Messrs.  Speakers and Gentlemen of the General Assembly:

Although I cannot with many of my fellow citizens, greet this good old commonwealth as the land of my birth, yet with still greater numbers of them, I can claim her as the home of my ancestors, and participate with just pride in her historic fame.  I may felicitate myself upon being commissioned in this second crisis of our liberties, to a people who were the first to take open and decisive ground against unconstitutional taxation—who first proclaimed the principles of American independence, and upon whose soil the arms of the soldiers of liberty were first crowned with victory.  To the descendants of such men I confidently make my appeal, and in bearing to this General Assembly a message from her ancient confederate, and ally, and in asking her co-operation in the important step we have taken in common with several others of our sisters, I need hardly assure her that Georgia has no disposition either to dictate or offer unsolicited advice.

These two States have been ever united by the closest ties—no rivalry in the past has sprung up between them, and their amicable relations have never been disturbed.  To you we are indebted for no inconsiderable portion of a population which we flatter ourselves has not deteriorated by being transplanted, and which we can truly say is no discredit to the kindred and friends they left behind them.  Shoulder to shoulder Georgia and North Carolina marched through the revolution—they joined their counsels and united their wisdom in forming that compact of government called the Constitution of the United States, and were mainly instrumental in procuring provisions in that instrument for the increase and protection of slavery.  Thus connected and bound to you, Georgia would have deemed herself deficient in the courtesy and the respect she owes you not to have given you timely information that she had dissolved her connexion with the late United States of America, and resumed the powers which she had delegated to that government, and to invite you to co-operate with her and other States that have or may hereafter secede from the Union in the formation of a Southern Confederacy.

She will welcome you back to her warm embrace, and on account of the brief separation, feel only the more near when you return.  She assures you that among her citizens

She knows she can suffer no peril that does not equally assail you—that your interest is her interest—your honor is her honor—your cause is her cause, and that the same destiny, be it “gloomy or bright,” awaits us both.  She therefore asks to lay before you, through her humble Representative, the causes which have impelled her to this separation, believing that they carry with them the force and dignity of truth, she indulges the hope that they will strike the great popular heart and mind of your State as they struck hers, and will result in harmonious and united action upon the part of her Southern sisters.  In dissolving our connection with the late government of the United States we claim not to have overthrown the work of our fathers, but that our northern confederates seized with unfilial hands the pillars of the Constitution and overthrew the temple of our liberties.  No act of bad faith has stained our escutcheon.  We have kept the covenants of our fathers, and with the blessing of a kind and favoring Providence, we will, out of the same materials, reconstruct the noble old edifice.  The government had scarcely been put into operation before our peculiar property was sought to be assailed in the Legislature of our General Government by a class of persons, who, however meek and gentle they may have been, and however blameless their lives in other respects, certainly contributed nothing to the establishment of the republic.  This appeal was made to men fresh from the battle fields of the revolution, and well apprised of the scope and meaning of the Compromises contained in the Constitution and bond of our Union, and hence as might have been anticipated, was unsuccessful.

It was necessary to the increase of our strength and the consolidation of our power as a people, that we should acquire from France the vast territory extending from the mouth to the sources of the “Father of Waters,” and in 1803 the Louisiana territory became by treaty a portion of our rich domain.  In every foot of this territory the right to hold slaves existed, and this right was distinctly recognized and its protection guaranteed by an article of that treaty.  That there was opposition to this measure, it would be idle to deny, and opposition, too, on account of the protection afforded to slavery;—but this opposition was confined to the people of New England, who seemed to be unmindful of the rich benefactions conferred upon all the States, by Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, in the donations of their vast public territory to the General Government.  Again, in 1812 the commerce of the Eastern States was attacked, by a foreign power, and almost driven from the ocean.  We of the South had little pecuniary interest in the contest, but it involved our honor, and against their protest we went to war with the mistress of the seas, and the laurel crowned fields of New Orleans stand to-day, as it will through all time, the vindication of the one, and the protection of the other.  Nor did our liberality stop here.  Not content with giving them a monopoly of ship-building and the coasting trade, we stimulated and encouraged their industry by bounties upon their pursuits.  The war which terminated so gloriously, had crippled, and to some extent, exhausted their resources and embarrassed their manufacturing interests; again we taxed ourselves for their benefit, and sought by another generous sacrifice to augment their prosperity.

In 1820, a State formed out of the Louisiana Territory, in which our rights as slaveholders were recognized and protected by the supreme law of the land, presented a Constitution Republican in form and asked for admission into the Union upon terms of equality with the other States.  How were her advances met by our Northern confederates, by these people upon whom we had so generously lavished benefits and bounties? Was her advent greeted with sisterly affection and a grateful sense of the favors which the South had bestowed? No; she was scowled upon and her approaches repelled! We were told that her Constitution recognized slavery, and that she could not be admitted except upon conditions degrading to the equality of her Southern sisters.  Borne down by superior numbers, the South was compelled to succumb, and Missouri was rejected, except upon the hard and unconstitutional restriction, that slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime, should be prohibited in all that territory north of a certain geographical line—a restriction which alarmed the fears and filled with apprehension, “like a fire bell in the night,” the wisest and most sagacious patriots of the land.  But our degradation was not complete, the cup of our humiliation had to be drained to the dregs.  So opposed were these men to a recognition in any form or to any extent of our rights, that before the ink which recorded the so-called compromise was scarcely dry, they violated, if they did not repudiate, their own proposition, and a second time kept this star from our federal constellation.  The pretext seized upon to effect this object was most extraordinary.  The constitution of that State contained a provision to prevent the introduction of a free negro element in her borders.  This it was pretended was a denial of the rights of citizens of some of the States, and consequently a violation of that clause of the Constitution of the United States which provides that the “citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” But as monstrous and unfounded as was this claim, it would have been successful but for the indomitable courage, matchless eloquence and consummate statesmanship of Henry Clay, who resorted to the device of transferring this question from the decision of Congress, to the determination of the President of the United States, and instead of coming into the Union in the ordinary manner by act of Congress, Missouri was admitted by Executive proclamation.  All this did not appease the insatiable appetite of our Northern foes.  Our power had to be limited, and our influence in the Government destroyed, to enable them fully to compass their ends.  The agitation was kept up by resolutions introduced into Congress to sanction, and by artful attempts to draw from the Supreme Court of the United States an opinion approving this outrage.  Our people determined to abandon this hopeless contest in Congress, and resort to their State Governments for redress.  Gov.  Troup, after noticing these attempts, alledged that we compromised our dignity by discussing the question, and having declared the “argument exhausted,” adjured us “to stand by our arms.” The Federal Executive and Congress, from past experience of his determination and spirit, knew this was no idle menace, and that they had to deal with a ruler and people who would not readily yield a position they had deliberately taken.  The check given by this stern determination was only momentary in the life of a nation—faith was broken with one sovereign State through her treaty stipulations with the Federal Government.

An attempt was made to influence the legislation of another, and compel her submission to the most onerous impositions and burdens by federal troops.  It was then discovered that the Constitution was not a compact, but formed a consolidated government, and upon this perverted view of our institutions, the liberties of this country would have perished, had not the clear discrimination, the great analytic powers and unsurpassed reasoning of John C.  Calhoun been pressed into our service.  With heroic courage he breasted the storm and single and unaided, except by the powers of truth, of justice and of right, constitutional freedom triumphed in his person over the combined powers of the Federal Government; the artifice, education and talent of the North—the touch of his blade, like the spear of Ithuriel, caused the fiend to tremble, and for a time allayed the demon.  The cloven foot soon again displayed itself.  Excuses to justify outrages are never wanting, and the inventive resources of our Northern friends, when they seek to assail our rights or drain our substance, are inexhaustible.  They become suddenly enamored of the right of petition— devoted to the liberty of the press and the freedom of speech, and in order to test whether these justly prized rights were in danger, flooded Congress with a batch of incendiary petitions, praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the forts, arsenals, dock yards and territories, and the interdiction of the trade in slaves between the States.  The signers of these petitions—those who were prominently put forward in this agitation—were without talent and destitute of influence.  They were only the advance guard of the main army which was lying in ambush.  They were treated with neglect if not with scorn.  But John C.  Calhoun again saw the elements of their power, and warned his countrymen against their insidious approaches—he clearly predicted each step that we would take in our progress to ruin; and so identical are his vaticinations with the circumstances that now surround us, that one ignorant of the facts under which these oracles were uttered, would suppose that he was recording the events of these times.  He partially succeeded in his remedies by securing a rule which prohibited the reception and consideration of these petitions, and the passage of an act, making it penal to circulate through the mails such documents and prints as the laws of any of the States forbid.  But in the endeavor which he made to declare the rights of the States upon the subject, and to prescribe the duties of the general government in relation thereto, he was not successful, and failing in this, these fanatics whose ardor no defeat could crush, took fresh courage—their numbers began to multiply, and their influence to strengthen with their numerical increase.  Ambitious parties sought to propitiate them, and availing themselves of their position, they would by their votes cause the triumph of that faction which was most likely to increase their power.  In this mode they obtained influence to remove the barrier which denied them access to the halls of Congress, and once having gotten admission there, their inflammatory doctrines found a way, at the public expense, to the popular mind through the printed proceedings of that body.  Upon the annexation of Texas they renewed the struggle, and to soothe the Northern mind we consented to apply the Missouri restriction to that territory.  Then came the Mexican war, and with our victory in that war an immense accession of territory.  Foreseeing the result of the struggle, while opposing the progress of our brave soldiers at each advance by withholding necessary supplies, and praying that they might “be welcomed with bloody hands to hospitable graves,” they nevertheless struggled to appropriate to their exclusive use, not only the territories then held by us, but also those that might fall to our share as the conquest of our arms, and the achievements of our diplomacy.  Hence, they succeeded in excluding slavery from Oregon, and also endeavored to make slavery exclusion from all the territories the condition of supplies for carrying on the war.  The exclusion from Oregon was acquiesced in under protest, because the South believed from the geographical position of the country, and the character of the climate, there was nothing practical in the question.

This was a conciliatory but mistaken policy.  It was not the policy that determined the action of our fathers under similar circumstances.  The tax upon tea was not oppressive—-they would have felt little inconvenience in paying it, but it was tribute exacted by a government in which they had no voice.  And rather than submit to the imputation its payment would have implied, they flew to their arms and vindicated their rights at the expense of their blood and treasure.  But concessions did not satisfy their cupidity—their appetite grew on what it fed—and they pursued the same policy in reference to the remaining territory.  They only failed in the application of their means—to succeed in effecting their ends by expedients, if not so bold and offensive, almost, if not quite as effective.  Through the agency of a horde attracted to the Pacific shores, from every clime and country, of every complexion and tongue, in violation of the laws of the land, they seized upon the mineral treasures of California, in assembling themselves in Convention at the invitation of a military officer, a servant of the general government, formed a Constitution by which your labor was excluded from employment in the richest mines of the earth; and as a reward for their disobedience and contempt of right, and in defiance of law, presented themselves and boldly demanded admission into the Union upon terms of equality with the other States; and but for their avowed determination to apply a like fraudulent and violent process to the remainder of the territory obtained by the treaty of Goudaloupe Hidalgo, it is to be greatly feared that the government would have complied with this demand.  But the South having suffered from the active operations of “the underground railroads” in spiriting away her slaves, desired a more effectual remedy for the return of these fugitives, and in a spirit of devotion to the Union, for which she had made heavy sacrifices, not only gave up her rights in California, but also consented to the abolition of the slave traffic in the District of Columbia, and appropriated $10,000,000 from the common treasury to purchase, for Northern settlement, 40,000 square miles of territory from Texas, which by the terms of the resolutions of annexation, had been solemnly devoted to our use.  She got only in return a fugitive slave law, which has never been observed and enforced as it should have been, but which has been trampled under foot by Northern mobs, and nullified hy Northern courts, executives and legislatures.  Our citizens, in pursuit of their rights under that law, have been murdered in cold blood, or been subjected to degrading confinement and association in penitentiaries with the vagabonds and felons that fill those prisons.  It is also said that we obtained a recognition of the doctrine of nonintervention in the territorial governments then formed.  This, however, in the opinion of many of our ablest statesmen and constitutional lawyers, is doubtful.

In this compromise, the South, for the sake of peace, and in the hope of allaying agitation, again acquiesced.  Georgia, with others of her Southern sisters did so reluctantly, and only upon conditions which, at the time, met the unqualified approval and warm applause of all people, both at the North and South, who now claim to be conservative.  Georgia’s people, in Convention assembled, resolved that they would “resist even as a last resort to the disruption of every tie that bound them to the Union” any attempt to impair or abolish the right of property in Slaves in the District of Columbia, and other places over which the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction; the rejection of any State applying for admission into the Union, because of the recognition of slavery in her constitution; any interference with the slave trade between the States, and any failure to execute faithfully the fugitive slave law; and for a time we were encouraged with the belief that these conditions would be observed.

The legislation of 1854 repudiated the Missouri restriction as incompatible with the territorial legislation of 1850, and as being in conflict with the Constitution, and opened the territories to our admission with our property.  This indicated a returning sense of justice upon the part of our northern confederates, and was the harbinger of better times.  But these hopeful signs were soon dissipated.  What should have allayed only increased excitement, and the storm at the north broke forth with ten-fold fury.  The pulpit thundered its anathemas—the press teemed with denunciations—the lecture and school room swelled the chorus of bitter invective and hate—the vengeance of God was invoked by those who should have been the ministers of peace upon the heads of our Congressmen—while Senators and Representatives had their way from Washington to their homes illuminated by the flames of their burning effigies—the votaries of every exploded political theory and every dangerous experiment in government or society, however widely they differed as to their own conflicting tenets, struck hands here and entered upon a crusade against our rights.  Under the sanction of Northern legislatures Northern capital was concentrated, and the sweepings of Northern cities, aided and augmented by men of depraved morals and desperate habits, were gathered together and marched in bands to possess themselves of territory devoted to the common use and drive out our Southern settlers.  They laid waste the lovely plains of Kansas, and the whole territory presented a scene of assassination, murder and pillage.  No life, however blameless, no innocence however helpless—no age, however venerable—no virtue, however illustrious, availed to stay this tide of carnage and violence; and when these brutal and inhuman acts provoked a just vengeance, the whole country rang with the cry of Southern atrocity and lawlessness..  An appeal was made to put down what was styled “the barbarism of slavery,” and “the sacred animosity” of the North was thoroughly aroused.  A party composed of this material assembled in Convention and adopted a platform which lowered slaveholders to a level with those sunk in the grossest vices, and addicted to the basest immoralities, and placing upon it as their standard bearer a mere political adventurer, boldly entered the contest for the possession of the government.  It was only after a most unparalleled struggle that two of your most prominent and experienced statesmen were saved from a disastrous defeat, and the government rescued for a time from the fearful vortex threatening its destruction.  This result did not discourage these forces—it did not even break their ranks—they returned to the charge, animated by fresh courage.  They were assured of a strength of which they had not before been conscious.

An irrepressible conflict between free and slave labor was proclaimed—a law higher than the constitution, and more sacred than the teachings of holy writ was discovered.  Predatory bands were marched into peaceful communities to excite insurrection—apply the midnight torch—rob and murder—to destroy the means of subsistence—to poison the wells—to alarm our sleep—to render life a burthen, by making it insecure, and when the desperadoes were arrested and punished, they were elevated to the honors of martyrdom; all the restraints of religion were cast aside, and the crucifixion of the Savior of mankind blasphemed by impiously comparing with it the execution of a cut throat and a thief.  Those conspirators who made good their escape, found asylum and protection from Northern executives, who, in violation of their oaths, refused to surrender them on demand.  

Among a people not dead to all sense of virtue and decency, such a party could not prevail.  But their strength lay in their vices; they assembled themselves in conclave; proclaimed the social and political equality of the black and white races; assumed superiority over you by putting you and your property under the ban; brought out their leader; met you face to face in battle array, and in the contest were victorious—thus sanctioning and sustaining, by both a popular and electoral majority of the Northern vote, these enormities, with certain assurances that they will be prosecuted in the future with increased aggravation.

Are such wrongs to be endured?  Our people have answered in the negative with one voice.  They were all for resistance in some form.  They only differed as to the mode and measure of redress, and the time of its application.  A majority of them despaired of repressing this conflict in the Union, and were therefore prepared to “repel it” out of the Union.  To the minority, the voice of the State was as the voice of God; they yielded a graceful and ready obedience to the sovereign will, and gave their pledge (which I doubt not they will nobly and promptly redeem) to defend their homes, and all a freeman can hold dear with their “lives and fortunes.” In this measure we did not act hastily—our forbearance had been long—our endurance great.  In 1850 we solemnly warned our northern confederates of the consequences of another aggression upon our rights.  This warning they treated as the idle wind which they regarded not, and by their action precipitated a contingency upon the happening of which our honor pledged us to resist.  But even under these circumstances we made a last appeal to them to acknowledge our rights and guarantee us the protection for which we had stipulated in the bond of our Union.  This was spurned, and we had recourse to our reserved rights for our future safety and protection.  In resuming these powers, while we hoped to have peace, and coveted no armed conflict with any of our late confederates, yet, if they so will it, we are prepared to meet and repel it.  The mode and measure of redress adopted by us, we respectfully maintain is neither revolutionary or treasonable, but constitutional, regular, lawful;—and should therefore be peaceable.  We know the law abiding disposition of your people—we understand and trust, habitually cherish with you a loyal submission and dignified obedience to rightful authority—but only to rightful authority; for men who will not defend their rights and repel aggressions, will never render justice to others, or make faithful citizens themselves.  Knowing this, we will briefly present the ground and reasons that sanction the remedy adopted.

Prior to the Revolution, the Colonies were separate and independent communities, bound together by no political tie; as such they commenced the Revolutionary war—they declared their independence, being careful in the declaration to reserve to themselves all the rights, privileges and powers that pertain to free and independent States.  As free and independent communities they subscribed and adopted the articles of Confederation under which all their external intercourse was regulated during that period.  At the close of that conflict the Government with which we had lately been at war, by the treaty of peace recognized the freedom, independence and sovereignty of each of these States.  The Congress of the Old Confederation passed a resolution requesting the States to send delegates to Philadelphia for the “sole and express purpose of revising the articles of confederation.”

They did not intend that that league should be superseded by an entirely new and different form of government, and the States acted in sending their delegates with the same purposes and views as is apparent from the tenor and effect of their commissions.  In the Convention various schemes of government were proposed, prominent among these was that offered by Edmund Randolph of Virginia, which sought among other things to invest Congress with power “to negative all laws passed in the several States, contravening, in the opinion of the National Legislature, the articles of Union, or any treaty subsisting under the authority of the Union, to call forth the force of the Union against any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duties under the articles thereof.” The unanimous rejection of this proposition establishes that the Government about to be formed was not a national or consolidated government—that the Legislatures of the States were not to be subject to the control of the Federal Legislature, and that no State failing in the opinion of the Congress to discharge its duty to the General Government was liable to coercion.

The constitution, being perfected by the convention, was reported to the Federal Congress, to be by that body submitted to the several States for their ratification.  In the letter of the President of the Convention, transmitting its labors, the Government proposed to be formed is styled in one place, the “General Government of the Union,” and in another the “Federal Government of the States.” But, notwithstanding these careful and guarded designations of its character, emanating from one incapable of deception or falsehood, who had just successfully established a claim to the veneration and respect of the world and the gratitude of his countrymen, the fears of many of the ablest and most patriotic in the State Conventions were aroused, lest the scheme might destroy the sovereignty and swallow up the rights of the States.  In reply to an expression of such fears in the New York Convention, Gen.  Alex.  Hamilton, than whom no leader of the party advocating a strong government is entitled to be held in higher esteem, for his learning and ability, candor and boldness, said: “It has been well observed, that to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.  A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single State.  This being the case, can you suppose it wise to hazzard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts, or any large State, should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would they not have influence to procure assistance, especially from those States in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this idea present to our view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State collecting auxiliaries, and forming a majority against its federal head.  Here is a nation at war with itself.

“Can any reasonable man be well-disposed towards a government that makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself—a government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty.  This single consideration should be sufficient, to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a government.  But can we believe that one State will ever suffer itself to be used as a means of coercion.  The thing is a dream, it is impossible.” The constitution was ratified by New York, but upon the express condition that her people reserved the right of resuming the powers delegated whenever their happiness should require it.  Virginia accompanied her ratification with a similar condition; and after all the other States had ratified the constitution, Rhode Island acceded to the Union and completed the galaxy, upon the very terms on which the ratification of New York was accepted.  If the government was a consolidation, these reservations were impossible.  The men who framed the constitution and put the government into operation regarded them as an indication of over-caution, because the very right reserved would necessarily result from the nature of the compact.  They meant to enable these three States to retain no right or privilege which the others had not.  This at once would have destroyed the equality of the States, and sapped the very foundations of the government; so that we may conclude that these conditions were accepted in good faith by each and all the States, and the rights reserved by one enured equally to each and all.  But notwithstanding these indisputable facts in our history, a portion of the party in the Convention who wished a stronger government endeavored to accomplish, by indirection, what they had failed to secure by the use of open means; and soon after the government went into operation, they sought to enlarge its powers by a latitudinarian construction.  They appealed to all the departments of the government, and were successful in having their interpretation adopted by the legislative and judicial departments.  The first apportionment bill which treated the population of the States as a consolidated mass fell under the Executive veto of General Washington.  The next effort at coercion was made by Mr.  Edmund Randolph, then Attorney General of the United States, who selected Georgia as his victim, and sought to dwarf her sovereignty by dragging her for judgment to the foot stool of the federal judiciary.  She scorned the attempt—refused by any act of hers to recognize the supremacy of a jurisdiction she had aided in creating.  None could be superior to sovereign power.  She put in no appearance, and was represented by no council—judgment was awarded against her, but no attempt was made to enforce it.  One on that bench, like Abdriel, “stood faithful among the faithless,” and rising in proud supremacy of intellect, in deep learning and comprehensive statesmanship above his compeers, James Iredell, of North Carolina, in a dissenting opinion which will live as long as the principles of rational freedom have admirers, rescued our liberties from their imminent peril.  He alarmed the fears of the people, and they made haste to provide new safeguards.  Thanks to him, an amendment to the constitution was adopted, which, properly understood and faithfully carried out, would have forever afterwards effectually protected the States from similar assaults upon their power and dignity.  In no subsequent attempt which has been made has the General Government ever succeeded in executing process against a State where resistance has been offered.  The framers of the constitution were wise and sagacious men, and would not have omitted to provide a remedy for the enforcement of a right clearly and “expressly delegated,” or “necessary and proper” to carry it into effect.  The absence of the remedy is conclusive against the existence of the right; and yet those States who have provided for their safety, and have put their household in order, are threatened with invasion! Will you submit to have Federal troops march through your State to subjugate those who are only asserting and maintaining the sacred right of self defence?  [Loud cries, Never, never.] No, never, that is the word; never will I believe it until I see it—so help me God!! This

——“is no more your country; but an impious
Crew of men, conspiring to uphold their State
By worse than hostile deeds—defeating the ends
For which your country was a name so dear;”

and you are asked to contribute to the degradation and ruin of those who are bone of your bone and flesh of our flesh.  You cannot and you will not forget the “noble deeds of daring high” of a common ancestry, whose blood enriches and hallows every battle-field from Germantown to New Orleans.  But it has been said that we should wait! Our rights will be conceded to us in the Union—we can procure further guaranties by constitutional amendment.  The expectation is vain—time after time, an acknowledgment of your rights has been refused.  There is no fault to be found with the old constitution—that was amply sufficient, if faithfully observed, for every emergency! No more sacred or binding obligations can be devised than those therein contained—but the cry is still wait? Yes, wait until the torch which is applied to your dwelling shall wrap it in flames! Wait until the assassin has discharged the fatal contents of the deadly blunderbuss now leveled at your breast—wait until life is extinct and resistance vain! While I appreciate the motives and admire the talents of those now engaged in a patriotic endeavor to reconstruct the old Government, I must be pardoned for expressing the belief that their “Conference” will end in nothing—the people with whom they have to deal have deceived us repeatedly.  “That was their fault.” We thank God we are now free from them, and if ever “they deceive us again, it will be our fault.” Our people have no doubt they may grant all that is asked by the border slave States? But how will they keep their plighted faith? We can only judge of the future by the past, and our experience warns us against another connection.  You would have to re-educate them, to reform their morals and change their very nature before we could give them our confidence.  Our separation is final and irrevocable.

This night you have to choose between a Northern alliance and a union with the new-born republic—the Confederate States of America.  You may not come immediately, but eventually, and I trust at no distant day you will be with us.  Appeals have been made to your fears—you have been urged to resist this natural and homogeneous alliance for the reason that it was the design of the Cotton States to re-open the foreign slave trade.  Since 1798 the Constitution of Georgia has prohibited this traffic, not because we believed it immoral or unjust, but because we doubted its influence upon our material interests.  No considerable portion of our people have ever favored the policy of reviving it, while many of them have been opposed to the federal legislation upon that subject, for the reason that they regarded it as the exercise of powers not delegated, and because of the stupidly cruel and severe penalties inflicted upon an act not intrinsically wrong, but only rendered so by politic considerations.  Desiring to assure you of our entire sincerity in relation to the matter, our Convention instructed our delegates to the Southern Congress to have this prohibition inserted in the constitution for the new Confederacy.  This, I am happy to say, as you already know, has been done.  In this great movement we prefer the cordial co-operation of the border slave States to the doubtful profits of this commerce for all coming time.  Go on, and continue to raise the supply of labor, and we will provide for our wants in your market.  We could have influenced your action by prohibiting the introduction of your slaves into our midst.  We could have increased them in your borders by this restrictive policy, until they would have become worse than valueless to you.  We were unwilling to constrain the action of a free people, We were averse to inflicting loss and injury upon those who had never shown us aught but kindness.  We would imply no doubt by our course, of the fidelity and patriotism of our brethren.  All your material interests must be promoted by your speedy union with us in the new government.  The princely treasures which have hitherto been lavished with a generous hand upon ungrateful New England, will be poured into your lap.  Your unappropriated water-falls will resound with the hum, and be made glad with the songs of laborers.  The music of the shuttle and the loom will cheer the spirits and augment the comfort of your increased and increasing population.  The idle will be employed, and the unproductive become a valuable and productive citizen.  Diversity of pursuits will bring increased skill and production, and along with them greater splendor and power.  Your undeveloped mineral resources will be brought to light, and your uninhabited mountain slopes filled with a hardy and industrious people, will smoke with forges, and blaze with furnaces.  The borders of Canada will then be more remote from you than at present, and there will be fewer facilities for the escape of your slaves.  But for the unnatural opposition of those who should have been our friends, we could have obtained treaties of extradition from all the governments with whom we held intercourse.  Upon the part of any foreign government the practices of the Northern people in reference to our slave property, would have been causes of war, and no foreign government has ever ventured to tamper with or invade our rights.

We have only been restrained by Constitutional obligations from making speedy and effective reprisals upon those who violated the bargain and thereby released us from its obligations.  Thank Heaven, we are foreigners to them now, and when you place yourselves in our situation, they will respect your rights.  They have never been known to engage in war, unless it would put money in their purses, and are not going to brave its hazards to wrest from you a piece of property which they cannot use to advantage, but which, under their institutions, becomes a curse and a nuisance.  They cannot blockade our ports and cut off our trade.  We have that upon which the stability of every throne in Europe rests, and upon which their own prosperity depends.  Free trade as to the rest of the world, and restrictions upon their intercourse would soon compel them to restore and to keep the peace.  We then earnestly exhort you to join us in the accomplishment of the most glorious destiny that ever awaited a people.  With nothing of inconvenience but temporary embarrassment, the not distant future is radiant with prosperity and renown.  Glory awaits us—power and freedom are within our grasp.  When we go hence our children will never reproach us—but far in the distant future the happiness will be theirs to look around upon a land smiling with plenty, and upon a people united and happy.

“Zealous, yet modest—innocent, tho' free—
Patient of toil—serene amidst alarms—
Inflexible in faith—invincible in arms.”