line, notwithstanding the agreement of 1820 that said line should forever divide the territories between the slave and free States. It is said, however, that the compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, but what is that to the purpose? It was a most solemn compact between the two sections of the country, made for the settlement of a most perplexing question, and without any reference to its constitutionality, should have been regarded as an organic law, and observed as sacredly as the Constitution itself.

The effect of this measure was great and rapid, and there can be but little doubt that it was such as a majority of its authors contemplated. The result was the formation of a great party at the North opposed to the further extension of Slavery, and which party very nearly succeeded in electing their candidate for the Presidency, Mr. Fremont, in 1856.

After the election, this party seemed to be on the wane, until the anti-Slavery spirit of the whole North was aroused to madness, by an attempt on the part of Mr. Buchanan's administration to force the Lecompton Constitution with Slavery upon the people of Kansas, in opposition to the known and expressed wish of three fourths of them. But for this most unjustifiable measure the Republican party would undoubtedly have dwindled down to moderate proportions; and even after this, it is doubtful if they could have succeeded in the Presidential election of 1860, if the Secessionists with Yancey at their head, had not determined that they should succeed. After Mr. Yancey and his party had, against their wishes, succeeded in getting their ultimatum of non-intervention incorporated into the Cincinnati platform, they went to work to conjure up another to present to the Charleston Convention. Abandoning their doctrine of non-intervention, they went to the opposite extreme and demanded that the intervention of Congress for the protection of slavery in the territories should constitute a part of the Charleston platform. This demand they well knew would not be complied with, nor did they desire that it should be. Their object was to procure the secession of the delegates of the Cotton States from the Convention, and thus by defeating the nomination of Mr. Douglas, and rending asunder the Democratic party, to insure the election of Mr. Lincoln, and thereby forge for themselves a grievance which would seem to justify them in the execution of their long meditated produced. In 1856 he again went as a delegate designs of destroying the Union. All of this they accomplished, and the election of Mr. Lincoln was perhaps hailed with greater joy at Charleston than at New-York. I will do them the justice to state that they also claimed to have some other grievances; among them, that some of the Northern States by their statutes obstructed the execution of the fugitive slave law, but the only States that could complain much on that score, were willing to remain in the Union, while South-Carolina, the State which set the ball in motion, perhaps never lost a slave. But it must be borne in mind that no act of the National Government constituted any part of their grievances. They did not pretend that any act of Congress infringed their rights, and the decisions of the Supreme Court were mainly such as they would themselves have made. Nay, even at the very time of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, if the Cotton States had allowed their Senators and Representatives to remain, they would have had a decided majority in both Houses of Congress in favor of the extension of Slavery, and in opposition to the policy of the party which elected him.

The great cause of complaint was, that a man opposed to the extension of Slavery in the territories had been elected President of the United States according to the forms of the Constitution which he was sworn to defend and protect, and who disclaimed any other than constitutional means in the accomplishment of his objects. Under such circumstances it seems that if they had labored under any real grievance, their course was plain. They should have taken the course of our revolutionary fathers. When the States assembled in Convention, instead of proceeding at once to declare their independence — for the idea of Secession, peaceable if right, seems, as Publius says, to have exploded and given up the ghost — should clearly and concisely have stated what their grievances were, and demanded redress in respectful yet firm and decided terms. They should have exhausted every constitutional means of obtaining guarantees — if any were needed — by representation, by remonstrance, by petition; and failing in all these, they should have done as our revolutionary sires did, that is, fight in the Union for their rights until they were driven out of it. Such a course would have procured for us, as it did for our fathers, the respect, the sympathy, and the assistance of other nations. Instead of that, we have not a friend in Europe. But such was not the course which these — in their own estimation — wise statesmen chose to pursue. When such a course was suggested or recommended to them, they evaded it by a long list of magnificent promises which looked so splendid as almost to dazzle the mind with their brilliancy.

First and foremost, they promised that Secession should be peaceable.

Secondly, they promised that if perchance war should ensue, it would be a very short war, that it would not last six months; that the Yankees would not fight; that one Southerner could whip


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