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Page 51
But whether that be so or not, the President declares and assumes that
this government is a consolidated government to this extent: that all
the laws of the Federal Government are to operate directly upon each
individual of the States, if not upon the States themselves, and must
be enforced; and yet, at the same time, he says that the State which
secedes is not to be coerced. He says that the laws of the United States
must be enforced against every individual of a State.
Of course, the State is composed of individuals within its limits,
and if you enforce the laws and obligations of the Federal Government
against each and every individual of the State, you enforce them against
a State. While, therefore, he says that a State is not to be coerced, he
declares, in the same breath, his determination to enforce the laws of
the Union, and therefore to coerce the State if a State goes out. There
is the inconsistency, according to my idea, which I do not see how the
President or anybody else can reconcile. That the Federal Government is
to enforce its laws over the seceding State, and yet not coerce her into
obedience, is to me incomprehensible.
But I did not rise, Mr. President, to discuss these questions in
relation to the message; I rose in behalf of the State that I represent,
as well as other Southern States that are engaged in this movement, to
accept the issue which the Senator from New Hampshire has seen fit to
tender--that is, of war. Sir, the Southern States now moving in this
matter are not doing it without due consideration. We have looked over
the whole field. We believe that the only security for the institution
to which we attach so much importance is secession and a Southern
confederacy. We are satisfied, notwithstanding the disclaimers upon the
part of the Black Republicans to the contrary, that they intend to
use the Federal power, when they get possession of it, to put down and
extinguish the institution of slavery in the Southern States. I do not
intend to enter upon the discussion of that point. That, however, is
my opinion. It is the opinion of a large majority of those with whom I
associate at home, and I believe of the Southern people. Believing that
this is the intention and object, the ultimate aim and design, of the
Republican party, the Abolitionists of the North, we do not intend to
stay in this Union until we shall become so weak that we shall not be
able to resist when the time comes for resistance. Our true policy is
the one which we have made up our minds to follow. Our true policy is to
go out of this Union now, while we have strength to resist any attempt
on the part of the Federal Government to coerce us. * * *
We intend, Mr. President, to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we
must; but I do not believe, with the Senator from New Hampshire, that
there is going to be any war. If five or eight States go out, they will
necessarily draw all the other Southern States after them. That is a
consequence that nothing can prevent. If five or eight States go out
of this Union, I should like to see the man that would propose a
declaration of war against them, or attempt to force them into obedience
to the Federal Government at the point of the bayonet or the sword.
Sir, there has been a good deal of vaporing on this subject. A great
many threats have been thrown out. I have heard them on this floor, and
upon the floor of the other House of Congress; but I have also perceived
this: they come from those who would be the very last men to attempt
to put their threats into execution. Men talk sometimes about their
eighteen million who are to whip us; and yet we have heard of cases in
which just such men had suffered themselves to be switched in the
face, and trembled like sheep-stealing dogs, expecting to be shot every
minute. These threats generally come from men who would be the last to
execute them. Some of these Northern editors talk about whipping the
Southern States like spaniels. Brave words; but I venture to assert none
of those men would ever volunteer to command an army to be sent down
South to coerce us into obedience to Federal power. * * *
But, sir, I apprehend that when we go out and form our confederacy--as
I think and hope we shall do very shortly--the Northern States, or the
Federal Government, will see its true policy to be to let us go in peace
and make treaties of commerce and amity with us, from which they will
derive more advantages than from any attempt to coerce us. They cannot
succeed in coercing us. If they allow us to form our government without
difficulty, we shall be very willing to look upon them as a favored
nation and give them all the advantages of commercial and amicable
treaties. I have no doubt that both of us--certainly the Southern
States--would live better, more happily, more prosperously, and with
greater friendship, than we live now in this Union.
Sir, disguise the fact as you will, there is an enmity between the
Northern and Southern people that is deep and enduring, and you never
can eradicate it--never! Look at the spectacle exhibited on this floor.
How is it? There are the Republican Northern Senators upon that side.
Here are the Southern Senators on this side. How much social intercourse
is there between us? You sit upon your side, silent and gloomy; we sit
upon ours with knit brows and portentous scowls. Yesterday I observed
that there was not a solitary man on that side of the Chamber came over
here even to extend the civilities and courtesies of life; nor did any
of us go over there. Here are two hostile bodies on this floor; and it
is but a type of the feeling that exists between the two sections. We
are enemies as much as if we were hostile States. I believe that the
Northern people hate the South worse than ever the English people hated
France; and I can tell my brethren over there that there is no love lost
upon the part of the South.
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