CONGRESS, U. 8. 



187 



It does not appear to have been called up or 

 discussed before the Senate. 



The admission of Kansas, as a State of the 

 Union, was made a question in the Senate by 

 the report of a bill for that purpose. But the 

 crisis of the country was the absorbing topic 

 of the remarks of all speakers. 



Mr. Nicholson, of Tennessee, expressed his 

 conviction that the sentiments of a majority of 

 the Northern people oh the subject of slavery, 

 as an abstract question, were embraced in these 

 three propositions : 



1. That slavery, as it exists in the Southern States, 

 is a moral as well as social and political evil. 



2. That the owners and their slaves are created 

 equal ; that they are endowed alike with the inalien- 

 able rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 

 ness ; and that to secure these rights equally to both 

 governments are instituted, deriving their just power 

 from the consent of the governed. 



3. That as the owners and their slaves are created 

 equal, the former cannot rightfully acquire or hold 

 dominion over, or property in, the latter without his 

 consent. 



He said " that, under the freedom of speech 

 and the freedom of conscience, they have a full 

 and perfect right to entertain these opinions. 

 It is no cause of quarrel between us and them. 

 On the other hand, the South entertain directly 

 antagonistic opinions as matters of conscience 

 and as matters of political opinion, on each one 

 of these propositions. They claim the right 

 under the same high sanction to entertain these 

 opinions, and we say that it is no cause of quar- 

 rel, and should be none. 



" What we now complain of is, that in the 

 year 1856 these questions, known to be ques- 

 tions of antagonism, morally and socially, if 

 not politically, incapable of reconciliation be- 

 tween the North and South, were seized upon 

 by political leaders at the North and incor- 

 porated as the basis, as the ' central idea,' of a 

 political association which, rising upon the 

 strength of this prevailing sentiment at the 

 North, has finally taken possession of the Gov- 

 ernment of the country. Mr. President, the 

 first fatal stab to this Union was made at the 

 Philadelphia convention, in 1856, when these 

 propositions were incorporated as a part of the 

 Republican platform. There was the birth of 

 Republicanism, and there was the birth of 

 organized sectionalism ; its legitimate fruits are 

 agitation, dissension, alienation, and, finally, 

 disunion, in some form or other. In my hon- 

 est conviction, there is to be found the true 

 origin of disnnionism, and there the real re- 

 sponsibility for that catastrophe. 



Now, Mr. President, let us gee what it is in 

 this platform that is so offensive to the South ; 

 for the real foundation of our complaints is to 

 be found here. Gentlemen of the North seem 

 not to comprehend this. They even take up 

 the idea that it is a mere suspicion that some 

 wrong may be done : some, that it is merely 

 because we were defeated in the election ; be- 

 cause we have lost our candidates ; because we 

 have failed in holding the Government which 



we have held so long, that we manifest such 

 deep concern. I tell them, in all candor, that 

 they are mistaken in this. If Mr. Lincoln had 

 entertained opinions and stood upon a platform 

 that did not, in our estimation, involve our final 

 destruction I mean the destruction of our 

 Southern interests and institutions we should 

 have acquiesced in his election as cheerfully as 

 in that of any other man. "What, then, is it 

 in this platform to which we take exception ? 

 The first thing is, that it recognizes the general 

 principle that ALL men are created equal ; and, 

 in recognizing this, asserts, as a fact, that Gov- 

 ernments are made for the purpose of securing 

 alike the rights of life and liberty and the pur- 

 suit of happiness to the slave and to his owner. 

 That general principle, if applied in the States, 

 would liberate four million slaves. This is a 

 necessary deduction from the assertion of the 

 principle of the equality of the two races. But 

 the Republican party, I must do them the jus- 

 tice to say, do not in their platform make the 

 application of this general principle to the 

 States. They confine it to those places within 

 which Congress has, according to the platform 

 of 1856, ' exclusive jurisdiction.' Then, the 

 position is this : you concede that in the States 

 we have a right to enjoy this property, and you 

 profess to be willing that this constitutional 

 guarantee shall be maintained ; yet, in so do- 

 ing, you avow a principle to be applied to all 

 other places within which Congress has juris- 

 diction, which principle fixes a stigma on every 

 Southern man who is the owner of a slave ; 

 which principle would, if applied, (and which, 

 if you had the power, it is fair to infer, you 

 would apply,) would set free every slave of the 

 South. Without undertaking to say that this 

 would be done without regard to other con- 

 sequences than the loss of property, yet to a 

 Southern mind these other consequences are so 

 frightful, that when a party plants itself on a 

 principle BO alarming and so destructive, if car- 

 ried out into all its legitimate results, we can 

 but feel that our security is small, when all we 

 have to repose upon is the professions of that 

 party, that it will regard our rights within the 

 States, when the same party tells us that rights 

 which we regard the same outside of the States, 

 it intends to disregard. 



" Mr. President, these, in my estimation, are 

 the grounds on which the Southern mind is 

 now resting, and upon which the Southern peo- 

 ple have come to the settled conviction that the 

 election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, on 

 the principles laid down in the Republican 

 platform, is tantamount to a declaration of 

 war against an institution which, in the South, 

 is identified with all our interests, with all our 

 happiness, with all our prosperity, socially, 

 politically, and materially. This is our convic- 

 tion, and this conviction is strengthened when 

 we turn to the antecedents, politically, of the 

 candidate whomyou have succeeded in electing." 



In his opinion the overwhelming sentiment 

 of the South is that of demanding guarantees 



