FELLOW-CITIZENS:

I appear before you, as a Commissioner from the State of Mississippi, the home of my adoption, from whence I have received the distinguished honor to bear back to this, the land of my birth, the message which she sends to this time-honored State; and to take counsel with her, in relation to the protection of those rights which were transmitted to us by our fathers.I come to you, not to agitate questions of party politics; for such questions are as foreign to my pursuits in life as they are to the objects of my mission; but to present to you the course which the State of Mississippi deems it her duty to take for the preservation of the great principles on which the rights and liberties of the people of the States of this Union rest---principles high above the elevation of any mere name or form of the Government under color of which those principles are about to be trampled under foot.

In Mississippi, party names are gone, and party struggles ended. We are rallied from the outposts to the citadel, and with extraordinary unanimity, forgetful of past and recent differences, the cry is, men and brethren , what must we do to save the Constitution and defend our rights? The Philistines are upon us, and we must arouse ourselves in our strength as one man, and defend our liberties, though we shake the pillars of the temple of this Union, nay though we are driven to the dread necessity of standing with our feet upon its revered ruins, in order to preserve and bear aloft the sacred principles which it was designed to establish and perpetuate. I know the people whom I address. Bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, your prosperity and happiness are dear to my heart. I shall appeal to your intelligence, and to that patriotism which rests deep in the heart of every true son of Maryland, which flowed in the hearts of our fathers and led them to strike for liberty and right. I shall ask you, by their sacred memories, to stand by those high principles, and assert and defend, at all hazards, the inestimable inheritance which they staked their “lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to secure for you. Standing upon this soil, rendered sacred by the blood of the revolution, treading upon the very ashes of those who fought to achieve it, I feel that I may justly appeal to the heirs of their fortunes and of their glory, to preserve the noble principles which they established, not beguiled, by names and forms, to sacrifice their essence, but to keep the treasure in its purity and power, that sons of yours may never have to curse your memories because you were unfaithful to the high trust committed to you by your fathers.

What, then, brings me before you, and whence the anxiety and gloom that I see depicted in every countenance?

THE GOVERNMENT OF THIS UNION IS IN A STATE OF REVOLUTION. This has been put on foot and is already commenced, by the election of Abraham Lincoln, as President of the United States, upon a declaration and pledges of principles and designs, which subvert the Constitution of the United States. All that remains to render the revolution one in fact, is the accession of him with his party to power, and the perpetration of the designs which he is solemnly pledged to carry out, and which he was elected to accomplish. He has been elected upon the openly declared principle that an “irrepressible conflict” exists between the Northern and anti-slavery States on the one side, and the Southern States on the other, by which all the States of the Union must become either slaveholding or non-slaveholding States---that slaveholding is a sin and a national disgrace, which they of the Northern States will not submit to bear---that holding property in man is against the law of God, the principles of our Government, and the opinion of the civilized world, and will not be tolerated and cannot continue in the States belonging to the same Union under which they live. These views Abraham Lincoln is elected to carry into practice by the use of all the power of his administration and for proof of this, I refer you to the platform upon which he was elected, and the views of the leaders of his party, and to a few of his declarations of opinion upon the faith of which he was chosen as the standard bearer of his party, and has since been elected President of the United States.

In the authorized publication of his speeches, circulated during the recent presidential canvass, the speeches from which the following extracts are made, will be found:

“I did not even say that I desired slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however; so there need be no longer any difficulty about that. It may be written down in the great speech.”

"I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however; so there need be no longer any difficulty about that. It may be written down in the great speech." 

"I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an old-line whig. I have always hated it; but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska bill began. I always believed that everybody was against it and that it was in course of ULTIMATE EXTINCTION."

"We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augumented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will CEASE TO BE DIVIDED: IT WILL BECOME ALL ONE THING OR ALL THE OTHER. Either the opponents of slavery will ARREST the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ULTIMATE EXTINCTION, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

Commenting on this, he afterwards said:

"I only said what I expected would take place. I made a prediction only; it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do now, however; so there need be no longer any difficulty about that."

"If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I WOULD VOTE THAT IT SHOULD."

"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man without the other man's consent. I say this is the leading principle, the SHEET ANCHOR of American republicanism. Our Declaration of Independence says:

" 'We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inallenable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, DERIVING their just power from the consent of the governed.'

"I have quoted so much at this time merely to show, that according to our ancient faith, the powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. Now, the relation of master and slave is, pro tanto, a violation of this principle. The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow all the governed an EQUAL VOICE IN THE GOVERNMENT; and that, and that only is, self-government."

Thus speaks, Wm. H. Seward, the high priest of this party:

"Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States MUST AND WILL, sooner or later, become entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture, and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more a market for trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between the slave and free States, and it is the existence of this great fact that renders all such pretended compromise, when made, VAIN and EPHEMERAL."

And again:

"What a commentary upon the history of man is the fact, that eighteen years after the death of John Quincy Adams, the people have for their standard-bearer Abraham Lincoln, confessing the obligations of the HIGHER LAW, which the Sage of Quincy proclaimed, and contending, for weal or woe, for life or death, in the IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT between freedom and slavery. I desire only to say that we are in the LAST stage of the conflict, before the great triumphal inauguration of this policy into the Government of the United States."

Speaking of the Dred Scott decision, he says:

"The people of the United States never can, and they never will, accept principles so unconstitutional and so abhorrent. Never, never. Let the Court recede. Whether it recedes or not, we shall reorganize the Court, and thus reform its political sentiments and practices."

"It is written in the Constitution of the United States, in violation of the Divine law, that we shall surrender the fugitive slave. You blush not at these things because they are familiar as household words."

Listen to the declarations of Mr. Chase:

We feel, therefore, that all LEGAL DISTINCTION between individuals of the same community, founded in any such circumstances as color, origin, and the like, are hostile to the genius of our institutions, and incompatible with the true theory of American liberty. SLAVERY and oppression must CEASE, or American liberty must perish.

"I embrace, with pleasure, this opportunity of declaring MY DISAPPROBATION of that clause of the Constitution which denies to a portion of the colored people the right of suffrage.

"True democracy makes no inquiry about the color of the skin or place of nativity, or other similar circumstance or condition. I regard, therefore, the exclusion of the colored people, as a body, from the elective franchise, as INCOMPATIBLE with true democratic principles."

"For myself, I am ready to renew my pledge, and I will venture to speak in behalf of my co-workers, that we will go straight on, without faltering or wavering, until every vestige of oppression shall be erased from the statute-books---until the sun, in all its journey from the utmost eastern horizon through the mid-heaven, till he sinks behind the western bed, shall NOT BEHOLD THE FOOT-PRINT OF A SINGLE SLAVE in all our broad and glorious land."

Hear what the platform of the Chicago Convention says:

"7. That the new dogma, that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into the Territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with cotemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent; is revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country."

And this is said with reference to a solemn decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case, which is treated as a mere dogma, and denounced as a political heresy!

These extracts are sufficient to show the principles and purposes of the party about to be placed in power over the rights and liberties of the people of the States of this Union.

I need not consume time to show this intelligent people, that our right to hold slaves is justified by the Law of God---that it is distinctly recognised and provided for in the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States, and sanctioned by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States---that this right cannot be violated without a subversion of the Constitution and a destruction of the property of the people of the Southern States, especially the cotton growing States, absolutely indispensable to their prosperity, nay, their existence, and which would lead to their degradation and ruin. But let us see by what means these wicked and profligate men---who regard not the law of God, and would lay their ruthless hands upon the Constitution---holding that there is a higher morality than the Word of God, a higher law than the Constitution of the United States, and a paramount rule of property under the Constitution to that declared by the Supreme Court--would accomplish their infamous purposes:

1. Slavery is to be abolished in the District of Columbia, forts, arsenals, &c. of the United States, and the citizen of a Southern State prohibited from taking his slave property to the common territory of the United States---thus discriminating against his property, and degrading him below the citizen of the non-slaveholding State, in clear violation of his right of equality in the exercise of his right of property guarantied by the Constitution.

2. The slave-trade between the States is to be abolished, thereby preventing the exportation of slaves from the old Southern States, until their increase shall become an evil, and compel their emancipation, and thus abolitionize those States.

3. To repeal the laws against incendiary publications, to incite slaves to insurrection and bloodshed, and to pass new laws to protect the freedom of speech and of prints, addressed to slaves and slaveholding communities, to teach slaves their right of liberty, and thus render them so dangerous to the lives of the white population as to compel their emancipation.

Thus the right of property of the citizens of the Southern States is to be assailed and destroyed--the Constitution violated---the decisions of the Supreme Court and the laws of Congress spurned---citizens of the slaveholding States insulted, outraged and condemned to disgraceful punishment for exercising their undoubted Constitutional rights. These purposes have been time and again avowed by the leaders of the party of Lincoln, and, so far as they had the power, have been put into practice. And now, in the ominous language of Mr. Seward, which I have quoted, "we are in the last stage of the conflict, before THE GREAT TRIUMPHAL INAUGURATION of this policy into the Government of the United States." The party has triumphed at the ballot box, the verdict of the people has been pronounced according to the forms of the Constitution, and they claim it as a solemn sanction of their avowed designs, and only await the time fixed by the Constitution to take the power of the Government, and fulfil their pledges, and execute the popular will constitutionally declared.

Nothing but the most unpardonable credulity could warrant the belief that these men will shrink from their pledges. They are cool-headed men, who have pursued their object for years, amidst the scorn and obloquy of all right-minded men; and now, when they are flushed with success, with the means of execution in their power, with all the emoluments of the Government within their grasp, and with their rapacious hordes at their heels crying for the spoils, and their infatuated followers demanding the execution of their unholy pledges, would it not be the most criminal delusion to act upon the belief that they will not execute their diabolical behests? Let them have the purse and the sword of this Government, and we shall quickly see how true they will be to their base pledges, unless arrested by the strong arms and brave hearts of the people of the South. Is it the part of wisdom and safety to permit them to get possession of this formidable power, having dominion over us; and to trust to their forbearance not to use it to our oppression? Some say we should wait for "overt acts;" but whence the wisdom of such delay? If we are satisfied that they will carry out their pledges, why place ourselves within their power, and then trust to the mercy of men who go into power trampling under foot laws, courts, constitution, and the Word of God? It would be madness to trust to their sense of justice, or to their respect for the constitution. The stake is too great to be entrusted to the moral sense of infidels and barbarians. We must protect it ourselves, by acting from abundant caution. We must treat the Government, as it in fact is, in a state of revolution, by the elevation of a party upon the prostration of the Constitution; and never submit ourselves to its dominion, until we have our rights so fully, clearly and effectively secured, as to be beyond all possible danger from the wicked men who will come into possession of the places and power of the Government. Any other course than this will, in all human probability, place us in a condition of great disadvantage, from which we will not be able to extricate ourselves without great difficulty and much suffering.

These fell purposes do not rest entirely or principally, upon fanaticism, for their motive. Yankee lust for gain and for, the emoluments of the Government, first gave rise to the party, and still continues to animate the efforts of the chief conspirators against the Constitution. Finding that, under the true principles of the Constitution and the rightful operations of the Government, its honors and emoluments were beyond the reach of their friends, at the North, the originators of the party conceived the scheme of getting recruits to their strength by abolitionising the agricultural States of the West. It appears that they have been eminently successful in this, by blinding them to their true designs and appealing to their fanatical feelings and Yankee proclivities. The same purpose is entertained towards the Southern border States, but not to be accomplished by the same means. With them the policy is one of compulsion--to make slavery an evil by interfering with its benefits, and to bring about its abolition. If this effort succeeds, the abolition States would be increased to such a number, as to give them the complete power of the Government, for honors, offices and emoluments, to be wielded at discretion, enabling them to make whatever amendments to the Constitution they thought fit. Against these designs the cotton States of the South have ever stood firm and immovable, because slavery was and is indispensable to their subsistence. Yet the abolition hopes and efforts have not been relaxed as to the other slave States. If they can be gained to abolition, the purpose of the conspirators against the vital principles of the Constitution, will be accomplished--they will have the power to transform the Government to the oppression of the slaveholding States without restriction, and will destroy the chief glory of the Constitution, which is to protect the minority against the arbitrary power of the majority. Once admitted, the principle may be applied whenever the fanaticism, avarice or lust of power of our masters may see fit to exercise it; and our property, our rights, our honor, our family altars, our wives and our children, are at their arbitrary will. The glorious Constitution of our fathers becomes the most grinding of despotisms, and the more so, because, though fair and just in form, it is in practice a cheat and a fraud.

That it is a cardinal purpose of this party about to be elevated to power, to destroy this crowning glory of the Constitution, by which the rights of the minority are protected against the power of the majority, is most manifest from the whole tenor of their doctrines; and the avowal of such a doctrine as a principle upon which the new administration is to come into power, is itself the proclamation of a revolution in the Government.

And now, fellow-citizens, what must we do in this solemn crisis? Every principle of safety, of patriotism, of honor, impels us to action---to prompt, decisive, radical action. And, first, let me tell you what we of Mississippi think we ought not to do, to protect our Constitutional rights.

1. We ought not to rely on Congressional action, and new securities to be obtained thereby. Two committees have been appointed to take into consideration the crisis in public affairs and to devise means of protection--a committee of thirty-three of the House of Representatives, and a committee of thirteen of the Senate. The former has been at work for several weeks, engaged in trifling and immaterial matters, carefully avoiding the questions which constitute the grounds of our grievances. It was raised at the instance of one of the most vindictive enemies of our constitutional rights, who appears to have become alarmed at the spirit of resistance manifested by our people; willing to hold out the delusive hope that something will be done by this committee for our security, and thereby prevent that action at our hands which the plainest dictates of self-protection demand. It is composed of birds of every feather, whose agreement upon any plan at all adequate to secure our rights, is next to impossible; and if any vital and practical test of the questions at issue between us and our enemies is pressed for its action it will instantly explode. It is a miserable cheat, got up to prevent energetic action on the part of the Southern States, and to eke out the valuable time for action between this and the 4th March, when they will be quietly committed to the dominion of Abraham Lincoln, and then the labors and the purpose of this committee will be completed.

The Senate committee originated in better faith. It was raised at the instance of a Southern man, and doubtless with the patriotic desire to give peace to the country and security to our rights. But it is also composed of discordant materials, and it would have been useless if it had not contained representatives from those States, where our rights and the Constitution are most boldly assailed; for, without their assent, all measures of settlement would be nugatory. Its venerable and patriotic chairman (Mr. Crittenden,) has labored faithfully to effect a settlement, demanding nothing but our clear and unquestionable rights, and conceding much of principle and of settled right on our part, which nothing but reverence for the Union could even for a moment reconcile us to yielding. In his overweening love for the Union, and desire to avert its dissolution, he has even yielded our clear and settled constitutional right to take our slaves to the Territories of the United States, north of 36 deg. 30 min., a surrender without equivalent, and which it would be difficult to reconcile with duty and principle. Yet the offer has been made; and what is the result? On the 22d December, the propositions of Mr. Crittenden came up in the committee, and were earnestly opposed by the four Black Republican members, Wade, Doolittle, Callamer and Grimes. They declared that "these questions had been settled by the people at the late Presidential election," and that "they had no concessions to make or offer."

Thus this party spurns all settlements. The country is enveloped in gloom--a great political earthquake shakes the land to its centre--a sovereign State has withdrawn from the Union--the pillars of the Government are tottering on their base--and yet nothing shakes the vile purpose of this reckless party. They not only make no effort to avert the calamities which threaten the destruction of the Government, but when we ask that our plain rights should be recognised, and that we should be permitted to enjoy them under the protection of that Constitution which our fathers transmitted to us, we are met by the infamous response, it has been settled by the people at the ballot box that YOU SHALL NOT HAVE YOUR RIGHTS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION---this has been settled by the verdict of the people, and is not now to be questioned---nothing remains to us but to carry it into execution---"WE HAVE NO CONCESSIONS TO MAKE OR TO OFFER."

It is impossible for the patriotic men of this committee to affect any thing which will secure our rights at the hands of the enemies of the Constitution, and upon which we may repose as such a settlement of our grievances as we must demand and obtain. Their efforts will be in vain, and the 4th of March will find them and all other Congressional expedients vain and futile to the protection of our rights. We shall then be, for aught of good we shall derive from these things, as we now are; and be quietly committed to the tender mercies of Abraham Lincoln and his cohorts.

 No reasonable man, therefore, can believe that our rights can be properly and securely settled by Congressional compromises.

2. Many persons favor a general convention of all the slaveholding States, as the mode of protecting our rights. But to this there are grave, if not insuperable objections.

In the first place, there is not time to take the necessary steps to hold such a Convention, and to allow it time to act, before the 4th March.

The several State Legislatures would have to convene, in order to appoint delegates, or to call conventions to appoint delegates, to such a general convention. This would require considerable time. Then the convention, when assembled, would necessarily be at a late day before the 4th March, and a very brief time allowed for determining upon the plan of protection to our rights, before that day; and then the anti-slavery States would not have time to act upon our propositions. But several of the States could not be represented in such a convention. The Governors of Maryland and of Texas refuse to convoke their Legislatures, and other States manifest an indisposition to take any step towards an authoritative expression of the will of their people. If such a convention were assembled, at a late day, there is no probability of its determining upon a plan to secure our constitutional rights before the 4th March; for it is much to be lamented, that several of them appear to be most reluctant to take any steps to preserve their constitutional rights.

Time is of the utmost importance in the assertion of our rights. The party elected and pledged to subvert the Constitution to our oppression and degradation, is to be installed into power on the 4th March. A just regard for our rights and our safety in asserting them, demands that we should be in a position independent of their dominion, before that time; claiming our rights under the Constitution, and in a position to maintain and defend them, freed from the involvements and obligations of the Union, if denied. This is a high and sacred duty---nothing less than the duty of self-protection. It is a work of great magnitude, and but little time, at best, is allowed to perform it properly. Hence, where so much is at stake, it would be folly to rely upon the uncertain and problematical expedient of a general convention of the Southern States as the mode of asserting our rights within the time by which our position shall be firmly declared.

But this mode of a general convention, appears to be proposed as a means of redress within the Constitution of the United States. As such it is highly questionable. the means of protection determined upon by such a convention to be required of the non-slaveholding States, could have any virtue, it would be on the ground that the States adopting it had agreed among themselves, that if their demands were not acceded to, they would withdraw from the Union. Without such an argument, there would be very little force or efficacy in the demands of such a convention. But if such be its character, such a mode of redress cannot be taken in the Union and consistently with the Constitution, which prohibits any State from "entering into any agreement or compact with another State," Art. 1, sec. 10. It is, therefore, either ineffectual as an agreement to protect themselves against the wrongs of a subverted Constitution, or it is in violation of the prohibition of the Constitution.

Fellow-Citizens, there is no hope from Congressional action, or from general conventions, or from mere declarations of rights and resolves of resistance. We must act. It is a necessity forced upon us. The alternative is, submission to a lawless and degrading despotism, to be raised upon the ruins of the Constitution; or, resistance to the wicked do minion over us. By the acts and proclamations of the enemies of our rights, the Union is virtually dissolved---the bond of the Union is broken in the subversion of the Constitution to our degradation and oppression. In every stage of these efforts, we have warned their authors of the inevitable result. Our arguments, our rights, and our solemn expostulations. have been alike disregarded; and with a resolution worthy of a better cause, they have advanced to the end, and now they stand in the act of seizing the government to execute the judgment of their followers against the Constitution and our rights. We are compelled to act. We must arrest this unholy judgment by vigorous and effective action. And the momentous question forces itself upon us---how shall we act for our protection?

Two modes are presented. The first is, revolution and resistance to the Government by force, in the Union. To this, there are most weighty objections, which I will merely advert to. First, it implies that the resistance is to rightful authority; and, therefore, the Government would have the right to employ force to suppress it. Such a course might be proper to effect a revolution in the existing government and establish a new one, but not as a means of obtaining our rights under that Government. Secondly, it implies that there is no other adequate remedy or means of safety, but in force. But this is plainly contrary to the spirit of the Union. Its founders never supposed that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution were to be preserved by force. It was formed upon the principle of "promoting the domestic tranquility" of its members; and if the rights contemplated had to be preserved by force, that would itself be a most effectual dissolving of the Union. The remedy is suicidal, and destructive of the genius of the Constitution. Thirdly, it is practically absurd to suppose that the Union could be preserved, or the rights of the citizens secured against the power of the Government, by force and rebellion. The admission of such a remedy would necessarily convert the successful Government into a despotism on the hand, or otherwise produce anarchy and lawlessness from the repetitions of successful resistance to all obnoxious acts and measures of the Government.

Both in principle and in practical effect, therefore, this remedy cannot be justified.

The only remaining mode of protection is, the peaceable withdrawal of each State by itself from the Union, and a resumption of the sovereign powers delegated by the States in the Constitution, commonly called secession; and this is the course which the State of Mississippi has determined to adopt.???79

Fellow-Citizens, I know that the very name of secession is unwelcome to the ears of many whom I now address, as synonymous with treason and rebellion. I know how this people venerate the Union their fathers made, and how their patriotic feelings have been stirred up in prejudice of the purposes of those who have proposed secession as a necessary means of protecting our rights. But I trust you love those rights and principles which the Union was instituted to secure, far above the mere form of their enjoyment--that dear as the form is to your hearts, you will never sacrifice to it the more precious substance; and that you dare follow wherever principle and patriotism may lead, in the defense of the great essential rights which our fathers fought to estnblish, and left us to guard and maintain for ourselves and for our posterity.

I have already shown you the necessity which constrains us to take some extraordinary course to defend our rights. Permit me now, fellow-citizens, to trespass upon your patience while I advert very briefly to some of the considerations which induce the State of Mississippi to withdraw from the Union, as a matter of right, of high principle, and as the only adequate protection to rights, far above the mere name and form of the Union. Time will not permit me to take more than a cursory view of this great question.

In the first place, we believe it to be a matter of right, in any State, to withdraw from the Union. whenever the Constitution has been, or there is just ground to believe, will be, subverted, and that the Union will be used as a means to her oppression, and to the destruction of the rights which are recognized in the Constitution.

This right plainly results from the rights and powers which the several States had when they formed the Constitution, and which they did not surrender in the Constitution, and from the nature and purposes of the Union established by the Constitution.

When this Union was formed the several States were "free and independent" States. Each was clothed with all the powers of a sovereign State, and as such participated in the formation of the Constitution, and afterwards, each for herself, adopted it as the bond and compact of union with the others. By the Constitution, these sovereign States established a federal head, or government, to represent them in certain particular respects and relations; and to that end, "delegated" to it certain specified powers. It was distinctly agreed and understood in the formation of the Constitution, that all the rights and powers not delegated by it to the federal head nor prohibited to the States, were retained and reserved to the several States, as though the Constitution had not been formed. Yet so jealous of this principle were the States, that immediately upon its adoption, its distinct recognition was incorporated as an amendment to the Constitution. It is, therefore, perfectly clear that--as to all the powers which the several States had before the adoption of this Constitution, and which were not therein delegated to the Federal Government nor prohibited to the States--each State continued to be a sovereign and independent State, to all intents and purposes.

Now, when this Union was formed, the principle set forth in the Declaration of Independence was in full force and recognized as a fundamental doctrine by all the States-"that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." It was upon this high principle that the States were declared "free and independent States," and came into being as such. And the basis principle upon which all republican Governments rest, and especially those of these States, is, that Governments "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Assuredly the force of these great principles was never intended to be impaired in the formation of the Constitution of the United States. If not, they fully justify the right for which we contend. If the right to alter or abolish a government, whenever it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created, was surrendered by the States in the formation of the Constitution, I ask to be pointed to the clause of that instrument which shows it. It contains no provision which expressly or impliedly can have such an effect. Am I referred to the article authorizing amendments and providing the mode in which they shall be made? This clearly does not impair the right "to alter or abolish" a government, "and to inslitute a new Government," set forth in the Declaration of Independence. It has reference to the continuation of the Government, and to such alterations as might be found necessary by time and experience, if it remained perpetual; and not to an obligation never to abolish or abandon it, or to form a new Government. Similar provisions are contained in the State Constitutions; but they have never been held to debar the exercise of the sovereign right of the people of the State to form a new Constitution in a different mode from that prescribed in them.

But it may be impracticable to amend the Constitution in the mode prescribed, by reason of surrounding circumstance, and the growth of usurpations; or it my have become perverted to the destruction of the rights intended to be secured by it when made, beyond remedy by amendment in the mode prescribed. It is clear that the right of amendment could never apply to such a case; and that is the condition in which the Southern States are now placed. In such circumstances, we have the Declaration of Independence for authority, "that it is the right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new guards for their future security."

Am I referred to the preamble to the Constitution, declaring its purpose to be "to form a more perfect union?" There is nothing in that to warrant the idea, that the union was to be indissoluble, notwithstanding it might be perverted to the destruction of all the rights intended to be secured by it. If so, it established a despotism, and annihilated all the principles upon which the Declaration of Independence is based.

Am I asked to show where the right of secession is found in the Constitution? I answer, it was not necessary to its existence that it should be specified in that instrument. The States did not derive their powers from the Constitution. Its purpose was not to specify the rights retained, but to enumerate those delegated by them to the Federal Government. Hence if a right which existed in a State at the formation of the Constitution, does not appear to be "enumerated" among the "delegated" powers conferred on the Government, in the Constitution, it is reserved and remains to the State. It is thus that all the numerous rights and powers of civil administration in the several States, and which are not reserved by enumeration in the Constitution of the United States, were retained and are exercised by the States. Hence it devolves upon those who claim that this high power, this invaluable right, was given up by the several States in the Constitution, to point out where and how this was done; and if they fail to do so, it appears to be impossible to escape the conclusion, that it is still retained by the States severally, to be exercised whenever in their discretion their protection and safety demand it.

In vain do we search the Constitution to find anything in opposition to this fundamental right of American liberty. And even if it had been there given up in terms, it is in its nature inalienable, as is clearly declared in the Declaration of Independence; and the surrender would be void.

If we look to the situation of the States when the Union was formed, and the purposes they had in view in forming it, we find nothing that sanctions the idea of an indissoluble union. It was made by sovereign States for specific purposes, and with few and strictly limited powers conferred upon the great mass of powers, in which the great interests the people of the States were mostly involved, being by them. If it were dissolved, the great principles established by the revolution, would not perish. Sovereign States would still have the rights and liberties achieved by the war of Independence, and be capable of "instituting a new government, laying its foundation on such principles organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

But it is manifest from the provisions of the Constitution, history in the Convention which framed it, and in the Conventions which adopted it, that it was never intended that the States should be irrevocably bound to to it, under any and all circumstances; but that their to resume their sovereign powers and absolve themselves from its operation, was clearly recognized, and that against the necessity for exercising that right, was one of the especial objects of its framers.

This is, first, apparent from the terms of the 10th amendment, that the powers are "delegated," not granted or surrendered. This is not language inconsiderately employed. was adopted after the most careful consideration of its by able men in the State Conventions which adopted the Constitution, who well understood the force of the language used; and introduced with full deliberation, to give legal import. Hence its sense is not to be mistaken--the powers were not irrevocably parted with by the States, but were "delegated" to the United States, to be as their agent; and this clearly implies the right to them when the States should deem it necessary.

In the Convention of Virginia, the resolutions adopting the Constitution declare, "that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury and oppression." By the words "people of the United States" here used, is plainly meant, thepeople of the States composing the United States.

In the Convention which framed the Constitution, Mr. Hamilton spoke of the coercion of Federal laws, that "it produce a dissolution of the Union," 2 Madison papers Mr. Madison said, "it would probably be considered party attacked (the State) as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound. Ib. 761. Mr. Hamilton made similar declarations in the Convention of New York, 2 Elliott's debates, 232.

Throughout the history of its formation and adoption, the Government was admitted to be one of strictly limited powers, and the fear of many of its advocates was, that it would be too weak for the State Governments, and would therefore fail.

In addition to this evidence, the opinion of Mr. Webster, whose views upon the powers and nature of the Federal Government have had so great an influence upon the public mind--is entitled to weight. In speaking of the right of secession in his speech at Capon Springs, Virginia, in he said:--

"I do not hesitate to say, and repeat, that if the Northern States refuse, wilfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain broken on one side is a bargain broken on all sides."

Those, therefore, who deny the power of the States to resume their sovereign powers, must deny the principles of the Declaration of Independence; deny the right of the people to alter or abolish their government and to make a new deny that the government of the United States is one of delegated powers derived from the States which made adopted it, and assert that its powers are inherent and , and that it is the great centre and source of power and proteetion to the State. I know that there are many honest and well-meaning men, who entertain the that the States are mere dependencies of the Federal Government, occupying the same relation to it as colonies to the parent country or counties to a State. How did the views of the patriots who framed, and those who , the Constitution, the history of these events, have slightly glanced at, will upon full examination abundantly show. It is indeed strange that so fatal an illusion shall have completely taken possession of the of many men, that they will not permit their reason upon the subject; and when you reason to them upon history, powers and true relations of the States and Federal Government, they turn with superstitious horror from contemplation, add shut their eyes to what they have accustomed themselves to consider a frightful spectre. How different the feelings of the bold minds and brave hearts achieved our liberty and deliverance from the same opinions entertained towards Great Britain! It is superstitious adoration for this grand, mythical central Government, which has beset the minds of many men, and held their judgments spell-bound. So potent has been its influence that it has worked a revolution in the Government. The true theory of the Government, as it was intended by its framers, was strong States and a weak Federal head--this was its beauty and its glory. But this fatal delusion has been the main instrument of reversing this relation, emasculating the States of nearly all their dignity and moral power, and transforming the Federal Government into a grand, central dynasty, wielding unlimited power except as to the mere forms of the Constitution. This revolution is now about to be reduced to a practical consummation, by the elevation of men upon the prostration of the Constitution; and this dread calamity is only to be prevented by a resort to the rights and powers which the States possessed when they formed the Union, which they never parted with, and which are, in their nature, inalienable.

Do you ask how this right is to be exercised? I answer, it is peaceful in its character. Because it is a right, no power on earth has a right to interfere with its exercise.--It is a peaceful resumption of the powers of government which are about to be perverted to our oppression; which we delegated to a government which has become destructive of the purposes of its institution, and to which we cannot submit. In this consists its chief virtue, and the characteristic excellence of our system of government above all the systems of the world--that from the nature of the compact, each State has the right to withdraw from its operation, and to become immediately and peaceably restored to her position of an independent, sovereign State, with her own internal government in force, and with full capacity to enter into any other confederacy which the happiness and welfare of her people may demand. If in the exercise of these rights, she is molested by those who deny them, it will be plainly wrongful, and her defence against the oppression will be forced upon her by necessity.

But it is plain that the Federal Government has no right by the Constitution to employ coercion against such a State; for that would most effectually subvert the Government, and destroy the Union. The Union can only subsist as one of free and equal States. But if a State be coerced by the Federal Government to submit to its dominion, she is no longer a free and co-equal member of the confederacy, but is reduced to the condition of a subjugated and degraded province, to be the subject of a military despotism. And this shows both the right of a State to withdraw from the Union, and the want of all power in the Federal Government to interfere with the exercise of the right by force.

The dissolution of this Union can never be contemplated by a true American heart without the deepest pain. Yet whenever it becomes necessary, to protect our sacred rights, it becomes a duty from which no veneration for its past glories or for the memories of the patriots who framed it, should cause us to shrink. Those noble men, if now living, would raise their voices against the desecration of the institutions they left us, and their warnings now appeal to us, that it is "our right, it is our duty," to throw off a prostituted government, "and to provide new guards for our future security."

And now, fellow-citizens, let me tell you the position which Mississippi occupies in this great emergency.

We are satisfied that nothing, short of secession, will secure our rights under the Constitution, and settle the slavery agitation once and forever. We must take a position where we can effectually "provide new guards for our future security." Nothing but an extreme remedy can prevent the utter subversion of the Constitution. Congressional action and conventional declarations of right, will never arrest the revolution which is set on foot by the election of Lincoln. Prompt, vigorous and radical action by the Southern States is necessary, to let the enemies of the Constitution know, that we are in earnest, and that the day of what they call "Southern bluster," is past. But a brief period is allowed for putting ourselves in a position to save the Constitution and protect our rights before the 4th of March. Safety and duty demand that we should act before that time.

We do not intend to be quietly slid under the dominion of Abraham Lincoln, with all our constitutional protection prostrated, and with the difficulties of extrication from such a position increased. If all the Southern States act promptly and unitedly in this movement, that and nothing short of it will bring the enemies of the Constitution to a sense of our rights. We may, by such bold and decided action, prevent the subversion of the Government, provide full and efficient protection against further invasion of our rights, and restore the Constitution. But if this should prove to be impracticable, then we will have done our duty to presume the Constitution; and having failed, we will be in a position of readiness to form a new Confederacy, a homogeneous Union, where we can enjoy the rights which are denied to us under the Government which we will have been compelled to abandon.

We may expect to be vilified and denounced, as traitors and rebels. So were our fathers of the Revolution. But, like them, we will appeal to the civilized world and to the Supreme Judge of it, for the rectitude of our intentions; and bearing aloft our glorious Constitution, as the ark of the covenant of our rights and liberties, we will pass away from this worse than Egyptian bondage, trusting to the God of wisdom to guide us, and that He will open the troubled waters for our safe passage, and hold them to overwhelm the hosts which shall attempt to pursue us.