CONGRESS, U. S. 



191 



indutry paralyzed ; artisans and mechanics idle 

 for the want of employment ; factories stopped 

 and operatives discharged ; suffering among 

 the laboring poor ; and families without neces- 

 saries even now and want and perhaps star- 

 vation just before them in the future ; and 

 this glorious fabric of our Union even now tot- 

 tering to its fall. Four of the pillars that sus- 

 tained the towering edifice are already re- 

 moved ; and among them, one of the original 

 thirteen upon which it first reposed. Six others 

 are on the point of being removed ; soon to be 

 followed, it may be, by half of the residue, in- 

 cluding among the slaveholding States the first 

 and the last to come into the Union." 



Passing to an examination of the claims of 

 the South, he urged in the most emphatic terms 

 that they should be conceded, or, if dissolution 

 finally took place, it should be peaceful. 



No action was taken by the Senate upon this 

 resolution. 



On the 8th of January a message on the 

 state of the Union was received in the Senate, 

 together with copies of documents from the 

 Commissioners from South Carolina. 



Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, took the floor after 

 the message had been read, and proceeded to 

 express his views on passing events : " I in- 

 tended to adduce some evidences, which I 

 thought were conclusive, in favor of the opin- 

 ions which I entertain ; but events, with a cur- 

 rent hurrying on as it progresses, have borne 

 me past the point where it would be useful for 

 me to argue, by the citing of authorities, the 

 question .of rights. To-day, therefore, it is my 

 purpose to deal with events. Abstract argu- 

 ment has become among the things that are 

 past." 



On the seizure of forts in South Carolina and 

 elsewhere, the reason given in justification was 

 that self-preservation is the first law of nature ; 

 and when the people there no longer had con- 

 fidence that this Federal Government would 

 not seize the forts constructed for their de- 

 fence, and use them for their destruction, they 

 only obeyed the dictates of self-preservation 

 when they seized the forts to prevent the en- 

 emy from taking possession of them as a means 

 of coercion, for they then were compelled to 

 believe this Federal Government had become 

 an enemy. 



The remedy for this state of affairs Mr. Davis 

 proposed in these words : " To assure them, 

 the people of the South, that you do not intend 

 to use physical force against them is your first 

 remedy ; to assure them that you intend to 

 consider calmly all the propositions which they 

 make, and to recognize the rights which the 

 Union was established to secure ; that you in- 

 tend to settle with them upon a basis in accord- 

 ance with the Declaration of Independence and 

 the Constitution of the United States. "When 

 you do that, peace will prevail over the land, 

 and force become a thing that no man will con- 

 sider necessafy." 

 The right of a State to withdraw from the 



Union was then asserted, withont any purpose 

 to argue the question, and he proceeded to 

 ask what shall be done with events as they 

 stood ? Taking the ground that separation is 

 inevitable, he says : " There remains to us, I 

 believe, as the consideration which is most 

 useful, the inquiry, how can this separation be 

 effected so as to leave to us the power, when- 

 ever we shall have the will-, to reconstruct? 

 It can only be done by adopting a policy of 

 peace. It can only be done by denying to the 

 Federal Government all power to coerce. It 

 can only be done by returning to the point 

 from which we started, and saying, ' This is a 

 Government of fraternity, a Government of 

 consent ; and it shall not be administered in a 

 departure from those principles.' 



" There are two modes, however, of dissolv- 

 ing the Union. One alone has been contem- 

 plated. It was that which proceeded from 

 States separating themselves from those to 

 whom they are united. There is another. It 

 is by destroying the Constitution ; by pulling 

 down the political temple ; by forming a con- 

 solidated Government. Union, in the very 

 meaning of the word, implies the junction of 

 separate States. Consolidation would be the 

 destruction of the Union, and far more fatal to 

 popular liberty than the separation of the States. 

 But, if fanaticism and sectionalism, like the 

 blind giant of old, shall seize the pillars of the 

 temple to tear them down, in order that they 

 may destroy its inmates, it but remains for ns 

 to withdraw, and it will bo our purpose to 

 commence the erection of another on the same 

 plan on which our fathers built this. We 

 share no such common ruin as falls upon a 

 people by consolidation and destruction of the 

 principles of liberty contained in the Constitu- 

 tion ; by interference with community and so- 

 cial rights ; and we go out of such a Govern- 

 ment whenever it takes that form, in accord- 

 ance with the Constitution, and in defence of 

 the principles on which that Constitution rests. 

 TVe have warned you for many years that yon 

 would drive us to this alternative, and you 

 would not heed. I believe that you still look 

 upon it as a mere passing political move, as a 

 device for some party end, knowing little of- 

 the deep struggle with which we have contem- 

 plated this as a necessity, not as a choice, when 

 we have been brought to stand before the al- 

 ternative the destruction of our community 

 independence, or the destruction of that Union 

 which our fathers made. You would not heed 

 us. You deemed our warning to be merely to 

 the end of electing a candidate for the miser- 

 able spoils of office, of which I am glad to say 

 I represent a people who have had so little in- 

 deed that they have never acquired an appetite 

 for them. Yet you have believed not look- 

 ing to the great end to which our eyes were 

 directed that it was a mere political resort, 

 by which we would intimidate some of your 

 own voters. You have turned upon those true 

 friends of ours at the North who have vindi- 



