Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861

Jon L. Wakelyn

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780807856444, 9780807822784
• eBook ISBN: 9780807866146
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 initiated a heated debate throughout the South about what Republican control of the federal government would mean for the slaveholding states. During the secession crisis of the winter of 1860–61, Southerners spoke out and wrote prolifically on the subject, publishing their views in pamphlets that circulated widely. These tracts constituted a regional propaganda war in which Southerners vigorously debated how best to react to political developments on the national level. In this valuable reference work, Jon Wakelyn has collected twenty representative examples of this long-overlooked literature. Although the pamphlets reflect deep differences of opinion over what Lincoln’s intentions were and how the South should respond, all indicate the centrality of slavery to the Southern way of life and reflect a pervasive fear of racial unrest. More generally, the pamphlets reveal a wealth of information about the South’s political thought and self-identity at a defining moment in American history. The twenty items included here represent the views of leaders and opinion makers throughout the slaveholding states and are fully annotated. An additional sixty-five pamphlets are listed and briefly described in an appendix.

Originally published in 1996.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition — UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Part I. Prelude to Secession

MARIA HENRIETTA PINCKNEY

The Quintessence of Long Speeches Arranged as A Political Catechism ...

(Charleston: A. E. Miller, 1830)

Maria Henrietta Pinckney (c. 1782-1836), daughter of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, was born near Charleston, South Carolina. She lost her mother at an early age, was educated at home under the tutelage of her famous grandmother, Eliza Lucas Pinckney, never married, and in later life became the hostess for her father’s household. Pinckney devoted herself to study and writing and is the supposed author of A Notice of the Pinckneys (1860), but in an age when women seldom participated in public life, her enormous knowledge of the law and political theory must have gone to waste. The pamphlet below, supposedly a catechism for a niece (none of her siblings had children), written at the height of the Nullification controversy, revealed much about current thought on the rights of state and local government. In a time when important theorists such as John C. Calhoun and Robert J. Turnbull wrote at length on Southern rights, Pinckney cut through the political verbiage to offer a straightforward account of the issues. Published in 1830 and widely circulated, her pamphlet also placed the state’s leadership into perspective when she asked rhetorically who would defend the South, and answered, “the descendants of the patriot band who achieved the Revolution.” See George C. Rogers Jr., Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), and Frances Leigh Williams, A Founding Family: The Pinckneys of South Carolina (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1978).

QUESTION – What do we understand by the Federal Union?

ANSWER – It is an agreement between Sovereign States, to forbear exerting their sovereign power over certain defined objects, and to exert jointly their sovereign power over other specified objects, through the agency of a General Government. Each State agrees to exert its full sovereign power jointly, for all external purposes; and separately, for all internal purposes, or State concerns.

Q. Where is this Agreement found?

A. In the bond of Union, or compact between the States, called the Federal Constitution.

Q. What is the nature of the Federal Constitution?

A. It is a compact based upon cautious and jealous specifications. The distinguished body of men who framed it, guarded and defined every power that was to be exercised through the agency of the General Government—and every other power not enumerated in the compact, was to be reserved and exercised by the States.

Q. Did the States, in forming the Constitution, divest themselves of any part of their Sovereignty?

A. Of not a particle. The individuality and sovereign personality of the States was not at all impaired. The States agreed, by the Constitution, that they would unite in exerting their powers, therein specified and defined, for the purpose and objects therein designated, and through the agency of the machinery therein created; but the power exercised by the functionaries of the General Government, is not inherent in them, but in the States whose agents they are. The Constitution is their Power of Attorney, to do certain acts; and contains, connected with their authority to act, their letter of instruction, as to the manner in which they shall act. They are the Servants. The power which gives validity to their acts is in their Masters—the STATES.

Q. Where is the power of Congress during the recess of that body?

A. It possesses no sovereign power—it is but the agent of the Sovereign States.

Q. Can you illustrate this retention of Sovereignty by the States by any other example?

A. Suppose an individual, for instance, was to stipulate to transact a portion of his business by an agent, and the remainder by himself, and to forbear to exert his moral faculties, and physical energies upon that class of subjects, which, by his agreement, are to be acted upon by his agent. Has he by his stipulation lessened, impaired or diminished his moral or physical powers? On the contrary, the validity of the agency depends upon his retaining those faculties, for if he shall become insane, or die, the agent cannot act, because the power of his principal has become extinct; so it is the power, the full subsisting Sovereign Power of the States, which gives validity to the acts of the General Government. The validity of these acts does not result from the exercise of a portion of the Sovereign Power of each State.

Q. Why then has it been supposed by some, that when the States formed the Constitution, they cut the Sovereignty of each State into two parts, and gave much the larger portion to the General Government?

A. Many erroneous and mischievous opinions proceed from ignorance of the true meaning of words. Sovereignty, Rebellion, Nullification, &c. we hear everyday used, without any precise idea being attached to their signification.

Q. What is the meaning of Sovereignty?

A. It is the will of civil society in the Social Compact, which society is a moral person, whose will, like the will of the human being, cannot be divided without destroying the person; we can conceive the will operating in a thousand various ways, but we cannot conceive its separation into parts; neither can we conceive of the separation of Sovereignty—its unity and life are inseparable.

Q. How do you define Rebellion?

A. It is the resistance of an inferior to the lawful authority of a superior. A child may rebel against a parent—a slave against his master—citizens against the government, and colonies against the mother-country—but a State cannot rebel; because one Sovereign cannot rebel against another, for all Sovereigns are equal. The Sovereignty of the little State of Delaware is equal to that of New York, or of Russia, though the physical power of those Sovereignties are vastly different. The supposition, therefore, that a Sovereign State can commit Rebellion, Treason, or any crime whatever, is utterly inadmissible in the science of politics. The idea of crime cannot exist where there is no conceivable or possible tribunal, before which the culprit could be arraigned and convicted. Still less can any State be supposed to incur the guilt of rebellion or treason, by resisting an unconstitutional law of the General Government. The General Government is the creature of the States—the offspring of their Sovereign Power. Is the Creator to be governed by the lawless authority of the Creature? We cannot invert the rule of reason and of law upon that subject, and say, that the superior incurs guilt by resisting the inferior, and not the inferior by resisting the superior.

Q. What is the meaning of Nullification?

A. It is the veto of a Sovereign State on an unconstitutional law of Congress.

Q. Are not unconstitutional laws, of course, null and void?

A. Undoubtedly; and an act of Usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law, and resistance is justifiable. In virtue of her Sovereignty, the State is the judge of her own rights, and bound as Sovereign to protect her citizens, which she does by nullifying¹ the obnoxious law, and releasing them from any obligation to obey it.

Q. Has not this right of the State been denied?

A. Only by those who are enemies of State Rights, whose subterfuge is, that they can find Nullification no where in the Constitution. Suppose a State was to make a treaty with a foreign government, to coin money, to grant letters of marque, or assume any power that she had by the compact delegated to the General Government. When Congress should nullify the assumption, would the State have any right to complain that she could not find Nullification in the Constitution. If the implied right is reciprocal, the State possesses the double right to Nullify, for all rights are reserved to her, that are not specified in the Constitution.

Q. Is there no other check upon the General Government, than the one just mentioned of Nullification?

A. The oath, the several legislative, executive and judicial officers of the several States take to support the Federal Constitution, ought to be as effectual security against the usurpation of the General Government, as it is against the encroachments of the State Governments. For the increase of the powers by usurpation, is as clearly a violation of the Federal Constitution, as a diminution of these powers by private encroachments; and that oath obliges the officers of the several States as vigorously to oppose the one as the other.

Q. Could then any collision arise between the States and the Federal Government, were each confined to its proper sphere?

A. The Constitution has left them sufficient space to move harmoniously together; but it is the General Government that is continually wandering out of the sphere of its legitimacy, and usurping powers, that the combined wisdom of the States imagined, they had carefully guarded from all encroachments.

Q. Have the States ever resumed any of the powers they have delegated to the General Government?

A. Never, in a single instance, have they violated, or attempted to violate the Constitution. The enemies of State Rights pretend, that had the States the right to judge of an unconstitutional law of Congress (in other words, of an infringement on their Sovereignty) they would transcend their appropriate sphere, and usurp the powers assigned to the General Government. On the contrary, it is not the interest of the States to resume the powers they have delegated. The same motives which led to the formation of the Union, a conviction of its utility, are as strong now that its beneficial effects have been experienced, as when they were only anticipated. They have evinced from the period of its formation, no sentiment so strong, as an ardent and devoted attachment to the Union. In Union, they take their high station among the nations of the earth; and in Union, the Star Spangled Banner waves over every sea. But there is a principle we should never forget, that the greatest good when perverted becomes the greatest evil. The Union as it was formed—an Union of Free, Sovereign and Independent States—an Union, affording equal protection and mutual benefit to all, will be considered the greatest political good; but as highly as it ought to be valued, it is not the greatest possible good. There is one still better—still more precious—one which is prized infinitely higher—it is LIBERTY—that LIBERTY for which our Fathers toiled and bled. The usurpations and tyranny of Great Britain were not resisted, that the COLONIES might be UNITED, but that the COLONIES might be free, and for the PEOPLE to be FREE, the STATES must be FREE. Whenever the States cease to maintain their Sovereignty unimpaired, and become vassals of the General Government, the duration of the Union will then, indeed, be problematical. It is, therefore, on the friends of the State Rights—on the supporters of State Rights—on those who cling to State Rights, as to the palladium of their liberties, that we must rely for the maintenance and perpetuity of the Union, and not on the enemies of State Rights.² The weak—the timid—the apathetic, and the ambitious, who raise the cry of disunion to palsy the unity of action, that would emancipate us from the chains of usurpation—these are the real disunionists, and to these and these only, will be attributed, the evils arising from the dissolution of the Union.

Q. What is the new version of the Constitution by Messrs. Webster & Co.?

A. They have discovered that the Constitution was not formed by the States in their Sovereign capacity—that it is not a compact between the States—but that it is a Government formed by the people, en masse, that is, by the people collected into one nation—that this nation brought the Government into existance—established it, and hath hitherto supported it for the very purpose, among others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on State Sovereignties. That in forming this National Government, the people conferred upon the Supreme Court, the power of imposing these certain salutary restraints upon the Sovereignty of the States.

Q. How did they contrive to convert the people of thirteen distinct States into one people?

A. A short analysis of the process by which a State is formed, will demonstrate the impossibility. The discussion of the elements of Government is dull, as is all abstract discussion. But if we undertake to talk politics, we must undertake to know about what we talk, and we cannot understand the nature of our Government, without referring to first principles.

Q. By what process are States formed?

A. There are but two conditions of mankind—the one national, and the other artificial. In a state of nature, there is no government. The laws of nature are the only rules of human conduct, and each individual is his own expounder of those laws. He is the arbiter of his own rights, and the avenger of his own wrongs. There is no power (that is, no moral power) in one man to direct, control, or govern another; all are equally free. The evils inseparable from this condition, induce those who are suffering from it to escape to the artificial state. The transition from a state of nature to that of civil society, is effected by an agreement among all who compose the society, that each and his concerns, shall be directed by the understanding, and protected by the power of all. The agreement is reciprocal. The right which each man possessed, in a state of nature, to direct himself, is voluntarily surrendered by him to the society, and he agrees, that he and his concerns shall henceforth be subject to the will of the society. This contract is either expressed or understood. The power to govern can be obtained upon no other supposition. It is denominated the social compact. It is the charter by which it acquires personality and unity; by which the action of all the people, is considered as the action of a moral agent, of a single person. This moral agent is, in reference to its own condition, called a state, probably, from the fixed and stable condition of the people, compared with their unstable and fluctuating condition in a state of nature. The people compressed or compacted by the social compact into the unit, called a State, remains unchanged under all the changes of its Government, which accident may produce, or war or convulsion may inflict. If a Republic becomes a Monarchy, or a Monarchy a Republic, or if compacts are formed with other States, these are but changes of Government, the Civil Society or State remains unchanged, and is Sovereign, while ever it manages its own affairs by its own will. It is upon this principle that States are not absolved from their debts by revolution, The State and not the Government is the contracting party, and nothing but the dissolution of the social compact and consequent extinction of the State, can absolve it from its payment. Much confusion has arisen from the indiscriminate use of the word State. State means the people in their political capacity, and never their government. By this reference to first principles, we find from the existing state of things—as there were thirteen distinct States at the time the Constitution was formed—that it must of necessity have been formed by the States, not by the people consolidated into one nation, for in no other way could they have been collected into one, but by first absolving themselves from their allegiance to their respective States, and dissolving the compacts by which they were formed into States. Civil Societies have been destroyed by earthquakes, by deluge, and by the exterminating ravages of war; they have often been subdued into vassalage or reduced by usurpation to the condition of provinces, but we have no account in history of a people voluntarily dissolving the social compact. Messrs. Webster & Co’s discovery, therefore, is a proof that there is no absurdity too great for those who are determined to accomplish their views on particular subjects.

Q. Does not the Supreme Court also contend that the Constitution was formed by the people, collectively?

A. The Supreme Court is the creature of the General Government, and has with a constancy and silence, like the approaches of death, adhered to a construction that has increased its own power—enlarged that of the General Government, and thrown chains over State Rights—chains never dreamed of at the formation of the Constitution.

Q. Upon what does the Supreme Court and Messrs. Webster & Co. found their discovery?

A. Upon the preamble to the Constitution—it is in these words: “We the people of the United States, to form a more perfect Union,” &c. To the people of common understanding, black actually means black, and white really white; but to Messrs. Webster & Co. it means just the reverse, “We the people of the United States” means according to them—“We the people not of the United States, but the people collectively.”

Q. When the States formed the Constitution, under which kind of government were they?

A. They were united by the Confederation. To form a more perfect Union of the States already united, to consolidate their Union, was the object of the present Constitution, and not to unite the people, for it was impossible to unite them more perfectly by a Constitution than they were already united by the social compact.

Q. What is the nature of the Supreme Court, that according to Messrs. Webster & Co. has the power of imposing salutary restraints upon State Sovereignty?

A. The epithet of supreme which gives importance to the Court and imposes on the ignorant, is entirely relative, and imports only that appellative jurisdiction which it may exercise over the subordinate Courts of the General Government. The appellative Court, or Court of Appeals of every State, is just as supreme for the same reason—it also exercises jurisdiction over the inferior Courts. It is not called supreme, in reference to the other departments of the Government, nor has it any supremacy in reference to the States. The power accorded it is purely judicial. It is the umpire in all cases of law and equity arising under the Constitution. But questions of sovereignty, policy, or expediency, are unsusceptible of its judicial cognizance and decision. The power to declare a law of Congress, or any of the States, unconstitutional, was never intended to be conferred on the Supreme Court as a direct power. The exercise of the power is merely incidental in exercising the judicial power. The Constitutionality of a law may be incidentally decided, in deciding the law and justice of a case. But the decision must be given in the exercise of merely judicial, and not of political power. Can it be believed that the great men who framed the Constitution, and guarded each specification with such zealous care, ever intended to subject the whole to the control of a judicial Oligarchy? The power asserted for the Supreme Court, is superior to that of imperial Rome in her proudest days. The conquests of Rome were achieved at an incalculable expense of blood and treasure. But the Supreme Court may vassal twenty-four Sovereign States, without expending one cent or shedding one drop of blood.

If the States were but true to themselves, and faithful in the discharge of their high duties, they would move on in the majesty of their sovereign power, and maintain with a steady and equal hand both their Governments within its appropriate sphere, and not permit the mere modicum of judicial power which they have granted to the Supreme Court, to control them in the exercise of their sovereign power.

Q. Why have the States allowed the Constitution, the sacr...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chronology of Events, November 1860-April 1861
• Part I. Prelude to Secession
• Part II. The Lower South
• Part III. The Upper South
• Part IV. Appendixes
• Index