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PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



by due diligence in the performance of my duties, 

 though I may disappoint your expectation, yet to re- 

 tain, when retiring, something of the good-will and 

 confidence which will welcome my entrance into 

 office. 



It is joyous in the midst of perilous times to look 

 around upon a people united in heart, when one pur- 

 pose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole, 

 where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the 

 balance, against honor, right, liberty, and equality. 

 Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent 

 the progress of a movement sanctioned by its justice 

 and sustained by a virtuous people. Reverently let us 

 invoke the God of our fathers to guide and protect us 

 in our efforts to perpetuate the principles which by his 

 blessing they were able to vindicate, establish, and 

 transmit to their posterity ; and with a continuance of 

 His favor, ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hope- 

 fully look forward to success, to peace, to prosperity. 



MESSAGE of Jefferson Davis, President of the 

 Confederate States, April 29, 1861. 



Gentlemen of Congress : 



It is my pleasing duty to announce to you that the 

 Constitution framed for the establishment of a perma- 

 nent Government of the Confederate States of Ameri- 

 ca has been ratified by the several conventions of each 

 of those States which were referred to to inaugurate 

 the said Government in its full proportions and upon 

 its own substantial basis of the popular will. 



It only remains that elections should be held for the 

 designation of the officers to administer it. 



There is every reason to believe that at no distant 

 day other States, identical in political principles and 

 community of interests with those which you repre- 

 sent, will join this Confederacy, giving to its typical 

 constellation increased splendor -to its Government of 

 free, equal, and sovereign States, a wider sphere of 

 usefulness, and to the friends of constitutional liberty 

 a greater security for its harmonjous and perpetual ex- 

 istence. 



It was not, however, for the purpose of making this 

 announcement that I have deemed it my duty to con- 

 voke you at an earlier day than that fixed by your- 

 selves for your meeting. 



The declaration of war made against this Confeder- 

 acy, by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 

 States, in his proclamation, issued on the 15th day of 

 the present month, renders it necessary, in my judg- 

 ment, that you should convene at the earliest practi- 

 cable moment to devise the measures necessary for the 

 defence of the country. 



The occasion is, indeed, an extraordinary one. It 

 justifies me in giving a brief review of the relations 

 heretofore existing between us and the States which 

 now unite in warfare against us, and a succinct state- 

 ment of the events which have resulted, to the end 

 that mankind may pass intelligent and impartial judg- 

 ment on our motives and objects. 



During the war waged against Great Britain by her 

 colonies on this continent, a common danger impelled 

 them to a close alliance, and to the formation of a Con- 

 federation by the terms of which the colonies, styling 

 themselves States, entered severally into a firm league 

 of friendship with each other for their common defence, 

 the security of their liberties, and their mutual and 

 general welfare, binding themselves to assist each 

 other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon 

 them, or any of them, on account of religion, sover- 

 eignty, trade, or any other -pretence whatever. 



In order to guard against any misconstruction of 

 their compact, the several States made an explicit dec- 

 laration in a distinct article that each State retain its 

 sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every 

 power of jurisdiction and right which is not by this 

 said Confederation expressly delegated to the United 

 States in Congress assembled under this contract of 

 alliance. 



The war of the Revolution was successfully waged, 



and resulted in the treaty of peace with Great Britain 

 in 1783, by the terms of which the several States were 

 each by name recognized to be independent. 



The articles of confederation contained a clause 

 whereby all alterations were prohibited, unless con- 

 firmed by the Legislatures of every State after being 

 agreed to by the Congress ; and in obedience to this 

 provision, under the resolution of Congress of the 21st 

 of February, 1787, the several States appointed dele- 

 gates for the purpose of revising the articles of con- 

 federation, and reporting to Congress and the several 

 Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein 

 as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by 

 the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate 

 to the exigencies of the Government, and the preserva- 

 tion of the Union. 



It was by the delegates chosen by the several States 

 under the resolution just quoted, that the Constitution 

 of the United States was formed in 1787, and submit- 

 ted to the several States for ratification, as shown by 

 the seventh article, which is in these words : " The 

 ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be 

 sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution be- 

 tween the States so ratifying the same." 



I have italicised certain words in the resolutions 

 just made for the purpose of attracting attention to 

 the singular and marked caution with which the States 

 endeavored in every possible form to exclude the idea 

 that the separate and independent sovereignty of each 

 State was merged into one common government or na- 

 tion ; and the earnest desire they evinced to impress 

 on the Constitution its true character that of a com- 

 pact between independent States the Constitution of 

 1787, however, admitting the clause already recited 

 from the articles of confederation, which provided in 

 explicit terms that each State reclaimed its sovereignty 

 and independence. 



Some alarm was felt in the States, when invited to 

 ratify the Constitution, lest this omission should be 

 construed into an abandonment of their cherished prin- 

 ciples, and they refused to be satisfied until amend- 

 ments were added to the Constitution, placing beyond 

 any pretence of doubt the reservation by the Spates 

 of their sovereign rights and powers not expressly 

 delegated to the United States by the Constitution. 



Strange, indeed, must it appear to the impartial ob- 

 server, that it is none the less true that all these care- 

 fully worded clauses proved unavailing to prevent the 

 rise and growth in the Northern States of a political 

 school which has persistently claimed that the Govern- 

 ment set above and over the States, an organization 

 created by the States, to secure the blessings of liberty 

 and independence against foreign aggression, has been 

 gradually perverted into a machine for their control in 

 their domestic affairs. 



The creature has been exalted above its Creator 

 the principals have been made subordinate to the 

 agent appointed by themselves. 



The people of the Southern States, whose almost ex- 

 clusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a 

 tendency in the Northern States to render a common 

 Government subservient to their own purposes by im- 

 posing burthens on commerce as protection to their 

 manufacturing and shipping interests. 



Long and angry controversies grew out of these at- 

 tempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the 

 country at the expense of the other, and the danger 

 of disruption arising from this cause was enhanced by 

 the fact that the Northern population was increasing, 

 by emigration and other causes, more than the popu- 

 lation of the South. 



By degrees, as the Northern States gained prepon- 

 derance in the National Congress, self-interest taught 

 their people to yield ready assent to any plausible ad- 

 vocacy of their right as majority to govern the minor- 

 ity. Without control, they learn to listen with impa- 

 tience to the suggestion of any constitutional impedi- 

 ment to the exercise of their will, and so utterly have 

 the principles of the Constitution been corrupted in the 

 Northern mind, that, in the inaugural address deliver- 

 ed by President Lincoln in March last, he asserts a 



