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LETTER V. Beloved Countrymen , Perhaps the objection to the late act, imposing duties upon paper, &c. might have been safely rested on the arguments drawn from the universal conduct of parliaments and ministers, from the first existence of these colonies, to the administration of Mr. Grenville. What but the indisputable, the acknowledged exclusive right of the colonies to tax themselves, could be the reason, that in this long period of more than one hundred and fifty years, no statute was ever passed for the sole purpose of raising a revenue on the colonies? And how clear, how cogent must that reason be, to which every parliament and every minister, for so long a time submitted, without a single attempt to innovate? England in part of that course of years, and Great Britain, in other parts, was engaged in fierce and expensive wars; troubled with some tumultuous and bold parliaments; governed by many daring and wicked ministers; yet none of them ever ventured to touch the PALLADIUM of American Liberty. Ambition, avarice, faction, tyranny, all revered it. Whenever it was necessary to raise money on the colonies, the requisitions of the crown were made, and dutifully complied with. The parliament from time to time regulated their trade, and that of the rest of the empire, to preserve their dependencies, and the connection of the whole in good order. The people of Great-Britain in support of their privileges, boast much of their antiquity. Yet it may well be questioned, if there is a single privilege of a British subject, supported by longer, more solemn, or more uninterrupted testimony, than the exclusive right of taxation in these colonies. The people of Great-Britain consider that kingdom as the sovereign of these colonies, and would now annex to that sovereignty a prerogative never heard of before. How would they bear this, was the case their own? What would they think of a new prerogative claimed by the crown? We may guess what their conduct would be from the transports of passion into which they fell about the late embargo, laid to remove the most emergent necessities of state, admitting of no delay; and for which there were numerous precedents. Let our liberties be treated with the same tenderness, and it is all we desire. Explicit as the conduct of parliaments, for so many ages, is, to prove that no money can be levied on these colonies, by parliament for the purpose of raising a revenue; yet it is not the only evidence in our favour. Every one of the most material arguments against the legality of the Stamp-act operates with equal force against the act now objected to; but as they are well known, it seems unnecessary to repeat them here. This general one only shall be considered at present. That tho' these colonies are dependant on Great-Britain; and tho' she has a legal power to make laws for preserving that dependance; yet it is not necessary for this purpose, nor essential to the relation between a mother-country and her colonies, as was eagerly contended by the advocates for the Stamp-act, that she should raise money upon them without their consent. Colonies were formerly planted by warlike nations, to keep their enemies in awe; to relieve their country overburthened with inhabitants; or to discharge a number of discontented and troublesome citizens. But in more modern ages, the spirit of violence being in some measure, if the expression may be allowed, sheathed in commerce, colonies have been settled by the nations of Europe for the purposes of trade. These purposes were to be attained by the colonies raising for their mother country those things which she did not produce herself; and by supplying themselves from her with things they wanted. These were the national objects in the commencement of our colonies, and have been uniformly so in their promotion. To answer these grand purposes, perfect liberty was known to be necessary; all history proving, that trade and freedom are nearly related to each other. By a due regard to this wise and just plan, the infant colonies exposed in the unknown climates, and unexplored wildernesses of this new world, lived, grew, and flourished. The parent country with undeviating prudence and virtue, attentive to the first principles of colonization, drew to herself the benefits she might reasonably expect, and preserved to her children the blessings, on which those benefits were founded. She made laws obliging her colonies to carry to her all those products which she wanted for her own use; and all those raw materials which she chose herself to work up. Besides this restriction, she forbade them to procure manufactures from any other part of the globe; or even the products of European countries, which alone could rival her, without being first brought to her. In short, by a variety of laws, she regulated their trade in such a manner, as she thought most conducive to their mutual advantage, and her own welfare. A power was reserved to the crown of repealing any laws that should be enacted. The executive authority of government was all lodged in the crown and its representatives; and an appeal was secured to the crown from all judgments in the administration of justice. For all these powers established by the mother country over the colonies; for all these immense emoluments derived by her from them; for all their difficulties and distresses in fixing themselves, what was the recompense made them? A communication of her rights in general, and particularly of that great one, the foundation of all the rest—that their property, acquired with so much pain and hazard, should not be disposed of by any one but themselves—or to use the beautiful and emphatic language of the sacred scriptures, "that they should sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree, and none should make them afraid." Can any man of candour and knowledge deny, that these institutions, form an affinity between Great-Britain and her colonies, that sufficiently secures their dependance upon her? or that for her to levy taxes upon them, is to reverse the nature of things? or that she can pursue such a measure, without reducing them to a state of vassalage? If any person cannot conceive the supremacy of Great Britain to exist, without the power of laying taxes to levy money upon us, the history of the colonies and of Great-Britain since their settlement will prove the contrary. He will there find the amazing advantages arising to her from them—The constant exercise of her supremacy—and their filial submission to it, without a single rebellion, or even the thought of one, from the first emigration to this moment—and all these things have happened, without an instance of Great-Britain laying taxes to levy money upon them. How many British authors have remonstrated that the present wealth, power and glory of their country are founded on these colonies? As constantly as streams tend to the ocean, have they been pouring the fruits of all their labours into their mother's lap. Good Heaven! And shall a total oblivion of former tendernesses and blessings be spread over the minds of a wise people, by the sordid acts of intriguing men, who covering their selfish projects under pretences of public good, first enrage their countrymen into a frenzy of passion, and then advance their own influence and interest, by gratifying that passion, which they themselves have barely excited? Hitherto Great-Britain has been contented with her prosperity. Moderation has been the rule of her conduct. But now a generous and humane people that so often has protected the liberty of strangers, is inflamed into an attempt to tear a privilege from her own children, which, if executed, must in their opinion, sink them into slaves: And for what? For a pernicious power, not necessary to her, as her own experience may convince her; but horribly dreadful and detestable to them. It seems extremely probable, that when cool, dispassionate posterity shall consider the affectionate intercourse, the reciprocal benefits, and the unsuspecting confidence, that have subsisted between these colonies and their parent country, for such a length of time, they will execrate with the bitterest curses the infamous memory of those men, whose pestilential ambition, unnecessarily, wantonly, first opened the sources of civil discord, between them; first turned their love into jealousy; and first taught these provinces, filled with grief and anxiety, to enquire, " Mens ubi materna est? " Where is maternal affection. A FARMER. Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47111/47111-h/47111-h.htm

LETTER IV. Beloved Countrymen , An objection, I hear, has been made against what I offer in my second letter, which I would willingly clear up before I proceed. "There is," say these objectors "a material difference between the Stamp-act and the late act for laying a duty on paper, &c. that justifies the conduct of those who opposed the former, and yet are willing to submit to the latter. The duties imposed by the Stamp-act, were internal taxes, but the present are external, which therefore the parliament may have a right to impose."——To this I answer, with a total denial of the power of parliament to lay upon these colonies any tax whatever. This point being so important to this and to all succeeding generations, I wish to be clearly understood. To the word "Tax," I annex that meaning which the constitution and history of England require to be annexed to it; that it is, an imposition on the subject for the sole purpose of levying money. In the early ages of our monarchy, the services rendered to the crown, for the general good, were personal; but in progress of time, such institutions being found inconvenient, certain gifts and grants of their own property were made by the people, under the several names of aids, tallages, talks, taxes, subsidies, &c. These were made as may be collected even from the names for public service, "upon need and necessity," all these sums were levied upon the people by virtue of their voluntary gift. The design of them was to support the national honour and interest. Some of those grants comprehended duties arising from trade, being imports on merchandizes. These Chief Justice Coke classes "under subsides" and "parliamentary aids." They are also called "customs." But whatever the name was, they were always considered as gifts of the people to the crown, to be employed for public uses. Commerce was at a low ebb, and most surprising instances may be produced, how little it was attended to, for a succession of ages. The terms that have been mentioned, and among the rest that of "tax," had obtained a national, parliamentary meaning, drawn from the principles of the constitution, long before any Englishmen thought of regulations of trade "by imposing duties." Whenever we speak of taxes among Englishmen, let us therefore speak of them with reference to the intentions with which, and the principles on which they have been established. This will give certainty to our expression, and safety to our conduct: but if when we have in view the liberty of these colonies, and the influence of "taxes" laid without our consent, we proceed in any other course, we pursue a Juno indeed, but shall only catch a cloud. In the national parliamentary sense insisted on, the word "tax" was certainly understood by the congress at New-York, whose resolves may be said to form the American "bill of rights." I am satisfied that the congress was of opinion, that no impositions could be legally laid on the people of these colonies for the purpose of levying money, but by themselves or their representatives. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth resolves are thus expressed. III. "That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no tax be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives." IV. "That the people of the colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be represented in the House of Commons, in Great-Britain." V. "That the only representatives of the people of the colonies, are the persons chosen therein by themselves; and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures." VI. "That all supplies to the crown being free gifts of the people, it is unreasonable and inconsistent with the principles and spirit of the British constitution, for the people of Great-Britain to grant to his Majesty the property of the colonies." Here is no distinction made, between internal and external taxes. It is evident from the short reasoning thrown into these resolves that every imposition "to grant to his Majesty the property of the colonies," was thought a "tax;" and that every such imposition if laid any other way "but with their consent, given personally, or by their representatives;" was not only "unreasonable, and inconsistent with the principles and spirit of the British constitution," but destructive "to the freedom of a people." This language is clear and important. A "tax" means an imposition to raise money. Such persons therefore as speak of internal and external "taxes," I pray may pardon me, if I object to that expression as applied to the privileges and interests of these colonies. There may be external and internal impositions, founded on different principles, and having different tendencies; every "tax" being an imposition, tho' every imposition is not a "tax." But all "taxes" are founded on the same principle, and have the same tendency. "External impositions for the regulation of our trade, do not grant to his Majesty the property of the colonies." They only prevent the colonies acquiring property in things not necessary, and in a manner judged to be injurious to the welfare of the whole empire. But the last statute respecting us, "grants to his Majesty the property of these colonies," by laying duties on manufactures of Great-Britain, which they must take, and which he settled them, in order that they should take. What "tax" can be more "internal" than this? Here is money drawn without their consent from a society, who have constantly enjoyed a constitutional mode of raising all money among themselves. The payment of this tax they have no possible method of avoiding, as they cannot do without the commodities on which it is laid, and they cannot manufacture these commodities themselves; besides, if this unhappy country should be so lucky as to elude this act, by getting parchment enough to use in the place of paper, or reviving the antient method of writing on wax and bark, and by inventing something to serve instead of glass, her ingenuity would stand her in little stead; for then the parliament would have nothing to do, but to prohibit manufactures, or to lay a tax on hats and woollen cloths, which they have already prohibited the colonies from supplying each other with; or on instruments and tools of steel and iron, which they have prohibited the provincials from manufacturing at all And then what little gold and silver they have, must be torn from their hands, or they will not be able in a short time, to get an ax for cutting their firewood, nor a plough for raising their food.—In what respect therefore, I beg leave to ask, is the late act preferable to the Stamp-act, or more consistent with the liberties of the colonies? "I regard them both with equal apprehension, and think they ought to be in the same manner opposed." " Habemus quidem senatus consultum—tanquam gladium in vagina repositum " We have a statute like a sword in the scabbard. A FARMER. Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47111/47111-h/47111-h.htm

LETTER III. Beloved Countrymen , I rejoice to find, that my two former letters to you, have been generally received with so much favour by such of you whose sentiments I have had an opportunity of knowing. Could you look into my heart, you would instantly perceive an ardent affection for your persons, a zealous attachment to your interests, a lively resentment of every insult and injury offered to your honour or happiness, and an inflexible resolution to assert your rights, to the utmost of my weak power, to be the only motives that have engaged me to address you. I am no further concerned in any thing affecting America, than any one of you, and when liberty leaves it I can quit it much more conveniently than most of you: but while divine providence, that gave me existence in a land of freedom, permits my head to think, my lips to speak, and my hand to move, I shall so highly and gratefully value the blessing received, as to take care that my silence and inactivity shall not give my implied assent to any act degrading my brethren and myself from the birthright wherewith heaven itself " hath made us free ." Sorry I am to learn, that there are some few persons, shake their heads with solemn motion, and pretend to wonder what can be the meaning of these letters. "Great-Britain, they say, is too powerful to contend with; she is determined to oppress us; it is in vain to speak of right on one side, when there is power on the other; when we are strong enough to resist, we shall attempt it; but now we are not strong enough, and therefore we had better be quiet; it signifies nothing to convince us that our rights are invaded, when we cannot defend them, and if we should get into riots and tumults about the late act, it will only draw down heavier displeasure upon us." What can such men design? What do their grave observations amount to, but this—"that these colonies, totally regardless of their liberties, should commit them, with humble resignation, to chance , time , and the tender mercies of ministers ." Are these men ignorant, that usurpations, which might have been successfully opposed at first, acquire strength by continuance, and thus become irresistible? Do they condemn the conduct of these colonies, concerning the Stamp-act ? Or have they forgot its successful issue? Ought the colonies at that time, instead of acting as they did, to have trusted for relief, to the fortuitous events of futurity? If it is needless "to speak of rights" now, it was as needless then. If the behaviour of the colonies was prudent and glorious then, and successful too; it will be equally prudent and glorious to act in the same manner now, if our rights are equally invaded, and may be as successful. Therefore it becomes necessary to enquire, whether "our rights are  invaded." To talk of "defending" them, as if they could be no otherwise "defended" than by arms, is as much out of the way, as if a man having a choice of several roads to reach his journey's end, should prefer the worst, for no other reason, than because it is the worst. As to "riots and tumults," the gentlemen who are so apprehensive of them, are much mistaken, if they think, that grievances cannot be redressed without such assistance. I will now tell the gentlemen, what is "the meaning of these letters." The meaning of them is, to convince the people of these colonies, that they are at this moment exposed to the most imminent dangers; and to persuade them immediately, vigourously, and unanimously, to exert themselves, in the most firm, but most peaceable manner for obtaining relief. The cause of liberty is a cause of too much dignity, to be sullied by turbulence and tumult. It ought to be maintained in a manner suitable to her nature. Those who engage in it, should breathe a sedate, yet fervent spirit, animating them to actions of prudence, justice, modesty, bravery, humanity, and magnanimity. To such a wonderful degree were the antient Spartans , as brave and as free a people as ever existed, inspired by this happy temperature of soul, that rejecting even in their battles the use of trumpets, and other instruments for exciting heat and rage, they marched up to scenes of havock and horror, with the sound of flutes, to the tunes of which their steps kept pace—"exhibiting, as Plutarch  says, at once a terrible and delightful sight, and proceeding with a deliberate valour, full of hope and good assurance, as if some divinity had insensibly assisted them." I hope, my dear countrymen, that you will in every colony be upon your guard against those who may at any time endeavour to stir you up, under pretences of patriotism, to any measures disrespectful to our sovereign and our mother country. Hot, rash, disorderly proceedings, injure the reputation of a people as to wisdom, valour and virtue, without procuring them the least benefit. I pray God, that he may be pleased to inspire you and your posterity to the latest ages with that spirit, of which I have an idea, but find a difficulty to express: to express in the best manner I can, I mean a spirit that shall so guide you, that it will be impossible to determine, whether an American 's character is most distinguishable for his loyalty to his sovereign, his duty to his mother country, his love of freedom, or his affection for his native soil. Every government, at some time or other, falls into wrong measures; these may proceed from mistake or passion.——But every such measure does not dissolve the obligation between the governors and the governed; the mistake may be corrected; the passion may pass over. It is the duty of the governed, to endeavour to rectify the mistake, and appease the passion. They have not at first any other right, than to represent their grievances, and to pray for redress, unless an emergency is so pressing, as not to allow time for receiving an answer to their applications which rarely happens. If their applications are disregarded, then that kind of opposition becomes justifiable, which can be made without breaking the laws, or disturbing the public peace. This consists in the prevention of the oppressors reaping advantage from their oppressions, and not in their punishment. For experience may teach them what reason did not; and harsh methods, cannot be proper, till milder ones have failed. If at length it becomes undoubted, that an inveterate resolution is formed to annihilate[32] the liberties of the governed, the English history affords frequent examples of resistance by force. What particular circumstances will in any future case justify such resistance, can never be ascertained till they happen. Perhaps it may be allowable to say, generally, that it never can be justifiable, until the people are FULLY CONVINCED, that any further submission will be destructive to their happiness. When the appeal is made to the sword, highly probable it is, that the punishment will exceed the offence; and the calamities attending on war out weigh those preceding it. These considerations of justice and prudence, will always have great influence with good and wise men. To these reflections on this subject, it remains to be added, and ought for ever to be remembred; that resistance in the case of colonies against their mother country, is extremely different from the resistance of a people against their prince. A nation may change their King or race of Kings, and retain their antient form of government, be gainers by changing. Thus Great-Britain, under the illustrious house of Brunswick, a house that seems to flourish for the happiness of mankind, has found a felicity, unknown in the reigns of the Stuarts. But if once we are separated from our mother country, what new form of government shall we accept, or when shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws, affections, relations, language, and commerce, we must bleed at every vein. In truth, the prosperity of these provinces is founded in their dependance on Great-Britain; and when she returns to "her old good humour, and old good nature," as Lord Clerendon expresses it, I hope they will always esteem it their duty and interest, as it most certainly will be, to promote her welfare by all the means in their power. We cannot act with too much caution in our disputes. Anger produces anger; and differences that might be accommodated by kind and respectful behaviour, may by imprudence be changed to an incurable rage. In quarrels between countries, as well as in those between individuals, when they have risen to a certain heighth, the first cause of dissention is no longer remembred, the minds of the parties being wholly engaged in recollecting and resenting the mutual expressions of their dislike. When feuds have reached that fatal point, all considerations of reason and equity vanish; and a blind fury governs, or rather confounds all things. A people no longer regards their interest, but the gratification of their wrath. The sway of the Cleon's, and Clodius's, the designing and detestable flatters of the prevailing passion, becomes confirmed. Wise and good men in vain oppose the storm, and may think themselves fortunate, if, endeavouring to preserve their ungrateful fellow citizens, they do not ruin themselves. Their prudence will be called baseness; their moderation, guilt; and if their virtue does not lead them to destruction, as that of many other great and excellent persons has done, they may survive, to receive from their expiring country, the mournful glory of her acknowledgment, that their councils, if regarded, would have saved her. The constitutional modes of obtaining relief, are those which I would wish to see pursued on the present occasion, that is, by petitioning of our assemblies, or, where they are not permitted to meet, of the people to the powers that can afford us relief. We have an excellent prince, in whose good dispositions towards us we may confide. We have a generous, sensible, and humane nation, to whom we may apply. They may be deceived: they may, by artful men, be provoked to anger against us; but I cannot yet believe they will be cruel or unjust; or that their anger will be implacable. Let us behave like dutiful children, who have received unmerited blows from a beloved parent. Let us complain to our parents; but let our complaints speak at the same time, the language of affliction and veneration. If, however, it shall happen by an unfortunate course of affairs, that our applications to his Majesty and the parliament for the redress, prove ineffectual, let us then take another step, by withholding from Great-Britain, all the advantages she has been used to receive from us. Then let us try, if our ingenuity, industry, and frugality, will not give weight to our remonstrances. Let us all be united with one spirit in one cause. Let us invent; let us work; let us save; let us at the same time, keep up our claims, and unceasingly repeat our complaints; but above all, let us implore the protection of that infinite good and gracious Being, "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice." " Nil desperandum. " Nothing is to be despaired of. A FARMER. Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47111/47111-h/47111-h.htm

LETTER II. Beloved Countrymen , There is another late act of parliament, which seems to me to be as destructive to the liberty of these colonies, as that inserted in my last letter; that is, the act for granting the duties on paper, glass, &c. It appears to me to be unconstitutional. The parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate  the trade of Great-Britain , and all its colonies. Such an authority is essential to the relation between a mother country and its colonies; and necessary for the common good of all. He, who considers these provinces as states distinct from the British Empire , has very slender notions of justice  or of their interests . We are but parts of a whole ; and therefore there must exist a power somewhere, to preside, and preserve the connection in due order. This power is lodged in the parliament; and we are as much dependant on Great-Britain , as a perfectly free people can be on another. I have looked over every statute  relating to these colonies, from their first settlement to this time; and I find every one of them founded on this principle, till the Stamp-act administration. All before  are calculated to preserve or promote a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire; and though many of them imposed duties on trade, yet those duties were always imposed with design  to restrain the commerce of one part, that was injurious to another, and thus to promote the general welfare. The raising a revenue thereby was never intended. Thus, the king by his judges in his courts of justice, imposes fines, which all together amount to a considerable sum, and contribute to the support of government: but this is merely a consequence arising from restrictions, which only meant to keep peace, and prevent confusion; and surely a man would argue very loosely, who should conclude from hence, that the King has a right to levy money in general upon his subjects; Never did the British parliament , till the period abovementioned, think of imposing duties in America FOR THE PURPOSE OF RAISING A REVENUE. Mr. Greenville's  sagacity first introduced this language, in the preamble to the 4th of Geo. III. Ch. 15, which has these words—"And whereas it is just and necessary that a revenue be raised in your Majesty's said dominions in America, for defraying the expences of defending, protecting and securing the same : We your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, being desirous to make some provision in the present session of parliament, towards raising the said revenue in America, have resolved to give and grant unto your Majesty the several rates and duties herein after mentioned," &c. A few months after came the Stamp-act , which reciting this, proceeds in the same strange mode of expression, thus—"And whereas it is just and necessary, that provision be made for raising a further revenue within your majesty's dominions in America, towards defraying the said expences, we your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Great-Britain, &c. GIVE and GRANT," &c. as before. The last act, granting duties upon paper, &c. carefully pursues these modern precedents. The preamble is, "Whereas it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in your Majesty's dominions in America, for making a more certain and adequate provision for the defraying the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government in such provinces, where it shall be found necessary; and towards the further defraying the expences of defending, protecting and securing the said dominions, we your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Great-Britain, &c. give and grant," &c. as before. Here we may observe an authority expressly  claimed to impose duties on these colonies; not for the regulation of trade; not for the preservation or promotion of a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire, heretofore the sole objects  of parliamentary institutions; but for the single purpose of levying money upon us . This I call an innovation; and a most dangerous innovation. It may perhaps be objected, that Great-Britain  has a right to lay what duties she pleases upon her exports, and it makes no difference to us, whether they are paid here or there. To this I answer. These colonies require many things for their use, which the laws of Great-Britain  prohibit them from getting any where but from her. Such are paper and glass. That we may be legally bound to pay any general  duties on these commodities, relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by her laws  to take them from Great Britain, any special  duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only , are as much taxes  upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp-act . What is the difference in substance  and right , whether the same sum is raised upon us by the rates mentioned in the Stamp-act, on the use  of the paper, or by these duties, on the importation  of it. It is nothing but the edition of a former book, with a new title page. Suppose the duties were made payable in Great-Britain ? It signifies nothing to us, whether they are to be paid here or there. Had the Stamp-act  directed, that all the paper should be landed in Florida , and the duties paid there, before it was brought to the British Colonies , would the act have raised less money upon us, or have been less destructive of our rights? By no means: For as we were under a necessity of using the paper, we should have been under the necessity of paying the duties. Thus, in the present case, a like necessity  will subject us, if this act continues in force, to the payment of the duties now imposed. Why was the Stamp-act  then so pernicious to freedom? It did not enact, that every man in the colonies should  buy a certain quantity of paper—No: It only directed, that no instrument of writing should be valid in law, if not made on stamp paper, &c. The makers of that act knew full well, that the confusions that would arise upon the disuse of writings would COMPEL the colonies to use the stamp paper, and therefore to pay the taxes imposed. For this reason the Stamp-act  was said to be a law THAT WOULD EXECUTE ITSELF. For the very same reason, the last act of parliament, if it is granted to have any force here, will execute itself, and will be attended with the very same consequences to American Liberty . Some persons perhaps may say, that this act lays us under no necessity to pay the duties imposed, because we may ourselves manufacture the articles on which they are laid: whereas by the Stamp-act no instrument of writing could be good, unless made on British paper, and that too stampt. Such an objection amounts to no more than this, that the injury resulting to these colonies, from the total disuse of British paper and glass, will not be so afflicting  as that which would have resulted from the total disuse of writing among them; for by that means even the stamp-act might have been eluded. Why then was it universally detested by them as slavery itself? Because it presented to these devoted provinces nothing but a choice of calamities, imbittered by indignities, each of which it was unworthy of freemen to bear. But is no injury a violation of right but the greatest  injury? If the eluding the payment of the duties imposed by the stamp-act, would have subjected us to a more dreadful inconvenience, than the eluding the payment of those imposed by the late act; does it therefore follow, that the last is no violation of our rights, though it is calculated for the same purpose that the other was, that is, to raise money upon us , WITHOUT OUR CONSENT? This would be making right  to consist, not in an exemption from injury , but from a certain degree of injury . But the objectors may further say, that we shall sustain no injury at all by the disuse of British paper and glass. We might not, if we could make as much as we want. But can any man, acquainted with America, believe this possible? I am told there are but two or three glass-houses  on this continent, and but very few paper-mills ; and suppose more should be erected, a long course of years must elapse, before they can be brought to perfection. This continent is a country of planters, farmers, and fishermen; not of manufacturers. The difficulty of establishing particular manufactures in such a country, is almost insuperable, for one manufacture is connected with others in such a manner, that it may be said to be impossible to establish one or two, without establishing several others. The experience of many nations may convince us of this truth. Inexpressible therefore must be our distresses in evading the late acts, by the disuse of British paper and glass. Nor will this be the extent of our misfortunes, if we admit the legality of that act. Great-Britain  has prohibited the manufacturing iron and steel in these colonies, without any objection being made to her right of doing it. The like right she must have to prohibit any other manufacture among us. Thus she is possessed of an undisputed precedent  on that point. This authority, she will say, is founded on the original intention  of settling these colonies; that is, that she should manufacture for them, and that they should supply her with materials. The equity  of this policy, she will also say, has been universally acknowledged by the colonies, who never have made the least objection to statutes for that purpose; and will further appear by the mutual benefits  flowing from this usage, ever since the settlement of these colonies. Our great advocate, Mr. Pitt, in his speeches on the debate concerning the repeal of the Stamp-act , acknowledged, that Great-Britain could restrain our manufactures. His words are these—"This kingdom, as the supreme governing and legislative power, has always  bound the colonies by her regulations and restrictions  in trade, in navigation, in manufactures ——in every thing, except that of taking their money out of their pockets , WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT." Again he says, "We may bind their trade, CONFINE THEIR MANUFACTURES, and exercise every power whatever, except that of taking money out of their pockets, WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT." Here then, let my countrymen, ROUSE yourselves, and behold the ruin hanging over their heads. If they ONCE admit, that Great-Britain may lay duties upon her exportations to us, for the purpose of levying money on us only , she then will have nothing to do, but to lay those duties on the articles which she prohibits us to manufacture—and the tragedy of American liberty is finished. We have been prohibited from procuring manufactures, in all cases, any where but from Great-Britain, (excepting linens, which we are permitted to import directly from Ireland). We have been prohibited, in some cases, from manufacturing for ourselves; We are therefore exactly in the situation of a city besieged, which is surrounded by the works of the besiegers in every part but one . If that  is closed up, no step can be taken, but to surrender at discretion . If Great-Britain can order us to come to her for necessaries we want, and can order us to pay what taxes she pleases before we take them away, or when we have them here, we are as abject slaves, as France and Poland can shew in wooden shoes, and with uncombed hair. Perhaps the nature of the necessities of the dependant states, caused by the policy of a governing one, for her own benefit, may be elucidated by a fact mentioned in history. When the Carthaginians were possessed of the island of Sardinia, they made a decree, that the Sardinians should not get corn, any other way than from the Carthaginians. Then, by imposing any duties they would, they drained from the miserable Sardinians any sums they pleased; and whenever that oppressed people made the least movement to assert their liberty, their tyrants starved them to death or submission. This may be called the most perfect kind of political necessity. From what has been said, I think this uncontrovertible conclusion may be deduced, that when a ruling state obliges a dependant state to take certain commodities from her alone, it is implied in the nature of that obligation; and is essentially requisite to give it the least degree of justice; and is inseparably united with it, in order to preserve any share of freedom to the dependant state; that those commodities should never be loaded with duties for the sole purpose of levying money on the dependant state. The place of paying the duties imposed by the late act, appears to me therefore to be totally immaterial. The single question is, whether the parliament can legally impose duties to be paid by the people of these colonies only  for the sole purpose of raising a revenue, on commodities which she obliges us to take from her alone ; or, in other words, whether the parliament can legally take money out of our pockets, without our consent. If they can, our boasted liberty is but Vox et præterea nihil. A sound, and nothing else. A FARMER. Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47111/47111-h/47111-h.htm

Obama Signs A.C.A. "Obamacare" Into Law

Medgar Evers, field secretary for the NAACP, shot to death by a sniper around 12:30 am, Evers' family were awake after watching JFK's speech announcing the Civil Rights Bill. Byron De La Beckwith, the shooter, would not be convicted until 1994.

Headquarters District of Grenada, Grenada, Miss., July 24, 1865. CIRCULAR: Having been ordered by superior authority to take command of this Sub District, and having observed within the few days since assuming command, that certain parties are not aware that the status of the colored population had undergone a radical change, I deem it my duty to lay before the people my future course of action with reference to the freedmen. It is not my intention to deal harshly with people who have since their infancy been taught to look upon the negro as a mere chattel. It is not to be expected that human beings can abruptly alter their sentiments or instantly eradicate deep rooted prejudices, but one thing they can alter, and shape at once according to circumstances, that is their actions - they must cease to abuse and maltreat the negro. I am determined to stop all whipping, kicking, and otherwise abusing the negro. If this notice is not sufficient to induce certain parties to treat the colored people humanely, I shall adopt such measures as will teach them that negroes have rights, which the white man is bound to respect. H. Lieb, Col., Com'dg Sub Dist. of Grenada Source: The Weekly Panola Star (Panola, Mississippi), August 5, 1865

That ponderous cloud of dismal terror which for a time overhung the national capital, darkening the blue sky of “our glorious union,” and from which the simple people have only been allowed to see a few fierce, transient flashes, to keep up gloomy apprehension and dismay, has at last discharged its thunder and dissolved. The long-dreaded bolt has reached its maturity and fallen. Men whole hearts were failing for fear of those things which seemed to be coming upon the land, rest from their agonizing fears, look happier, and breathe freer. The apprehended fulmination from the secret conclave of slaveholders and slave traders, charged with “accounts terrible, of dire confusion,” and threatening the very existence of this Republic, turns out to be an old speech of John C. Calhoun, newly vamped up, and dressed to suit the taste of some forty other slaveholders besides himself. The alarmed and appalled nation has at last seen the baseless character of its fears and we presume will not be so easily alarmed again. The thousand cats in the cellar are reduced to “our cat and another old black cat.” But lest we should be accused of treating this grave address with too much levity, we shall venture a brief review of it. The subject of the address is called “the most solemn and important ever presented to the consideration of the Southern people.” The subject is summed up in the following ambiguous terms: “We allude to the conflict between two great sections of the Union, growing out of a difference of feeling and opinion in reference to the relation existing between the two races, the European and African, which inhabit the Southern section, and the acts of aggression and encroachment to which it has led.” Just read this statement of the subject over again, and try to understand what is meant by it. The “difference of feeling and opinion” –”relation existing” between two races — “inhabit the Southern section” –”acquisition and encroachment.” Now, the meaning of all this is, the difference of feeling and opinion in the Northern States from the slaveholders in the Southern States. The people of the North, thank Heaven, are becoming more and more deeply impressed with the awful crime of slavery, and are manifesting it, by hesitating to extend its blighting influence to territory now free; and this is the point that gives “solemnity” to the subject. This is the calamity which produces apprehension and alarm. How carefully the above sentences is worded! European and African races, stands for slaveholders and slaves, which inhabit the Southern section. This very soft way of sliding over the hateful word slavery, shows the slaveholder conscious of his hateful crime, and is itself a confession of guilt. The signers of the address say: “We have made it a joint address, because we believe that the magnitude of the subject required that it should assume the most impressive and solemn form.” Poor fellows! How much chagrin must they experience when they witness the mirthful levity produced by their impressive solemnity. A band of forty manstealers solemnly defending their right to plunder their fellow-men of all rights and liberties! An “impressive” scene, which ought to excite as much respect as the union of so many sheepstealers! If ever a body of men were deserving of scorn and contempt, this band of flesh-mongers do deserve it. Their whole proceedings have amounted to less than an admirable farce. The address gives a history of the “difference of feeling and opinion in reference to the relation between the two farces.” Oh! the deceitfulness of sin! This difference disclosed itself in the Convention that framed the Constitution. Would that the difference had been stronger! What the address has to say on the subject of the compromise entered into on the part of the free States with the slave States, every Northern man should ponder well; and draw from it a lesson that will forever preclude him from entering into another like it. It will be seen that the address assumes a clear recognition of slavery in the United States Constitution, by the clause relating to taxation and representation — that relating to the return of fugitive slaves, and that respecting the importation of slaves. We deem it unfortunate for these honorable menstealers, that in no instance have they been able to find a word in either of these clauses which bears the definition of slaves or slavery. The word slave in all these references, is the word of this conclave, and not of the Constitution. — The language in each of the provisions to which the address refers, though doubtless intended to bolster up slavery, and to respect slave property, has been so ambiguously worded as to bear a very different construction; and taken in connection with the preamble of that instrument, the very opposite of the construction given it by this wily band of slaveholders, and they have just reason to apprehend that such a construction may yet be placed upon that instrument as shall prove the downfall of slavery. But granting that the slaveholding construction is the one by which the nation is to be bound and governed, we are glad to see the issue plainly put to Northern men. We say to the slaveholder, Insist upon your right to make Northern men your bloodhounds, to hunt down your slaves, and return them to bondage. We say, let this be insisted upon, the more strenuously the better, as it will the sooner awaken the North to a sense of their responsibility for slavery, not only in the District of Columbia, and in forts, arsenals, and navy-yards, but in the States themselves; and will the sooner see their duty to labor for the removal of slavery from every part of this most unhallowed Union. In any case, nought but slaveholders have anything to fear. The moral sense of the North is becoming restless on this subject. It revolts at the idea of sanctioning slavery, and it must and will seek some mode by which to escape the responsibility of so foul, mean and cruel a system of wrong as is slavery. And it would not be strange if, pressed by the demand for the pound of flesh, they, in turn, should forbid the blood and thus thwart the guilty manstealer of the rewards of the guilty bargain. But we are for admitting that the Constitution is just what these slaveholders in this address say it is; and on conscientious grounds demand the immediate dissolution of the American Union, as required by liberty and the law of the living God. What man will say that the Union ought to exist for a single moment, if under it Northern men are content to act as the bloodhounds of the South, to hunt down, recapture and return to slavery and chains, every brother-man who may be so fortunate as to escape from bondage? Who, who would stain his soul by keeping a bargain so wicked and inhuman as that imposed by these merciless “forty thieves,” in the name of the United States’ Constitution? — The person that would so do, is a traitor to God and man. These slaveholders say in their address, that there is not (in the clause which they allege relates to fugitive slaves) “an uncertain or equivocal word to be found in the whole provision.” This is not true. If the provision in question refers to slaves escaping from slave States into free States, and was intended to define the right of masters to apprehend their slaves, and the duty of free States to deliver them up, the language used, is most ambiguous and inappropriate. — The words “held to service and labor,” for instance, does not necessarily imply the relation of “master and slave,” and is rather a description of minors and apprentices, than of slaves. Then the term “person.” Is not this term in itself equivocal? Are slaves, in law, regarded as persons; or are they regarded as property? and is there not a distinction, broad, deep and wide, between property and persons? If they are property, they cannot be regarded by the law as persons; and if they are regarded both in the light of persons and property, the term is imperfect, equivocal, and inappropriate. In his same clause, the term, “shall be delivered upon claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due,” carries upon its face the appearance of a contract, by which one party has a just claim upon the service and labor of another; whereas, the slaveholder has no just claim upon the labor or service of a slave, and the slave has never and can never make any contract with his master, and can never violate a contract, or owe his master any service or labor. It strikes us that the whole provision is uncertain, equivocal, and carries upon its face no recognition of the right of a slaveholder to recapture his slave; so that while we admit that this clause was intended to apply to fugitive slaves, and to enable their piratical owners to arrest them, and the free States to deliver them up to such claimants, we utterly deny that the clause in question is either clear or explicit. Suppose a man from another country should read that clause of the American Constitution, with no other knowledge of the character of American institutions than what he derived from the reading of that instrument, will any one pretend that the clause in question would be thought to apply to slaves? We think not. Nor would he dream of such an outrage, such a savage monstrosity, on reading any other part of the Constitution. — Blot slavery from existence, and the whole frame-work of the Constitution might remain unchanged. There is, therefore, nothing in the Constitution which means slavery — only slavery — and nothing else than slavery. The fact is, the framers of that cunning instrument were ashamed of the name, while they had not the honesty to renounce the thing, slavery; and it is the same sense of the shame today which leads the friends and defenders of this inhuman system to use the term “peculiar institution,” “the relation subsisting between the European and African races” and the like. It is with a view to hide their great moral deformity from the eye of the world, and to shield slavery from the assaults and bolts which must ever descend upon it, when its gross form is presented to reflecting and humane men. But we pass from this to another point in the address. It is this, the clear and positive testimony it bears to the efficiency of the anti-slavery agitation at the North in undermining and destroying slavery at the South. The old moonshine about putting back the cause of emancipation by agitation, has no countenance in this document. Mr. Calhoun and his “forty thieves” see and clearly comprehend the moral forces now operating against slavery, and is too honest towards his fellow-companions in crime to conceal the danger which besets, or to affect to despise that danger. He is proud, haughty, and bitter, but not defiant. He sees in the systematic agitation — the tracts, pictures, papers, pamphlets, and books — societies, lectures, and petitions, the most efficient means to bring about a state of things which will force the South into emancipation. We thank Mr. Calhoun for this testimony. It is given in circumstances which add materially to its intrinsic value. — It is extorted against pride and precedent , two very strong resisting forces. Heretofore, abolitionists have been spoken of as “fanatics,” “madmen,” altogether a most contemptible body, the only effect of whose efforts would be, to rivet the fetter more closely on the limbs of the slave. That they are not so viewed now, is evident. If mad, there is a “method in their madness,” as alarming to Mr. Calhoun as his “forty thieves,” as that of Hamlet to his murderous and incestuous uncle. Let abolitionists remember this testimony of Mr. Calhoun, and thank God, and take courage in view of the admitted adaptedness of our measures to the accomplishment of our grand and commanding object — the entire abolition of slavery throughout this country — as well in South Carolina as in California. We like the testimony of Mr. Calhoun better than his reasoning. He says: “Slavery is a domestic institution. It belongs to the States, each for itself, to decide whether it shall be established or not; and, if it be established, whether it should be abolished or not. Such being the clear and unquestionable rights of the States, it follows necessarily that it would be a flagrant act of aggression on a State, destructive of its rights, and subversive of its independence, for the federal government, or one or more States, or their people, to undertake to force on it the emancipation of its slaves. But it is a sound maxim in politics, as well as law and morals, that no one has a right to do that indirectly, which he cannot do directly, and it may be added with equal truth, to aid, or abet, or countenance another in doing it.” Better call it Domestic Robbery Institution . To buy and sell, to brand and scourge human beings with the heavy lash—-to rob them of all the just rewards of their labor—-to compel them to live in ignorance of their relations to God and man — to blot out the institution of marriage—-to herd men and women together like the beasts of the field—-to deprive them of the means of learning to read the name of God-—to destroy their dignity as human beings—-to record their names on the ledger with horses, sheep and swine—-to feed them on a peck of corn a-week—-to work them under a burning sun in the rice-swamp, cotton-field, sugar-plantation, almost in a state of nudity—-to sunder families for the convenience of purchasers—-to examine men, women, and children, on the auction-block as a jockey would examine a horse—-to punish them for a word, look, or gesture—-to burn their flesh with hot irons—-to tear their backs with the poisonous claws of a living cat—-to shoot, stab, and hunt humanity with bloodhounds—-for one class of men to have exclusive and absolute power over the bodies and souls of another class of human beings; this, the whole of this infernal catalogue, is comprehended in the soft and innocent term, “domestic institution.” This is the established order of things in Carolina; and Mr. Calhoun and his “forty thieves” would have the same order of things in California. But now to the doctrine laid down in the above extract—-It goes the length of denying, on moral grounds, to any and every person out of the State where slavery exists, the right of saying, looking, or doing anything, directly or indirectly, for the overthrow of slavery-—According to this reasoning, it would be immoral for Northern men to refuse to wear slave-grown cotton, or to eat slave-grown rice and sugar, since by pursuing such a course, peradventure they might decrease the value of slaves, and thereby indirectly affect the permanence of slavery. We are not to write, speak, or publish anything on the subject of human slavery, lest it serve to darken the fame of slavery, and lessen it in the popular estimation, and thereby indirectly destroy slavery, by exalting liberty. To do so, would necessarily be a flagrant aggression, a violation of the rights of a State, and subversive of its government. For what we have no right to do directly by legislation, we have no right to do indirectly by any other means.—-This is strange logic for one of the most powerful minds and renowned statesmen that America affords. Coming from another quarter, it would demand no answer or comment; but from such a man, endorsed by such a company, read so universally, and put forth so imposingly, and solemnly, aiming as it does, at the very foundation of the anti-slavery movement, it may be proper to spend a few thoughts upon it. How completely has slavery triumphed over the mind of this strong man! It holds full, complete and absolute control in his mind; so much so, that seeing it, he cannot and does not desire to see anything else than slavery. The right of speech, the freedom of the press, the liberty of assembling, and the right of petition, have in his judgment no rightful existence in the Constitution of the United States. Slavery is there; he knows it to be there; it has a right to be there; and anything inconsistent with it is wrong, immoral, and has no right to be there. This is evidently the state of mind with Mr. Calhoun brings to the consideration of this subject. To reduce his reasoning to its real point and pith, it amounts to this-— that where a people have not power to legislate for the overthrow of what they think an evil, they have no moral right to think, or speak, or do anything else which may induce those who have legislative power to exercise it for the removal of such evil. It is on this reasoning that he builds his complaint against the Northern States, as wanting in respect to the institutions and sovereignty of the Southern States; that they have not by legislative enactment silenced the voice of free speech, and suppressed the publications of the abolitionists. If Mr. Calhoun is right in his first position, he is right in his conclusion; but he is wrong in both. We have no legislative power to dethrone the Queen of England, but we have no moral right to say that England would be better under a republican form of government? We have no legislative right or power to alter or abolish the British tariff; but have we no moral right to say that it is unequal and oppressive, and that England would be better off without it. We have no legislative power to abolish the union between England and Ireland; yet is it not obviously our right to speak and write in favor of the repeal of the Union? Mr. Calhoun sinks the rights of the man in the duties of the citizen, and by confounding things which are separate and distinct, perpetrates a logical fallacy. Above and before all human institutions, stands the right of sympathizing with the oppressed and denouncing the oppressors of mankind.Slavery is not only a wrong done to the slave, but an outrage upon man — not merely a curse to the South, but to the whole Union, and has no rightful existence anywhere—-Slaveholders have no rights more than any other thief or pirate. They have forfeited even the right to live, and if the slave should put every one of them to the sword to-morrow, who dare pronounce the penalty disproportioned to the crime, or say that the criminals deserved less than death at the hands of their long-abused chattels? All this talk about the rights of slaveholders and the rights of slave States, is the height of impudence. By what equity, by what morality are they justified? and upon what foundation do they rest their right of property in human flesh? Why, none other or better than may be set up by a band of robbers. We meet John C. Calhoun and the “forty thieves” associated with him, as being no better, or more entitled to respect, than a ship’s company of pirates; and the time is coming when they will be so regarded generally. It shall not avail that the Constitution and laws sanction slavery. “There is a law above all earthly statutes, written on the heart,” and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, no man can be or hold a slave.We intended to have said something on the extension of slavery in connection with our remarks on this address, but have neither the time nor the space sufficient for the purpose. We leave this task to the “free soilers,” both in the Whig and the Democratic ranks. The journals of each of these parties will attend to the address on this point, as well as to the right of Congress to break up the disgraceful and inhuman slave-marts in the District of Columbia, and abolish the whole system of wickedness, root and branch. As to the probable effect of this address, we believe that its most injurious consequences have already taken place. Its power to injure is destroyed. It was terrible in the distance, but tame on its approach. In the South, it may stir a slight fever. The slaveholders many be alarmed, enraged, and may “swear terribly” about it, but the North will despise the address, and the “grey fox” and “forty thieves” who gave it to the world. We think it an excellent means of agitating the public mind on the subject of slavery, and promoting the anti-slavery cause, and should not regret if Mr. Calhoun would favor us with another meeting, and make another address. We are quite sure that another meeting, though it would not probably be so large as the first, would be no less effective in exciting contempt for the whole slave power of the country. Source: The North Star  (vol. II, no. 7), February 9, 1849. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/sgp/sgpbatches/batch_dlc_bluebell_ver02/data/sn84026365/00222418240/1849020901/0002.pdf

Published in the Charleston Courier , February 1, 1849 We, whose names are hereunto annexed, address you in discharge of what we believe to be a solemn duty, on the most important subject ever presented for your consideration. We allude to the conflict between the two great sections of the Union, growing out of a difference of feeling and opinion in reference to the relation existing between the two races, the European and the African, which inhabit the southern section, and the acts of aggression and encroachment to which it has led. The conflict commenced not long after the acknowledgment of our independence, and has gradually increased until it has arrayed the great body of the North against the South on this most vital subject. In the progress of this conflict, aggression has followed aggression, and encroachment encroachment, until they have reached a point when a regard for your peace and safety will not permit us to remain longer silent. The object of this address is to give you a clear, correct, but brief account of the whole series of aggression and encroachments on your rights, with a statement of the dangers to which they expose you. Our object in making it is not to cause excitement, but to put you in full possession of all the facts and circumstances necessary to a full and just conception of a deep-seated disease, which threatens great danger to you and the whole body politic. We act on the impression, that in a popular government like ours, a true conception of the actual character and state of a disease is indispensable to effecting a cure. We have made it a joint address, because we believe that the magnitude of the subject required that it should assume the most impressive and solemn form. Not to go further back, the difference of opinion and feeling in reference to the relation between the two races, disclosed itself in the Convention that framed the Constitution, and constituted one of the greatest difficulties in forming it. After many efforts, it was overcome by a compromise, which provided in the first place, that representative and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States according to their respective numbers; and that, in ascertaining the number of each, five slaves shall be estimated as three. In the next, that slaves escaping into States where slavery does not exist, shall not be discharged from servitude, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom their labor or service is due. In the third place, that Congress shall not prohibit the importation of slaves before the year 1808; but a tax not exceeding ten dollars may be imposed on each imported. And finally, that no capitation or direct tax shall be laid, but in proportion to federal numbers; and that no amendment of the Constitution, prior to 1808, shall affect this provision, nor that relating to the importation of slaves. So satisfactory were these provisions, that the second, relating to the delivering up of fugitive slaves, was adopted unanimously, and all the rest, except the third, relative to the importation of slaves until 1808, with almost equal unanimity. They recognize the existence of slavery, and make a specific provision for its protection where it was supposed to be the most exposed. They go further, and incorporate it, as an important element, in determining the relative weight of the several States in the Government of the Union, and the respective burden they should bear in laying capitation and direct taxes. It was well understood at the time, that without them the Constitution would not have been adopted by the Southern States, and of course that they constituted elements so essential to the system that it never would have existed without them. The Northern States, knowing all this, ratified the Constitution, thereby pledging their faith, in the most solemn manner, sacredly to observe them. How that faith has been kept and that pledge redeemed we shall next proceed to show. With few exceptions of no great importance, the South had no cause to complain prior to the year 1819—a year, it is to be feared, destined to mark a train of events, bringing with them many, and great, and fatal disasters, on the country and its institutions. With it commenced the agitating debate on the question of the admission of Missouri into the Union. We shall pass by for the present this question, and others of the same kind, directly growing out of it, and shall proceed to consider the effects of that spirit of discord, which it roused up between the two sections. It first disclosed itself in the North, by hostility to that portion of the Constitution which provides for the delivering up of fugitive slaves. In its progress it led to the adoption of hostile acts, intended to render it of non-effect, and with so much success that it may be regarded now as practically expunged from the Constitution. How this has been effected will be next explained. After a careful examination, truth constrains us to say, that it has been by a clear and palpable evasion of the Constitution. It is impossible for any provision to be more free from ambiguity or doubt. It is in the following words: "No person held to service, or labor, in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another State, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." All is clear. There is not an uncertain or equivocal word to be found in the whole provision. What shall not be done, and what shall be done, are fully and explicitly set forth. The former provides that the fugitive slave shall not be discharged from his servitude by any law or regulation of the State wherein he is found; and the latter, that he shall be delivered up on claim of his owner. We do not deem it necessary to undertake to refute the sophistry and subterfuges by which so plain a provision of the Constitution has been evaded, and, in effect, annulled. It constitutes an essential part of the constitutional compact, and of course the supreme law of the land. As such it is binding on all, the Federal and State Governments, the States and the individuals composing them. The sacred obligation of compact, and the solemn injunction of the supreme law, which legislators and judges, both Federal and State, are bound by oath to support, all unite to enforce its fulfilment, according to its plain meeting and true intent. What that meaning and intent are, there was no diversity of opinion in the better days of the Republic, prior to 1819. Congress, State Legislatures, State and Federal Judges and Magistrates, and people, all spontaneously placed the same interpretation on it. During that period none interposed impediments in the way of the owner seeking to recover his fugitive slave; nor did any deny his right to have every proper facility to enforce his claim to have him delivered up. It was then nearly as easy to recover one found in a Northern State, as one found in a neighboring Southern State. But this has passed away, and the provision is defunct, except perhaps in two States.* [Indiana and Illinois.] When we take into consideration the importance and clearness of this provision, the evasion by which it has been set aside may fairly be regarded as one of the most fatal blows ever received by the South and the Union. This cannot be more concisely and correctly stated, than it has been by two of the learned judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. In one of his decisions* [The case of Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ] Judge Story said: "Historically it is well known that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding States the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every State of the Union, into which they might escape, from the State wherein they were held in servitude." "The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of this property, in all the slaveholding States, and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation of their interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted, that it constituted a fundamental article without the adoption of which the Union would not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevalent in the non-slaveholding States, by preventing them from intermeddling with, or restricting, or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves." Again: "The clause was therefore of the last importance to the safety and security of the Southern States, and could not be surrendered by them without endangering their whole property in slaves. The clause was accordingly adopted in the Constitution by the unanimous consent of the framers of it—a proof at once of its intrinsic and practical necessity." Again: "The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no State law or regulation can in any way regulate, control, qualify, or restrain." The opinion of the other learned judges was not less emphatic as to the importance to this provision and the unquestionable right of the South under it. Judge Baldwin, in charging the jury, said:* [The case of Johnson vs. Tompkins and others ] "If there are any rights of property which can be enforced, if one citizen have any rights of property which are inviolable under the protection of the supreme law of the State, and the Union, they are those which have been set at nought by some of these defendants. As the owner of property, which he had a perfect right to possess, protect, and take away—as a citizen of a sister State, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of any other States—Mr. Johnson stands before you on ground which cannot be taken from under him--it is the same ground on which the Government itself is based. If the defendants can be justified, we have no longer law or government." Again, after referring more particularly to the provision for delivering up fugitive slaves, he said: "Thus you see, that the foundations of the Government are laid, and rest on the right of property in slaves. The whole structure must fall by disturbing the corner-stone." These are grave and solemn and admonitory words, from a high source. They confirm all for which the South has ever contended, as to the clearness, importance, and fundamental character of this provision, and the disastrous consequences which would inevitably follow from its violation. But in spite of these solemn warnings, the violation, then commenced, and which they were intended to rebuke, has been full and perfectly consummated. The citizens of the South, in their attempt to recover their slaves, now meet, instead of aid and co-operation, resistance in every form; resistance from hostile acts of legislation, intended to baffle and defeat their claims by all sorts of devices, and by interposing every description of impediment—resistance from judges and magistrates—and finally, when all these fail, from mobs, composed of whites and blacks, which, by threats or force, rescue the fugitive slave from the possession of his rightful owner. The attempt to recover a slave, in most of the Northern States, cannot now be made without the hazard of insult, heavy pecuniary loss, imprisonment, and even of life itself. Already has a worthy citizen of Maryland lost his life* [Mr. Kennedy, of Hagerstown, Maryland.] in making an attempt to enforce his claim to a fugitive slave under this provision. But a provision of the Constitution may be violated indirectly as well as directly; by doing an act in its nature inconsistent with that which is enjoined to be done. Of the form of violation, there is a striking instance connected with the provision under consideration. We allude to secret combinations which are believed to exist in many of the Northern States, whose object is to entice, decoy, entrap, inveigle, and seduce slaves to escape from their owners, and to pass them secretly and rapidly, by means organized for the purpose, into Canada, where they will be beyond the reach of the provision. That to entice a slave, by whatever artifice, to abscond from his owner, into a non-slaveholding State, with the intention to place him beyond the reach of the provision, or prevent his recovery, by concealment or otherwise, is as completely repugnant to it, as its open violation would be, is too clear to admit of doubt or to require illustration. And yet, as repugnant as these combinations are to the true intent of the provision, it is believed, that, with the above exception, not one of the States, within whose limits they exist, has adopted any measure to suppress them, or to punish those by whose agency the object for which they were formed is carried into execution. On the contrary, they have looked on, and witnessed with indifference, if not with secret approbation, a great number of slaves enticed from their owners, and placed beyond the possibility of recovery, to the great annoyance and heavy pecuniary loss of the bordering Southern States. When we take into consideration the great importance of this provision, the absence of all uncertainty as to its true meaning and intent, the many guards by which it is surrounded to protect and enforce it, and then reflect how completely the object for which it was inserted in the Constitution is defeated by these two-fold infractions, we doubt, taking all together, whether a more flagrant breach of faith is to be found on record. We know the language we have used is strong, but it is not less true than strong. There remains to be noticed another class of aggressive acts of a kindred character, but which instead of striking at an express and specific provision of the Constitution, aims directly at destroying the relation between the two races at the South, by means subversive in their tendency of one of the ends for which the Constitution was established. We refer to the systematic agitation of the question by the Abolitionists, which, commencing about 1835, is still continued in all possible forms. Their avowed intention is to bring about a state of things that will force emancipation on the South. To unite the North in fixed hostility to slavery in the South, and to excite discontent among the slaves with their condition, are among the means employed to effect it. With a view to bring about the former, every means are resorted to in order to render the South, and the relation between the two races there, odious and hateful to the North. For this purpose societies and newspapers are everywhere established, debating clubs opened, lecturers employed, pamphlets and other publications, pictures and petitions to Congress, resorted to, and directed to that single point, regardless of truth or decency; while the circulation of incendiary publications in the South, the agitation of the subject of abolition in Congress, and the employment of emissaries are relied on to excite discontent among the slaves. This agitation, and the use of these means, have been continued with more or less activity for a series of years, not without doing much towards effecting the object intended. We regard both object and means to be aggressive and dangerous to the rights of the South, and subversive, as stated, of one of the ends for which the Constitution was established. Slavery is a domestic institution. It belongs to the States, each for itself to decide, whether it shall be established or not; and if it be established, whether it should be abolished or not. Such being the clear and unquestionable right of the States, it follows necessarily that it would be a flagrant act of aggression on a State, destructive of its rights, and subversive of its independence, for the Federal Government, or one or more States, or their people, to undertake to force on it the emancipation of its slaves. But it is a sound maxim in politics, as well as law and morals, that no one has a right to do that indirectly what he cannot do directly, and it may be added with equal truth, to aid, abet, or countenance another in doing it. And yet the Abolitionists of the North, openly avowing their intention, and resorting to the most efficient means for the purpose, have been attempting to bring about a state of things to force the Southern States to emancipate their slaves, without any act on the part of any Northern State to arrest or suppress the means by which they propose to accomplish it. They have been permitted to pursue their object, and to use whatever means they please, if without aid or countenance, also without resistance or disapprobation. What gives a deeper shade to the whole affair, is the fact, that one of the means to effect their object, that of exciting discontent among our slaves, tends directly to subvert what its preamble declares to be one of the ends for which the Constitution was ordained and established: "to ensure domestic tranquillity," and that in the only way in which domestic tranquillity is likely ever to be disturbed in the South. Certain it is, that an agitation so systematic—having such an object in view, and sought to be carried into execution by such means—would, between independent nations, constitute just cause of remonstrance by the party against which the aggression was directed, and if not heeded, an appeal to arms for redress. Such being the case where an aggression of the kind takes place among independent nations, how much more aggravated must it be between confederated States, where the Union precludes an appeal to arms, while it affords a medium through which it can operate with vastly increased force and effect? That it would be perverted to such a use, never entered into the imagination of the generation which formed and adopted the Constitution, and, if it had been supposed it would, it is certain that the South never would have adopted it. We now return to the question of the admission of Missouri to the Union, and shall proceed to give a brief sketch of the occurrences connected with it, and the consequences to which it has directly led. In the latter part of 1819, the then territory of Missouri applied to Congress, in the usual form, for leave to form a State Constitution and Government, in order to be admitted into the Union. A bill was reported for the purpose, with the usual provisions in such cases. Amendments were offered, having for their object to make it a condition for her admission, that her Constitution should have a provision to prohibit slavery. This brought on the agitating debate, which, with the effects that followed, has done so much to alienate the South and North, and endanger our political institutions. Those who objected to the amendments, rested their opposition on the high grounds of the right of self-government. They claimed that a territory, having reached the period when it is proper for it to form a Constitution and Government for itself, becomes fully vested with all the rights of self-government; and that even the condition imposed on it by the Federal Constitution, relates not to the formation of its Constitution and Government, but its admission into the Union. For that purpose, it provides as a condition, that the Government must be Republican. They claimed that Congress has no right to add this condition, and that to assume it would be tantamount to the assumption of the right to make its entire Constitution and Government; as no limitation could be imposed, as to the extent of the right, if it be admitted that it exists at all. Those who supported the amendment denied these grounds, and claimed the right of Congress to impose, at discretion, what conditions it pleased. In this agitating debate, the two sections stood arrayed against each other; the South in favor of the bill without amendment, and the North opposed to it without it. The debate and agitation continued until the session was well advanced; but it became apparent, towards it close, that the people of Missouri were fixed and resolved in their opposition to the proposed condition, and that they would certainly reject it, and adopt a Constitution without it, should the bill pass with the condition. Such being the case, it required no great effort of mind to perceive, that Missouri, once in possession of a Constitution and Government, not simply on paper, but with legislatures elected, and officers appointed, to carry them into effect, the grave questions would be presented, whether she was of right a Territory or State; and, if the latter, whether Congress had the right, and, if the right , the power to abrogate her Constitution, disperse her legislature, and to remand her back to the territorial condition. These were great, and, under the circumstances, fearful questions—too fearful to be met by those who had raised the agitation. From that time the only question was, how to escape from the difficulty. Fortunately, a means was afforded. A Compromise (as it was called) was offered, based on the terms, that the North should cease to oppose the admission of Missouri on the grounds for which the South contended, and that the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwestern Territory, should be applied to all the territory acquired by the United States from France under the treaty of Louisiana lying North of 36° 30', except the portion lying in the State of Missouri. The Northern members embraced it; and although not originating with them, adopted it as their own. It was forced through Congress by the almost united votes of the North, against a minority consisting almost entirely of members from the Southern States. Such was the termination of this, the first conflict, under the Constitution, between the two sections, in reference to slavery in connection with the territories. Many hailed it as a permanent and final adjustment that would prevent the recurrence of similar conflicts; but others, less sanguine, took the opposite and more gloomy view, regarding it as the precursor as a train of events which might rend the Union asunder, and prostrate our political system. One of these was the experienced and sagacious Jefferson. Thus far, time would seem to favor his forebodings. May a returning sense of justice and a protecting Providence, avert their final fulfillment. For many years the subject of slavery in reference to the territories ceased to agitate the country. Indications, however, connected with question of annexing Texas, showed clearly that it was ready to break out again, with redoubled violence, on some future occasion. The difference in the case of Texas was adjusted by extending the Missouri compromise line of 36° 30', from its terminus, on the western boundary of the Louisiana purchase, to the western boundary of Texas. The agitation again ceased for a short period. The war with Mexico soon followed, and that terminated in the acquisition of New Mexico and Upper California, embracing an area equal to about one half of the entire valley of the Mississippi. If to this we add the portion of Oregon acknowledged to ours by the recent treaty with England, our whole territory on the Pacific and west of the Rocky Mountains will be found to be in extent but little less than that vast valley. The near prospect of so great an addition rekindled the excitement between the North and South in reference to slavery in its connection with the territories, which has become, since those on the Pacific were acquired, more universal and intense than ever. The effects have been to widen the difference between the two sections, and give a more determined and hostile character to their conflict. The North no longer respects the Missouri compromise line, although adopted by their almost unanimous vote. Instead of compromise, they avow that their determination is to exclude slavery from all the territories of the United States, acquired, or to be acquired; and, of course, to prevent the citizens of the Southern States from emigrating with their property in slaves into any of them. Their object, they allege, is to prevent the extension of slavery, and ours to extend it, thus making the issue between them and us to be the naked question, shall slavery be extended or not? We do not deem it necessary, looking to the object of this address, to examine the question so fully discussed at the last session, whether Congress has the right to exclude the citizens of the South from immigrating with their property into territories belonging to the confederated States of the Union. What we propose in this connection is, to make a few remarks on what the North alleges, erroneously, to be the issue between us and them. So far from maintaining the doctrine, which the issue implies, we hold that the Federal Government has no right to extend or restrict slavery, no more than to establish or abolish it; nor has it any right whatever to distinguish between the domestic institutions of one State, or section, and another, in order to favor one and discourage the other. As the federal representative of each and all the States, it is bound to deal out, within the sphere of its powers, equal and exact justice and favor to all. To act otherwise, to undertake to discriminate between the domestic institutions of one and another, would be to act in total subversion of the end for which it was established—to be the common protection and guardian of all. Entertaining these opinions, we ask not, as the North alleges we do, for the extension of slavery. That would make a discrimination in our favor, as unjust and unconstitutional as the discrimination they ask against us in their favor. It is not for them, nor for the Federal Government to determine, whether our domestic institution is good or bad; or whether it should be repressed or preserved. It belongs to us, and us only, to decide such questions. What then we do insist on, is, not to extend slavery, but that we shall not be prohibited from immigrating with our property, into the Territories of the United States, because we are slaveholders; or, in other words, that we shall not on that account be disfranchised of a privilege possessed by all others, citizens and foreigners, without discrimination as to character, profession, or color. All, whether savage, barbarian, or civilized, may freely enter and remain, we only being excluded. We rest our claim, not only on the high grounds above stated, but also on the solid foundation of right, justice, and equality. The territories immediately in controversy—New Mexico and California—were acquired by the common sacrifice and efforts of all the States, towards which the South contributed far more than her full share of men,  [Total number of volunteers from the South  -Regiments- 33 -Battalions- 14 -Companies- 120   Total number of volunteers from the South  ————      45,640               Total number of volunteers from the North    -Regiments- 22 -Battalions- 2 -Companies- 12 Total number of volunteers from the North          ———— 23,084 [Being nearly two on the part of the South to one on the part of the North. But taking into consideration that the population of the North is two thirds greater than the South, the latter has furnished more than three times her due proportion of volunteers.] to say nothing of money, and is, of course, on every principle of right, justice, fairness and equality, entitled to participate fully in the benefits to be derived from their acquisition. But as impregnable as is this ground, there is another not less so. Ours is a Federal Government—a Government in which not individuals, but States as distinct sovereign communities, are the constituents. To them, as members of the Federal Union, the territories belong; and they are hence declared to be territories belonging to the United States. The States, then, are the joint owners. Now it is conceded by all writers on the subject, that in all such Governments their members are all equal—equal in rights and equal in dignity. They also concede that this equality constitutes the basis of such Government, and that it cannot be destroyed without changing their nature and character. To deprive, then, the Southern States and their citizens of their full share in territories declared to belong to them, in common with the other States, would be in derogation of the equality belonging to them as members of a Federal Union, and sink them, from being equals, into a subordinate and dependent condition. Such are the solid and impregnable grounds on which we rest our demand to an equal participation in the territories. But as solid and impregnable as they are in the eyes of justice and reason, they oppose a feeble resistance to a majority, determined to engross the whole. At the last session of Congress, a bill was passed, establishing a territorial government for Oregon, excluding slavery therefrom. The President gave his sanction to the bill, and sent a special message to Congress assigning his reasons for doing so. These reasons presupposed that the Missouri compromise was to be, and would be, extended west of the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific Ocean, And the President intimated his intention in his message to veto any future bill that should restrict slavery south of the line of that compromise. Assuming it to have been the purpose and intention of the North to extend the Missouri compromise line as above indicated, the passage of the Oregon bill could only be regarded as evincing the acquiescence of the South in that line. But the developments of the present session of Congress have made it manifest to all, that no such purpose or intention now exists with the North to any considerable extent. Of the truth of this, we have ample evidence in what has occurred already in the House of Representatives, where the popular feelings are soonest and most intensely felt. Although Congress has been in session but little more than one month, a greater number of measures of an aggressive character have been introduced, and they are more aggravated and dangerous, than have been for years before. And what clearly discloses whence they take their origin, is the fact, that they all relate to the territorial aspect of the subject of slavery, or some other of a nature and character intimately connected with it. The first of this series of aggressions is a resolution introduced by a member from Massachusetts, the object of which is to repeal all acts which recognize the existence of slavery, or authorize the selling or disposing of slaves in this District. On question of leave to bring in a bill, the votes stood 69 for and 82 against leave. The next was a resolution offered by a member from Ohio, instructing the Committee on Territories to report forthwith bills for excluding slavery from California and New Mexico.* [Since reported to the house.] It passed by a vote of 107 to 80. That was followed by a bill introduced by another member form Ohio, to take the votes of the inhabitants of this District, on the question whether slavery within its limits should be abolished. The bill provided, according to the admission of the mover, that free negroes and slaves should vote. On the question to lay the bill on the table, the votes stood, for 106, against 79. To this succeeded the resolution of a member from New York, in the following words: "Whereas the traffic now prosecuted in this metropolis of the Republic in human beings, as chattels, is contrary to natural justice and the fundamental principles of our political system, and is notoriously a reproach to our country, throughout Christendom, and a serious hindrance to the progress of republican liberty among the nations of the earth. Therefore, "Resolved, That the Committee for the District of Columbia be instructed to report a bill, as soon as practicable, prohibiting the slave trade in said District." On the question of adopting the resolution, the votes stood 98 for, and 88 against, He was followed by a member from Illinois, who offered a resolution for abolishing slavery in the Territories, and all places where Congress has exclusive powers of legislation, that is, in all forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, purchased by Congress with the consent of the Legislature of the State. This resolution was passed over under the rules of the House without being put to vote. The votes in favor of all these measures were confined to the members from the Northern States. True, there are some patriotic members from that section who voted against all of them, and whose high sense of justice is duly appreciated; who in the progress of the aggressions upon the South have, by their votes, sustained the guaranties of the Constitution, and of whom we regret to say many have been sacrificed at home by their patriotic course. We have now brought to close a narrative of the series of acts of aggression and encroachment, connected with the subject of this address, including those that are consummated and those still in progress. They are numerous, great, and dangerous, and threaten with destruction the greatest and most vital of all the interests and institutions of the South. Indeed, it may be doubted whether there is a single provision, stipulation, or guaranty of the Constitution, intended for the security of the South, that has not been rendered almost perfectly nugatory. It may even be made a serious question, whether the encroachments already made, without the aid of any other, would not, if permitted to operate unchecked, end in emancipation, and that at no distant day. But be that as it may, it hardly admits of a doubt that, if the aggressions already commenced in the House, and now in progress, should be consummated, such in the end would certainly be the consequence. Little, in truth, would be left to be done after we have been excluded from all the territories, including those to be hereafter acquired; after slavery is abolished in this District and in the numerous places dispersed all over the South, where Congress has the exclusive right of legislation, and after the other measures proposed are consummated. Every outpost and barrier would be carried, and nothing would be left but to finish the work of abolition at pleasure in the States themselves. This District, and all places over which Congress has exclusive power of legislation, would be asylums for fugitive slaves, where, as soon as they placed their feet, they would become, according to the doctrines of our Northern assailants, free, unless there should be some positive enactments to prevent it. Under such a state of things the probability is, that emancipation would soon follow, without any final act to abolish slavery. The depressing effects of such measures on the white race at the South, and the hope they would create in the black of a speedy emancipation, would produce a state of feeling inconsistent with the much longer continuance of the existing relations between the two. But be that as it may, it is certain, if emancipation did not follow, as a matter of course, the final act in the States would not be long delayed. The want of constitutional power would oppose a feeble resistance. The great body of the North is united against our peculiar institution. Many believe it to be sinful, and the residue, with inconsiderable exceptions, believe it to be wrong. Such being the case, it would indicate a very superficial knowledge of human nature, to think that, after aiming at abolition, systematically, for so many years, and pursuing it with such unscrupulous disregard of law and Constitution, that the fanatics who have led the way and forced the great body of the North to follow them, would, when the finishing stroke only remained to be given, voluntarily suspend it, or permit any constitutional scruples or considerations of justice to arrest it. To these may be added an aggression, though not yet commenced, long meditated and threatened: to prohibit what the abolitionists call the internal slave trade, meaning thereby the transfer of slaves from one State to another, from whatever motive done, or however effected. Their object would seem to be to render them worthless by crowding them together where they are, and thus hasten the work of emancipation. There is reason for believing that it will soon follow those now in progress, unless, indeed, some decisive step should be taken in the mean time to arrest the whole. The question then is, Will the measures of aggression proposed in the House be adopted? They may not, and probably will not be this session. But when we take into consideration, that there is a majority now in favor of one of them, and a strong minority in favor of the other, so far as the sense of the House has been taken; that there will be in all probability a considerable increase in the next Congress of the vote in favor of them, and that it will be largely increased in the next succeeding Congress under the census to be taken next year, it amounts almost to a certainty that they will be adopted, unless some decisive measure is taken in advance to prevent it. But, even if these conclusions should prove erroneous—if fanaticism and the love of power should, contrary to their nature, for once respect constitutional barriers, or if the calculations of policy should retard the adoption of these measures, or even defeat them altogether, there would still be left one certain way to accomplish their object, if the determination avowed by the North to monopolize all the territories, to the exclusion of the South, should be carried into effect. That of itself would, at no distant day, add to the North a sufficient number of States to give her three fourths of the whole; when, under the color of an amendment to the Constitution, she would emancipate our slaves, however opposed it might be to its true intent. Thus, under every aspect, the result is certain, if aggression be not promptly and decidedly met. How is it to be met, is for you to decide. Such then being the case, it would be to insult you to suppose you could hesitate. To destroy the existing relation between the free and servile races at the South would lead to consequences unparalleled in history. They cannot be separated, and cannot live together in peace, or harmony, or to their mutual advantage, except in their present relation. Under any other, wretchedness, and misery, and desolation would overspread the whole South. The example of the British West Indies, as blighting as emancipation has proved to them, furnishes a very faint picture of the calamities it would bring on the South. The circumstances under which it would take place with us, would be entirely different from those which took place with them, and calculated to lead to far more disastrous results. There the Government of the parent country emancipated slaves in her colonial possessions—a Government rich and powerful, and actuated by views of policy (mistaken as they turned out to be), rather than fanaticism. It was besides, disposed to act justly towards the owners, even in the act of emancipating their slaves, and protect and foster them afterwards. It accordingly appropriated nearly $100,000,000 as a compensation to them for their losses under the act, which sum, although it turned out to be far short of the amount, was thought at the time to be liberal. Since the emancipation, it has kept up a sufficient military and naval force to keep the blacks in awe, and a number of magistrates, and constables, and other civil officers, to keep order in the towns and on plantations, and enforce respect to their former owners. To a considerable extent these have served as a substitute for the police formerly kept on the plantations by the owners and their overseers, and to preserve the social and political superiority of the white race. But, notwithstanding all this, the British West India possessions are ruined, impoverished, miserable, wretched, and destined probably to be abandoned to the black race. Very different would be the circumstances under which emancipation would take place with us. If it ever should be effected, it will be through the agency of the Federal Government, controlled by the dominant power of the Northern States of the Confederacy, against the resistance and struggle of the Southern. It can then only be effected by the prostration of the white race; and that would necessarily engender the bitterest feelings of hostility between them and the North. But the reverse would be the case between the blacks of the South and the people of the North. Owing their emancipation to them, they would regard them as friends, guardians, and patrons, and centre, accordingly, all their sympathy in them. The people of the North would not fail to reciprocate and to favor them, instead of the whites. Under the influence of such feelings, and impelled by fanaticism and love of power, they would not stop at emancipation. Another step would be taken—to raise them to a political and social equality with their former owners, by giving them the right of voting and holding public offices under the Federal Government. We see the first step toward it in the bill already alluded to—to vest the free blacks and slaves with the right to vote on the question of emancipation in this District. But when once raised to an equality, they would become the fast political associates of the North, acting and voting with them on all questions, and by this political union between them, holding the white race at the South in complete subjection. The blacks, and the profligate whites that might unite with them, would become the principal recipients of federal offices and patronage, and would, in consequence, be raised above the whites of the South in the political and social scale. We would, in a word, change conditions with them—a degradation greater than has ever yet fallen to the lot of a free and enlightened people, and one from which we could not escape, should emancipation take place (which it certainly will if not prevented), but by fleeing the homes of ourselves and ancestors, and by abandoning our country to our former slaves, to become the permanent abode of disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness. With such a prospect before us, the gravest and most solemn question that ever claimed the attention of a people is presented for your consideration: What is to be done to prevent it? It is a question belonging to you to decide. All we propose is, to give you our opinion. We, then, are of the opinion that the first and indispensable step, without which nothing can be done, and with which every thing may be, is to be united among yourselves, on this great and most vital question. The want of Union and concert in reference to it has brought the South, the Union, and our system of government to their present perilous condition. Instead of placing it above all others, it has been made subordinate, not only to mere questions of policy, but to the preservation of party ties and ensuring of party success. As high as we hold a due respect for these, we hold them subordinate to that and other questions involving our safety and happiness. Until they are so held by the South, the North will not believe that you are in earnest in opposition to their encroachments, and they will continue to follow, one after another, until the work of abolition is finished. To convince them that you are, you must prove by your acts that you hold all other questions subordinate to it. If you become united, and prove yourselves in earnest, the North will be brought to a pause, and to a calculation of consequences; and that may lead to a change of measures, and the adoption of a course of policy that may quietly and peaceably terminate this long conflict between the two sections. If it should not, nothing would remain for you but to stand up immovably in defence of rights, involving your all—your property, prosperity, equality, liberty, and safety. As the assailed, you would stand justified by all laws, human and divine, in repelling a blow so dangerous, without looking to consequences, and to resort to all means necessary for that purpose. Your assailants, and not you, would be responsible for consequences. Entertaining these opinions, we earnestly entreat you to be united, and for that purpose adopt all necessary measures. Beyond this, we think it would not be proper to go at present. We hope, if you should unite with any thing like unanimity, it may of itself apply a remedy to this deep-seated and dangerous disease; but, if such should not be the case, the time will then have come for you to decide what course to adopt. Source: Source:  Richard K. Crallé, ed., The Works of John C. Calhoun , (Columbia, S. C: Printed by A. S. Johnston, 1851), vol. VI, pp. 290-313.

Gentlemen of His Majesty's Honble Council, Mr Speaker and Gentlemen of the Assembly. I met this Assembly with a most sincere disposition to forward the public business of the Country, and I make this public acknowledgement of my thanks to the Gentlemen of His Majestys Council for the chearfulness they have shewn to Co-operate with me; and my gratitude to the House of Assembly for the Honorable opinion they have declared in favour of my administration. You may be assured Gentlemen that the interruption which has been given to the business of this Session, has not occasioned more disappointment to you than the cause of it has occasioned real affliction to me. The plan I laid before you for your public funds, if adopted by Legislature and invariably pursued (otherwise it will be insufficient) will produce the happyest effects to this Country: and I will be bold to affirm, if ever carried into any future Session, into an Act of the Legislature, it will be acknowledged the most beneficial session this Country ever experienced, though it should be the only Act passed in that Session; But this blessing is not to be obtained for the Country while the Treasurers, late Sheriffs and their Sureties, can command a Majority in the lower House, and while a Treasurer is suffered to absent himself, and withhold the public accounts from the General Assembly let the pretence of his absence be ever so urgent. This Morning I saw some public Accounts of the Treasurer for the Southern District, those Accounts are so very irregularly and negligently kept, that the public must be abused, if an Amendment is not made to the mode pursued, but as I am told it is the method his predecessors followed, no censure can lay upon that Gentleman. As my duty preceeds every other consideration I do now dissolve this Assembly, and this Assembly is accordingly dissolved, Wm. TRYON. 6th November 1769. Source: https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.php/document/csr08-0068