This convention (assuming to represent seven States) took the decisive step, so far as it depended upon itself, towards a separation of the States. It invited the assembling of a "Southern Congress." Two States alone responded to that appeal—South Carolina and Mississippi; and the legislatures of these two passed solemn acts to carry it into effect—South Carolina absolutely, by electing her quota of representatives to the proposed congress; Mississippi provisionally, by subjecting her law to the approval of the people. Of course, each State gave a reason, or motive for its action. South Carolina simply asserted the "aggressions" of the slaveholding States to be the cause, without stating what these aggressions were; and, in fact, there were none to be stated. For even the repeal of the slave sojournment law in some of them, and the refusal to permit the State prisons to be used for the detention of fugitives from service, or State officers to assist in their arrest, though acts of unfriendly import, and a breach of the comity due to sister States, and inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution, were still acts which the States, as sovereign within their limits upon the subjects to which they refer, had a right to pass. Besides, Congress had readily passed the fugitive slave recovery bill, just as these Southern members wished it; and left them without complaint against the national legislature on that score. All other matters of complaint which had successively appeared against the free States were gone—Wilmot Proviso, and all. The act of Mississippi gave two reasons for its action:
"First. That the legislation of Congress, at the last session, was controlled by a dominant majority regardless of the constitutional rights of the slaveholding States: and,
"Secondly. That the legislation of Congress, such as it was, affords alarming evidence of a settled purpose on the part of said majority to destroy the institution of slavery, not only in the State of Mississippi, but in her sister States, and to subvert the sovereign power of that and other slaveholding States."
Waiving the question whether these reasons, if true, would be sufficient to justify this abrupt attempt to break up the Union, an issue of fact can well be taken on their truth: and first, of the dominant majority of the last session, ending September 1850: that majority, in every instance, was helped out by votes from the slave States, and generally by a majority of them. The admission of California, which was the act of the session most complained of, most resisted, and declared to be a "test" question, was supported by a majority of the members from the slave States: so that reason falls upon the trial of an issue of fact. The second set of reasons have for their point, an assertion that the majority in Congress have a settled purpose to destroy the institution of slavery in the State of Mississippi, and in the other slave States, and to subvert the sovereignty of all the slave States. It is the duty of history to deal with this assertion, thus solemnly put in a legislative act as a cause for the secession of a State from the Union—and to say, that it was an assertion without evidence, and contrary to the evidence, and contrary to the fact. There was no such settled purpose in the majority of Congress, nor in a minority of Congress, nor in any half-dozen members of Congress—if in any one at all. It was a most deplorable assertion of a most alarming design, calculated to mislead and inflame the ignorant, and make them fly to disunion as the refuge against such an appalling catastrophe. But it was not a new declaration. It was part and parcel of the original agitation of slavery commenced in 1835, and continued ever since. To destroy slavery in the States has been the design attributed to the Northern States from that day to this, and is necessary to be kept up in order to keep alive the slavery agitation in the slave States. It has received its constant and authoritative contradiction in the conduct of those States at home, and in the acts of their representatives in Congress, year in and year out; and continues to receive that contradiction, continually; but without having the least effect upon its repetition and incessant reiteration. In the mean time there is a fact visible in all the slave States, which shows that, notwithstanding these twenty years' repetition of the same assertion, there is no danger to slavery in any slave State. Property is timid! and slave property above all: and the market is the test of safety and danger to all property. Nobody gives full price for anything that is insecure, either in title or possession. All property, in danger from either cause, sinks in price when brought to that infallible test. Now, how is it with slave property, tried by this unerring standard? Has it been sinking in price since the year 1835? since the year of the first alarm manifesto in South Carolina, and the first of Mr. Calhoun's twenty years' alarm speeches in the Senate? On the contrary, the price has been constantly rising the whole time—and is still rising, although it has attained a height incredible to have been predicted twenty years ago.
But, although the slavery alarm does not act on property, yet it acts on the feelings and passions of the people, and excites sectional animosity, hatred for the Union, and desire for separation. The Nashville convention, and the call for the Southern Congress, were natural occasions to call out these feelings; and most copiously did they flow. Some specimens, taken from the considered language of men in high authority, and speaking advisedly, and for action, will show the temper of the whole—the names withheld, because the design is to show a danger, and not to expose individuals.
In the South Carolina Legislature, a speaker declared:
"We must secede from a Union perverted from its original purpose, and which has now become an engine of oppression to the South. He thought our proper course was for this legislature to proceed directly to the election of delegates to a Southern Congress. He thought we should not await the action of all the Southern States; but it is prudent for us to await the action of such States as Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida; because these States have requested us to wait. If we can get but one State to unite with us, then we must act. Once being independent, we would have a strong ally in England. But we must prepare for secession."
Another:
"The friends of the Southern movement in the other States look to the action of South Carolina; and he would make the issue in a reasonable time, and the only way to do so is by secession. There would be no concert among the Southern States until a blow is struck. And if we are sincere in our determination to resist, we must give the South some guarantee that we are in earnest. He could not concur with the gentleman from Greenville in his expressions of attachment to the Union. He hated and detested the Union, and was in favor of cutting the connection. He avowed himself a disunionist—a disunionist per se. If he had the power, he would crush this Union to-morrow."
Another:
"Denied the right or the power of the general government to coerce the State in case of secession. This State is sovereign and independent, so soon as she sees proper to assert that sovereignty. And when can we be stronger than we are now? If we intend to wait until we become superior to the federal government in numerical strength, we will wait for ever. In the event of an attempt to coerce her, sacrifices might be made, but we are willing and ready to make those sacrifices. But he did not believe one gun would be fired in this contest. South Carolina would achieve a bloodless victory. But, should there be a war, all the nations of Europe would be desirous of preserving their commercial intercourse with the Southern States, and would make the effort to do so. He thought there never would be a union of the South until this State strikes the blow, and makes the issue."