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[344]

Mr. Stephens was, in his earlier years, an admirer and follower of Mr. Clay; but, since 1850, he had gone a roving after strange gods. He now said:

Should Georgia determine to go out of the Union, I speak for one, though my views may not agree with them, whatever the result may be, I shall bow to the will of her people. Their cause is my cause, and their destiny is my destiny; and I trust this will be the ultimate course of all. The greatest curse that can befall a free people is civil war. But, as I said, let us call a Convention of the people; let all these matters be submitted to it; and, when the will of a majority of the people has thus been expressed, the whole State will present one unanimous voice in favor of whatever may be demanded.

Of course, Mr. Stephens was taken at his word. A Convention was called; a majority of delegates secured for Disunion; an Ordinance of Secession passed; and Mr. Stephens sank from the proud position of a citizen of the American Republic into that of Vice-President of the Confederacy of slaveholding traitors and their benighted, misguided satellites and dupes.

The South Carolina Convention met at Columbia on the appointed day--December 17th. Gen. D. F. Jamison, its temporary Chairman, on being called to preside, paraded the wrongs of the South in the admission of California, organization and settlement of Kansas, etc., etc., and trusted that “the door is now closed forever against any further connection1 with the Northern confederacy,” etc., etc., etc. He further trusted that “we shall not be diverted from our purpose by any dictates from without;” and that the Convention, in inaugurating such a movement, would heed the counsels of a master-spirit of the French Revolution, whose maxim was, to “dare, and again to dare, and without end to dare.”

Mr. Chas. G. Memminger2 having suggested that the members, on the roll being called, advance and be sworn, a delegate responded: “Oh no! that is not required; we came not to make, but to unmake, a government.”

Gen. Jamison was, on the fifth ballot, chosen President. At the evening session of the first day, Hon. John A. Elmore, a Commissioner from Alabama, and Hon. Charles Hooker, a Commissioner from Mississippi, were introduced by the President, and successively addressed the Convention — of course, in favor of prompt and unconditional Secession. Mr. Elmore said:

I am instructed by the Governor of Alabama to say that he desires, and, lie believes,

1 Early in 1860, an eminent New York lawyer visited Charleston professionally, and was detained in that city several weeks, mingling freely with her citizens and the guests at her principal hotel. Though never a candidate for office, he took a warm interest in public affairs, and had always acted with the ‘Whig,’ ‘American,’ or ‘Conservative’ party. Soon after his return to New York, some old associates called to consult him on political affairs, and were astounded to hear that his views had undergone a complete change. “What can that mean?” “It means this,” was his well-considered reply; “that I have spent the past month in the South: that I find the Union a sham; that we are in effect, two peoples, between whom an early war is inevitable; and that, in that war, I mean to stand by my own hearth and kindred. Good morning, gentlemen!”

2 Since, Confederate Secretary of the Treasury.

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