The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (eBook)

 CHAPTER IX.

    Preparations for withdrawal from the Union.--Northern     Precedents.--New England Secessionists.--Cabot, Pickering,     Quincy, etc.--On the Acquisition of Louisiana.--The Hartford     Convention.--The Massachusetts Legislature on the Annexation of     Texas, etc., etc.

 The Convention of South Carolina had already (on the 20th of December, 1860) unanimously adopted an ordinance revoking her delegated powers and withdrawing from the Union. Her representatives, on the following day, retired from their seats in Congress. The people of the other planting States had been only waiting in the lingering hope that some action might be taken by Congress to avert the necessity for action similar to that of South Carolina. In view of the failure of all overtures for conciliation during the first month of the session, they were now making their final preparations for secession. This was generally admitted to be an unquestionable right appertaining to their sovereignty as States, and the only peaceable remedy that remained for the evils already felt and the dangers apprehended.

In the prior history of the country, repeated instances are found of the assertion of this right, and of a purpose entertained at various times to put it in execution. Notably is this true of Massachusetts and other New England States. The acquisition of Louisiana, in 1803, had created much dissatisfaction in those States, for the reason, expressed by an eminent citizen of Massachusetts,[22] that "the influence of our [the Northeastern] part of the Union must be diminished by the acquisition of more weight at the other extremity." The project of a separation was freely discussed, with no intimation, in the records of the period, of any idea among its advocates that it could be regarded as treasonable or revolutionary.

Colonel Timothy Pickering, who had been an officer of the war of the Revolution, afterward successively Postmaster-General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, in the Cabinet of General Washington, and, still later, long a representative of the State of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States, was one of the leading secessionists of his day. Writing from Washington to a friend, on the 24th of December, 1803, he says:

    "I will not yet despair. I will rather anticipate a new     confederacy, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence     and oppression of the aristocratic democrats of the South. There     will be (and our children, at farthest, will see it) a     separation. The white and black population will mark the     boundary."[23]

In another letter, written a few weeks afterward (January 29, 1804), speaking of what he regarded as wrongs and abuses perpetrated by the then existing Administration, he thus expresses his views of the remedy to be applied:

    "The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy--a     separation. That this can be accomplished, and without spilling     one drop of blood, I have little doubt....

    "I do not believe in the practicability of a long-continued     Union. A Northern Confederacy would unite congenial characters     and present a fairer prospect of public happiness; while the     Southern States, having a similarity of habits, might be left to     'manage their own affairs in their own way.' If a separation     were to take place, our mutual wants would render a friendly and     commercial intercourse inevitable. The Southern States would     require the naval protection of the Northern Union, and the     products of the former would be important to the navigation and     commerce of the latter....

    "It [the separation] must begin, in Massachusetts. The     proposition would be welcomed in Connecticut; and could we doubt     of New Hampshire? But New York must be associated; and how is     her concurrence to be obtained? She must be made the center of     the Confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey would follow of course,     and Rhode Island of necessity."[24]

Substituting South Carolina for Massachusetts; Virginia for New York; Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, for New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island; Kentucky for New Jersey, etc., etc., we find the suggestions of 1860-'61 only a reproduction of those thus outlined nearly sixty years earlier.

Mr. Pickering seems to have had a correct and intelligent perception of the altogether pacific character of the secession which he proposed, and of the mutual advantages likely to accrue to both sections from a peaceable separation. Writing in February, 1804, he explicitly disavows the idea of hostile feeling or action toward the South, expressing himself as follows:

    "While thus contemplating the only means of maintaining our     ancient institutions in morals and religion, and our equal rights,     we wish no ill to the Southern States and those naturally connected     with them. The public debts might be equitably apportioned     between the new confederacies, and a separation somewhere     about the line above suggested would divide the different characters     of the existing Union. The manners of the Eastern portion     of the States would be sufficiently congenial to form a Union, and     their interests are alike intimately connected with agriculture and     commerce. A friendly and commercial intercourse would be maintained     with the States in the Southern Confederacy as at present.     Thus all the advantages which have been for a few years depending     on the general Union would be continued to its respective portions,     without the jealousies and enmities which now afflict both,     and which peculiarly embitter the condition of that of the North.     It is not unusual for two friends, when disagreeing about the mode     of conducting a common concern, to separate and manage, each in     his own way, his separate interest, and thereby preserve a useful     friendship, which without such separation would infallibly be     destroyed."[25]

Such were the views of an undoubted patriot who had participated in the formation of the Union, and who had long been confidentially associated with Washington in the administration of its Government, looking at the subject from a Northern standpoint, within fifteen years after the organization of that Government under the Constitution. Whether his reasons for advocating a dissolution of the Union were valid and sufficient, or not, is another question which it is not necessary to discuss. His authority is cited only as showing the opinion prevailing in the North at that day with regard to the right of secession from the Union, if deemed advisable by the ultimate and irreversible judgment of the people of a sovereign State.

In 1811, on the bill for the admission of Louisiana as a State of the Union, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, a member of Congress from Massachusetts, said

    "If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is     virtually a dissolution of this Union; that it will free the     States from their moral obligation; and as it will be the right     of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare     for a separation--amicably if they can, violently if they must."

Mr. Poindexter, delegate from what was then the Mississippi Territory, took exception to these expressions of Mr. Quincy, and called him to order. The Speaker (Mr. Varnum, of Massachusetts) sustained Mr. Poindexter, and decided that the suggestion of a dissolution of the Union was out of order. An appeal was taken from this decision, and it was reversed. Mr. Quincy proceeded to vindicate the propriety of his position in a speech of some length, in the course of which he said:

    "Is there a principle of public law better settled or more     conformable to the plainest suggestions of reason than that the     violation of a contract by one of the parties may be considered     as exempting the other from its obligations? Suppose, in private     life, thirteen form a partnership, and ten of them undertake to     admit a new partner without the concurrence of the other three;     would it not be at their option to abandon the partnership after     so palpable an infringement of their rights? How much more in     the political partnership, where the admission of...