196 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



civil war ; a civil war embracing equally 

 North and South. But, sir, be our difficulties 

 what they may, we stand forth a united people 

 to grapple with and to conquer them. Our 

 willingness to shed our blood in this cause is 

 the highest proof we can offer of the sincerity 

 of our connections ; and I warn, nay, I implore 

 you, not to repeat the fatal folly of the Bour- 

 bons, and mistake a nation for a faction ; for 

 the people of the South, as one man, declare 

 that, sink or swim, live or die, they will not, 

 as freemen, submit to the degradation of a con- 

 strained existence under a violated Constitu- 

 tion. But, sir, we desire to part from you in 

 peace. From the establishment of the Anglo- 

 Saxons upon this continent to this hour, they 

 have never, as colonies or States, shed the 

 blood of each other ; and I trust we shall be 

 spared this great calamity. "We seek not to 

 war upon or to conquer you ; and we know 

 that you cannot conquer us. Imbrue your 

 hands in our blood, and the rains of a century 

 will not wash from them the stain, while com- 

 ing generations will weep for your wickedness 

 and folly. 



" In thus leaving the Senate, and returning 

 to my own State, to pursue with unfaltering 

 head and heart that path, be it gloomy or 

 bright, to which her honor and interests may 

 lead, I cannot forbear the acknowledgment of 

 the kindness and courtesy which I have ever 

 received from many of the gentlemen of the 

 Opposition ; Senators to whom I am indebted 

 for much that I shall cherish through life with 

 pleasure, and toward whom I entertain none 

 but sentiments of kindness and respect. And 

 I trust, sirs, that when we next confront each 

 other, whether at this bar or that of the just 

 God who knows the hearts of all, our lips shall 

 not have uttered a word, our hands shall not 

 have committed an act, directed against the 

 blood of our people. On this side of the Cham- 

 ber, we leave, with profound regret, those whom 

 we will cherish in our hearts, and whose names 

 will be hallowed by our children. One by one, 

 we have seen the representatives of the true 

 and fearless friends of the Constitution fall at 

 our side, until hardly a forlorn hope remains ; 

 and whatever may be our destiny, the future, 

 with all of life's darker memories, will be 

 brightened by the recollection of their devo- 

 tion to the true principles of our Government, 

 and of that wealth of head and heart in their 

 intercourse with us, which has endeared them 

 to us and to ours forever." 



Mr. Clay : " I rise to announce, in behalf of 

 my colleague and myself, that the people of 

 Alabama, assembled in convention at their 

 capitol on the llth of this month, have adopt- 

 ed an ordinance whereby they withdraw from 

 the Union, formed under a compact styled the 

 Constitution of the United States, resume the 

 powers delegated to it, and assume their sepa- 

 rate station as a sovereign and independent 

 people. This is the act, not of faction or of 

 party, but of the people. True, there is a re- 



spectable minority of that convention who op- 

 posed this act, not because they desired to pre- 

 serve the Union, but because they wished to 

 secure the cooperation of all, or of a majority, 

 of the Southern or of the planting States. 

 There are many cooperationists, but I think 

 not one Unionist in the convention ; all are in 

 favor of withdrawing from the Union. I am 

 therefore warranted in saying that this is the 

 act of the freemen of Alabama. 



" In taking this momentous step they have 

 not acted hastily or unadvisedly. It is not the 

 eruption of sudden, spasmodic, and violent pas- 

 sion. It is the conclusion they have reached 

 after years of bitter experience of enmity, in- 

 justice, and injury at the hands of their North- 

 ern brethren ; after long and painful reflection ; 

 after anxious debate and solemn deliberation ; 

 and after argument, persuasion, and entreaty 

 have failed to secure them their constitutional 

 rights. Instead of causing surprise and incur- 

 ring censure, it is rather matter of amazement, 

 if not reproach, that they have endured so 

 much and so long, and have deferred this act 

 of self-defence until to-day. 



" It is now nearly forty -two years since 

 Alabama was admitted into the Union. She 

 entered it, as she goes out of it, while the Con- 

 federacy was in convulsions, caused by the 

 hostility of the North to the domestic slavery 

 of the South. Not a decade, nor scarce a lus- 

 trum, has elapsed, since her birth, that has not 

 been strongly marked by proofs of the growth 

 and power of that anti-slavery spirit of the 

 Northern people which seeks the overthrow of 

 that domestic institution of the South, which 

 is not only the chief source of her prosperity, 

 but the very basis of her social order and State 

 polity. It is to-day the master-spirit of the 

 Northern States, and had, before the secession 

 of Alabama, of Mississippi, of Florida, or of 

 South Carolina, severed most of the bonds of 

 the Union. It denied us Christian communion, 

 because it could not endure what it styles the 

 moral leprosy of slaveholding ; it refused us 

 permission to sojourn, or even to pass through 

 the North with our property ; it claimed free- 

 dom for the slave if brought by his master into 

 a Northern State ; it violated the Constitution 

 and treaties and laws of Congress, because de- 

 signed to protect that property ; it refused us 

 any share of lands acquired mainly by our di- 

 plomacy and blood and treasure ; it refused our 

 property any shelter or security beneath the 

 flag of a common Government ; it robbed us 

 of our property, and refused to restore it ; it 

 refused to deliver criminals against our laws, 

 who fled to the North with our property or 

 our blood upon their hands ; it threatened us 

 by solemn legislative acts, with ignominious 

 punishment if we pursued our property into a 

 Northern State ; it murdered Southern men 

 when seeking the recovery of their property on 

 Northern soU ; it invaded the borders of South- 

 ern States, poisoned their wells, burnt their 

 dwellings, and murdered their people ; it de- 



