Rebellion Record: Introduction., Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

---

[24] Presidents; and when that was not the case, by Presidents possessing the confidence of the Sputh. For a still longer period, the controlling influences of the Legislative and Judicial departments of the Government have centred in the same quarter. Of all the offices in the gift of the central power in every department, far more than her proportionate share has always been enjoyed by the South. She is at this moment revolting against a Government, not only admitted to be the mildest and most beneficent ever organized this side Utopia, but one of which she has herself from the first, almost monopolized the administration.

---

Cause of the Revolution alleged by South Carolina.

But are there no wrongs, abuses, and oppressions, alleged to have been suffered by the South, which have rendered her longer submission to the Federal Government intolerable, and which are pleaded as the motive and justification of the revolt? Of course there are, but with such variation and uncertainty of statement as to render their examination difficult. The manifesto of South Carolina of the 20th of Dec. last, which led the way in this inauspicious movement, sets forth nothing but the passage of State laws to obstruct the surrender of fugitive slaves. The document does not state that South Carolina herself ever lost a slave in consequence of these laws, it is not probable she ever did, and yet she makes the existence of these laws, which are wholly inoperative as far as she is concerned, and which probably never caused to the entire South the loss of a dozen fugitives, the ground for breaking up the Union and plunging the country into a civil war. But I shall presently revert to this topic.

Other statements in other quarters enlarge the list of grievances. In the month of November last, after the result of the presidential election was ascertained, a very interesting discussion of the subject of secession took place at Milledgeville, before the members of the Legislature of Georgia and the citizens generally, between two gentlemen of great ability and eminence, since elected, the one Secretary of State, the other Vice-President of the new Confederacy; the former urging the necessity and duty of immediate secession;--the latter opposing it. I take the grievances and abuses of the Federal Government, which the South has suffered at the hands of the North, and which were urged by the former speaker as the grounds of secession, as I find them stated and to some extent answered by his friend and fellow-citizen (then opposed to secession) according to the report in the Milledge-ville papers.

---

Causes alleged by Georgia: the Fishing Bounties.

And what, think you, was the grievance in the front rank of those oppressions on the part of the North, which have driven the long-suflering and patient South to open rebellion against “the best Government that the history of the world gives any account of” ? It was not that upon which the Convention of South Carolina relied. You will hardly believe it; posterity will surely not believe it. “We listened,” said Mr. Vice-President Stephens, in his reply, “to my honorable friend last night, (Mr. Toornbs,) as he recounted the evils of this Government. The first was the fishing bounties paid mostly to the sailors of New England.” The bounty paid by the Federal Government to encourage the deep-sea fisheries of the United States!