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| Jacob Thompson. |
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[45]
Floyd's treachery consisted more in secret, efficient action than in open words.
As we shall observe presently, he had used the power of his official station to strip the arsenals of the Free-labor States of arms and ammunition, and to crowd those of the Slave-labor States with these materials of war; while Thompson, for more than ten years an avowed disunionist, was now plotting treason, it seems, by night and by day. He wrote from his official desk at Washington, as early as the 20th of November:--“My allegiance is due to Mississippi1 and her destiny, I believe she ought to resist, and to the bitter end, i Black Republican rule. . . . As long as I am here, I shall shield and protect the South.
Whenever it shall come to pass that I think I can do no further good here, I shall return to my home.
Buchanan is the truest friend to the South I have ever known in the North.
He is a jewel y of a man.”
After speaking of the intended secession of Mississippi, he said:--“I want the co-operation of the Southern States.
I wish to do all I can to secure their sympathy and co-operation.
A confederacy
of the Southern States will be strong enough to command the respect of the world, and the love and confidence of our people at home.
South Carolina will go. I consider Georgia and Florida as certain.
Alabama probable. Then Mississippi must go. But I want Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia; and Maryland will not stay behind long. . . . As soon as our mechanics, our merchants, our lawyers, our editors, look this matter in the face, and calculate the consequences, they will see their interest ”
1 Ten years before, this man, then engaged in treasonable schemes, dating his letter at Washington, “House of Representatives, September 2, 1850,” wrote to General Quitman, then Governor of Mississippi, on whom the mantle of Calhoun, as chief conspirator against American Nationality, had worthily fallen, saying:--“When the President of the United States commands me to do one act, and the Executive of Mississippi commands me to do another thing, inconsistent with the first order, I obey the Governor of my State. To Mississippi I owe allegiance, and, because she commands me, I owe obedience to the United States.”--Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman: by J. F. H. Claiborne, II. 68. This is the pure doctrine of Supreme State Sovereignty, on which the conspirators founded their justification for the so-called secession of the States from the Union.
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