Secession.
Soon after it became known that
Mr. Lincoln had been elected, the cotton States, consisting of
South Carolina,
Georgia,
Florida,
Alabama,
Mississippi,
Louisiana, and
Texas, took measures to secede from the
Union, treating his election as a sufficient cause for their action.
South Carolina led the way on the 17th of December, 1860, and was followed by the others—
Texas having been the last to secede.
Her representatives subscribed the provisional Confederate Constitution at
Montgomery on the 2d of March, 1861.
On the 11th of that month
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these States, through their representatives, adopted the permanent Confederate Constitution.
To understand the full effect of this important step, and how it was regarded by the great majority of the people of the border States, as we shall see, it must be remembered that nothing had occurred at that time to change the legal or political condition of the people of the seceding States.
Mr. Lincoln had been duly elected, it is true, after a very exciting election, but the Republican party which elected him had not control of Congress.
No law, therefore, on the statute-book at the time the cotton States seceded had been enacted by a Republican Congress or approved by a Republican
President.
A Democratic Congress and a Democratic
President, both friendly to the opinions generally held in the slave States on Federal subjects connected with slavery, were responsible for the laws of the country as they stood when
Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1861.
But that there was nothing in Federal legislation obnoxious to the cotton States themselves at the time the Confederate Government was organized at
Montgomery, is shown by the very first act of the Provisional Congress.
Statute 1, chapter 1 of the Provisional Congress of the
Confederate States, adopted on the 9th of February, 1861, is as follows:
An act to continue in force certain laws of the United States of America.
Be it enacted by the Confederate States of America in Congress assembled, That all the laws of the United States of America in force and in use in the Confederate States of America on the first day of November last, and not inconsistent with the Constitution of the Confederate States, be and the same are hereby continued in force until altered or repealed by the Congress.
Adopted February 9, 186.
The exception named in the act I have quoted, included no law that had been among the causes of dispute between the two parts of the Union.
The Confederate Constitution restricted the power of Congress with reference to duties on imports, but secession had not been resorted to in order to relieve the seceding States from legislation on the subject of duties.
A remarkable illustration of what I now say occurred during the discussion in the convention of South Carolina of the address proposed to be issued to the people of the slave-holding States, declaring the causes of the action of that State.
Mr. Maxey Gregg, afterwards the brave General Maxey Gregg, who died nobly on the field
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of Fredericksburg, objected to the form of an address for that purpose submitted by Mr. Memminger because it did not set forth the causes of the secession of South Carolina correctly.
He said:
In the declaration not one word is said about the tariff, which for so many years caused a contest in this State against the Federal Government.
Not one word is said about the violations of the Constitution in expenditures not authorized by that instrument, but the main stress is laid upon an incomparably unimportant point relative to fugitive slaves and the laws passed by Northern States obstructing the recovery of fugitive slaves * * * * Many of the acts of the non-slave-holding States obstructing the recovery of fugitive slaves have been passed since 1852, I think the majority of them, but I do not regard it as a matter of any importance.
In reply to
General Gregg,
Mr. Keitt made a statement which illustrates what I have said with reference to the
Southern representatives in Congress being responsible for the
Federal laws as they stood at the time the cotton States seceded.
He said:
We have instructed the committee to draw up a statement of the reasons which influenced us in the present case in our withdrawal.
My friend suggests that sufficient notice has not been paid to the tariff.
Your late senators and every one of your members of the House of Representatives voted for the present tariff.
If the gentleman had been there he would also have voted for it.
We are told that this reply of
Mr. Keitt was greeted with laughter.
