AID TO THE SECEDING STATES AGAINST COERCION

        Mr. COLEMAN introduced the following resolution:

        Resolved by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention

assembled, That they pledge the power of this State, to aid in resisting any attempt upon the part of the United States of America to coerce any of the seceding States.

        Mr. DAVIS, of Madison, moved to refer the resolution to the Committee of Thirteen.

        MR. BECK said:

        He saw no necessity for a reference; he thought the resolution ought to be passed, and passed promptly. The cause of South Carolina was the cause of Alabama; indeed, of the whole South; but particularly were the States that contemplated secession, interested in sustaining each other. Alabama cannot stand by and see force used against a seceding State. It would, continued Mr. Beck, be the policy of the Federal Government to conquer the States in detail. They must, therefore, sustain each other. This matter was well understood in Virginia, who, though she had taken no step towards secession, had already, through her Legislature, resolved almost unanimously, that she would resist, by force, any attempt to coerce a seceding State. We owed it to ourselves and to the position we now occupy, not to be behind Virginia in giving prompt expression to our determination to stand by and uphold the seceding States in their efforts to resist Black Republican rule.

        MR. JOHNSON said:

        Mr. President--The last sessions of this body having been held in secret, forbids an allusion in detail to its action, and hence, cogent reasons which might otherwise be offered in favor of a reference of this motion, are precluded.

        Without expressing any opinion as to the policy embodied in the resolution, I think it would be, under the circumstances, discourteous to the minority to press it upon them at this time; and particularly, as it would have the effect of placing them in a false position before the country. I hope, therefore, the resolution will be referred to the Committee of Thirteen.

        MR. STONE said:

        Mr. President--I fully concur with the gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Yancey,] in the propriety of immediately passing the resolution now under consideration. All the powers of the State of Alabama should be pledged to aid in resisting any attempt

to coerce a seceding State back into the Union. Sir, the Scuthern States recognize the right of secession. It constitutes the very essence of State sovereignty, and is inseparable from it. A State is the best and sole judge of her own grievances, and as a party to the Federal compact must, herself, decide in the last resort "as well of the infraction as of the mode and measure of redress." If, in her sovereign capacity, she determines to resume her independence, can we, who have a common interest in the protection of this right, look calmly on and see her invaded by Federal soldiers? Sir, the Convention which framed our Constitution expressly refused to grant to the General Government the power to employ force against a State. The States came into the Union "free, sovereign and independent." They have never parted with their freedom or sovereignty. They established a Government to act as their agent; and now, to permit that agent to employ force against the States would be to sanction the grossest usurpation. It would be converting the Government into a despotism. Sir, the Union was never intended to be preserved by force. The fact that the power to employ force against a State was refused in the Convention which framed the Constitution, proves that those who constructed our Government knew that it could not be maintained by force. Of what value would the Union be, if the States composing it had to be reduced to obedience by the strong arm of military power? The permanence and security of our Government depend alone upon the principle of common affection and common interest. Force is the last argument of kings, and cannot keep these States together. If then, we recognize the right of secession, and intend to maintain that right against any power that may resist its exercise, why not so declare by passing this resolution? This course will give encouragement to our Southern sisters. It will give strength to the Southern cause. It may secure peace. If the Government at Washington is informed that the coercive policy with which South Carolina is now threatened will be resisted, and that the first Federal gun fired against Charleston will summon to the field every Southern man who can bear arms, it may produce a peaceful solution of the pending difficulties. If it should not, then the responsibility will rest alone upon our assailants. All we can now do is to warn them against the madness of attempting coercion. We wish peace--we do not intend to provoke war--we shall act on the defensive. But if war is forced upon us, our enemies should know, that the Southern States, whose rights, whose honor, and whose independence are alike at stake, intend to stand side by side in the contest, prepared to make common cause and to meet one common fate.

        MR. EARNEST said:

        Mr. President--I have examined the resolution of the Hon. gentleman from Sumter, and anxiously listened to the arguments of the friends of the measure with the object, if I could, to vote for the resolution.

        I am not prepared to condemn the action of our Governor, or of the patriotic gentlemen for whose benefits the resolution is introduced. In fact, from the force of circumstances with which they were surrounded, I must say that I commend their actions, for if they have erred, it has been on the side of their country. I fully recognize the doctrine, that a sovereign State, acting in her sovereign capacity, can withdraw or secede from the Union; and that, after that, any acts she orher citizens may do, to protect her rights or to defend her independence, even to bloody war, is not and cannot be treason. But the State must act in her sovereign capacity; no other act, by any body or individuals, can withdraw her from the Union or relieve her citizens from the laws of treason, if overt acts are committed by the citizen or the State against the General Government. Entertaining these views of Constitutional rights and individual rights, I am estopped from voting for the resolution. The Hon. gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Yancey,] has made an ingenious argument, an appeal to members on this floor, predicated on the resolution of the Virginia Legislature. I reply to the Hon. gentleman, by saying, that resolutions are harmless things when not connected by overt acts. Such was the case of the Virginia resolution. But very far from that is our situation. This resolution is introduced to cover acts of hostility--acts that amount, unexplained, not to a declaration of war only, but to war itself. Hence, to vote for the resolution is only to subject us to the penalties of treason, without aiding those for whose benefit those resolutions are introduced. I confess, Mr. President, that since we met here, my mind, as to expediency, has undergone a great change. And while I cannot vote for the ordinance of secession, I believe that there is a majority of this Convention that will pass the ordinance, and thereby sever our allegiance from the General Government.--That being done, my allegiance is due alone to the State of Alabama, and in me she shall find no laggard or luke-warm friend.--As my allegiance is now due to the United States, I can do no act inconsistent with that relation. No one regrets more than I do, the Constitutional barrier that prevents me from voting for the resolution. I have already intimated that the course of our Governor, and the patriotism of our volunteers find no condemnation in me, but as peace measures I approve them as eminently wise and prudential.

        MR. MORGAN said:

        Mr. President--The resolutions adopted on the first day of this session, by the unanimous voteof the Convention, leaves us no alternative but resistance to the attempt to place the United States under the Government of the Black Republican party. I entertain no doubt that this resistance will be accomplished by the withdrawal of this State from the Union. But the question is still open as to the mode of resistance. It does not follow, from the adoption of the Resolution of the gentleman from Sumter, that we are confined to any special mode of resistance, or resistance at a particular time. But this does follow: that no seceding State should be coerced or conquered, whether we remain in the Union and fight abolitionists and abolitionism, or whether we withdraw.

        The question is not debateable, whether blood should be shed in a Southern State, with impunity, by a people whom we consider as oppressors. The people of Alabama have asserted, in their written Constitution, under which they were admitted into the Union as a State, that "all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit, and, therefore, they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think expodient."

        If we had thought of confining this declaration alone to the people of Alabama, or had intended to deny its application to every other State of the Union, we should have entered that Union not as the equals, but as the superiors of the other States in political rights. We have not been guilty of such arrogance. Upon our own doctrines, then, the people of South Carolina are fully justified in "altering or abolishing their form of government." But I am persuaded that I need not go into an argument to establish the right of South Carolina to secede, as a predicate for the clear duty of Alabama to aid her in her defence against hostile fleets or armies. We are one people, and can never be dissevered. Every interest and sympathy that can unite two peoples are wrought into the golden chain by which we are bound together. The secession of South Carolina will naturally, and, in time, inevitably, lead to the secession of Alabama. But if our secession is for the time retarded or prevented by an unmatured course on our part, still our hearts, our interests, our duty, will force us to declare that all the power and resources of men and means within the control of Alabama, are pledged to the defence of every seceding State against coercion by the United States Government.

        If we are unable to withdraw from the Union, we will be able to assist the cause of justice and free government. In the Union or out of it, a war upon South Carolina is a war upon Alabama. We will so accept the issue when it is needed, and let us now prepare for it. We may force a war upon South Carolina by refusing to align ourselves with her. We may refuse to shelter her until her enemy will cease to fear her power of resistance. We may invite war by our hesitancy, at the moment when decisive action would secure peace; butwe cannot see the blood of her sons shed in a conflict for right, and against oppression, and refuse to open our veins in her cause.

        The effect of the resolution is, that South Carolina may recruit her armies in Alabama, and that our treasury shall stand open to her demands so long as she shall need the means of defence and protection. Sir, you cannot shut the treasury against her. You may close the door, but the treasure will flow with accelerated freedom from the pockets of the people. No army could be placed along our borders to prevent our soldiery from swarming to the standard of the Palmetto. The mothers of our country would be the recruiting sergeants for South Carolina, and the fathers would curse those children who should hesitate to spring to their guns in her defence. There can be no valid reason why we should not at once assume this attitude, and announce our Resolution. The argument of precipitancy is constantly employed to check every movemeut in this direction. Some persons may be inclined to summary and decided steps, but this is not precipitancy. It is a sound calculation, deliberately made, that there is more to be lost than there is to be gained by delay. This position is true beyond question. The Northern States are hastily pledging themselves to contribute men and money to aid them in coercing the seceding States. Perhaps their haste in making the pledge will stand in singular contrast with their haste not to fulfil the promises. But whether they would badger us, or whether they are in solemn earnest, we should attribute to them at least a respectable inclination to do as they promise. This is a matter that will not admit of delay. If we remain in the Union we will act upon the principles of the resolution under discussion. If we withdraw, we should lose the happy moment to give our evidence of our magnanimity. unless we pass the resolution now.--After we are out of the Union, we might have many reasons for adopting such a resolve, in which we would not be wholly disinterted.

        It has fallen from the lips of a friend of secession, in the course of this debate, that he would rather secede to-day with a majority

of one, than to wait until next Saturday and secede with a large majority. I fully appreciate and applaud the zeal which prompted this declaration, but I take occasion to dissent entirely from the position assumed. I would prefer to delay the secession of Alabama one month, or until some new danger should appear to follow from delay, and go out with twenty majority, than to go out to-day with one majority. I cannot distrust the position of the delegutes opposed to me in opinion, as to the time and manner of secession, until I am forced to do so. They have all declared for resistance. There is no submissionist amongst them, if their votes are any evidence of their opinions. Moreover, this State is divided in policy by a geographical line: no line divides us on the point of duty and honor. I wish to erase that line; and we will see no more of it after we have withdrawn from the Union, unless we grave it upon the map with our own hands.--The people of the mountains have been represented as being very decided in their opinion on the questions of the time and manner of secession. I do not doubt it. It was my fortune to be raised amongst the people of the mountains, and I can bear witness that they are an earnest and brave people. But love of country is with them a religious sentiment. The State has many perils to encounter yet, and you will find that, in her greatest agony, she will repose faithfully upon the hearts of these people. They will never deceive the State. These men will pour like torrents into the army--the best and bravest of men. I wish to hold free counsel with these delegates on this floor, and am determined, if this is not the case, the fault shall not be mine. If they want time to consider, to debate, to hear from their people, they must have time. If they want time to betray me into submission, they shall not be deceived in me, but I shall be grossly deceived in my estimate of them. But, sir, there is no evil spirit of deception here, and I allude to it only to repel the idea.

        Let us pass the resolution, and our enemies will, at least, form correct opinions of our condition and sentiments.

        MR. JEMISON said:

        Mr. President--I see no necessity for immediate action upon the resolution. We have no reliable information on which to act. [Hon. Mr. Dowdell read a dispatch, saying hostilities had commenced, &c.] Yes, we have various telegrams, the authenticity and reliability of which seem to be confided in, and are fully satisfactory to gentlemen of the majority. But as for myself, being no wire-worker, and having nothing to do with the working of wires

in these days of telegraphic information, I am disposed to question the authenticity of much of what we hear. The aims are made to tell whatever is most appropriate for effect. They keep the public mind in a continued state of excitement; and, for whatever matter under consideration here, we have a telegram suited to the occasion. Whatever is wanting in argument is supplied by telegraph. If we will not be reasoned into a measure, we must be frightened into it. We are kept by these ready and continued rumors in a state of excitement and alarm, that in a good degree prevents considerate and wise counsels. I was brought up, Mr. President, on the Indian frontiers where we were subject to frequent inroads and attacks from hostile parties. By common consent and general understanding, my father's house was the place of rendezvous in cases of alarm. We had no telegraphs in those days, yet we were not without news-mongers, who delighted in getting up a sensation. Hence we had very many alarms. I am reminded, by the excitements frequently caused amongst us by telegrams, of a scene that occurred during these border alarms, when I was quite a boy. At a dead hour of a beautiful moonlight night, the slumbers of the family were broken by a general ingathering of the neighbors. They came in all manner of style: some dressed, some half-dressed, and some scarcely dressed at all. Everything was excitement and confusion. This person was killed--that family massacred; not one left to tell the details of the horrid and heart rending tragedy. At length, two of the party, somewhat incredulous, determined to visit the scenes of reported slaughter. The first place visited was where a negro woman was reported as killed, who was found so dead asleep that she was not aware she had been left alone on the place. The next, was where the husband had abandoned an invalid and bed-ridden wife, whom he reported as killed. They found her also, but suffering all the anticipated horrors of the tomahawk and scalping knife. The next and last place visited was where the whole family was reported as butchered; there all was quiet and safe, the family had heard nothing of their danger, and were rejoiced they had escaped the indiscriminate massacre allotted to them by Madam Rumor. [Here the gentleman from Chambers remarked, that the dispatch he had read stated, the firing of guns had been heard.] Yes, Mr. President, so was firing of guns heard in the case I have related. With others of my father's hands, I had that day been engaged in firing dead hickory trees, in a second year's new ground, to burn them down and burn them out of the way. When the alarm was started these trees had just got into a fair way of falling! The excited and alarmed people supposed they heard the firing by platoons.

        I would not be understood to say there is no danger of hostilities between State and Federal troops; but I do intend to say, I believe that the prospect of immediate collision is magnified; that the aid of the wires has been evoked to operate on our prejudices and our fears. I am therefore in favor of the reference. I am not disposed to be hurried--see no reason for hasty action. A reference is more likely to result in harmonious as well as prudent action.

        MR. JONES, of Lauderdale, said:

        He was sorry the gentleman from Sumter had introduced these resolutions; they could lead to no practical good, and would only consume the time of the Convention in useless discussion. He was placed in a position of great delicacy, and hoped the resolutions would be referred to the proper committee and not be pressed to a vote now.

        There was no necessity for the hot haste manifested by the gentlemen of the majority. There is no hostile army battering at the gates of Charleston--no invading foe desecrates her soil. There is no voice from that quarter demanding our aid--there is no money wanted, no munitions of war needed, no soldiers asked. The resolutions are at best, but an empty profession--a meaningless tender of what is not expected to be performed. Why, then, cannot gentlemen wait? Wait at least, until to-morrow, when it is morally certain that the Ordinance of Secession will be passed, and the members of this Convention absolved by the sovereign authority of Alabama from their allegianc to the Federal Government. Until the State so absolved him, he could not and would not vote for resolutions proposing to declare war on the Government of the United States. He had in both ends of this Capitol, and at sundry other places, solemnly sworn to support the Constitution of the United States. He knew that others thought differently on this subject, he only spoke for himself. Each one must act according to his own conscience. But whilst this State continued a member of the Union he would not vote for resolutions which propose directly or indirectly to bring about a collision between this State and the Federal authorities. The gentleman from Montgomery had said that "when we shall have seceded, a resolution tendering aid to other seceding States will be considered as asking, rather than offering, aid." He could not see that offering aid to-day and seceding to-morrow, before notice of the offer could reach the ears of our sister States, will afford any very over-powering proof of our disinterestedness. He would say, in conclusion, that

he felt assured that when the soil of South Carolina, or any Southern State, is invaded to subvert her institutions or subjugate her people, the men of the South will move to arms as by one common impulse to repel the invader. And when this dire necessity shall arise, he hoped to be behind no gentleman on this floor in vindicating the honor and defending the soil of the section to which he belonged.

        MR. YELVERTON said:

        Mr. President--While I advocate the reference in a spirit of conciliation, I surrender nothing. I need not appeal to the members on this floor with whom I have been associated to bear evidence of my devotion to the principles enunciated in the excellent resolution under consideration. Sir, I take it for granted that I am as well understood and as strongly defined on all the questions connected with immediate separate State action--prompt secession--as any other gentleman of this Convention.

        This resolution has the approval of my heart; it commends itself to the calm and manly consideration of every member, with a force of truth and reason, which seems to me to be irresistible.

        The assurances we have from honorable gentlemen of the minority, that the reference is sought only with the great patriotic view of understanding the resolution, and understanding each other, and thus to enable them to vote with us, for the resolution, is an appeal all powerful to me.

        I hold, Mr. President, that it would be exceedingly disgraceful to our gallant State, to have a single vote cast against this resolution; and if I did not go for this reference with the assurances I have, I should feel myself to that extent responsible for that disgrace. Then, I appeal to gentlemen who are already prepared to vote for the resolution, and, as the delay will be but temporary and the result not doubtful, to vote for the reference, that our friends of the minority may have no cause of complaint, and that the resolution may be adopted unanimously.

        I have the honor to be a member of the Committee of Thirteen. I know the material of which it is composed. I think I hazard nothing in saying that an unanimous report in favor of the resolution would follow such a reference.

        Mr. SMITH, of Tuscaloosa, said:

        Mr. President--I am ready to vote upon the resolution now, so far as I am concerned. It contains but the expression of a sentiment that I heartily endorse. I know of no feeling more agreeable

than that which prompts a generous heart to offer assistance to a friend in danger. There is no feeling more pleasant--except, perhaps, it be the gratitude that accepts such assurance. But in order that this pleasure should be perfect, it is necessary that this assurance should be made with the whole heart; there must be no deception. Now, sir, some of the gentlemen who are known here to be in the minority, and with whom I have the honor to act, request a day's delay--or the reference of the resolution to a Committee, in order that they may have an opportunity to examine it, expressing at the same time a desire to vote for it. This request you are about to refuse!

        Sir, what will be the inevitable result of your disposition to press the minority to immediate and final action upon such resolutions, without giving them the usual legislative delay for reflection? The attempt to force your measure upon us must result in this: that you will pass this resolution and others of no less importance, by a meagre majority of six or eight votes; (for that is the majority by which you elected your President.) Do you wish to do this? Would you not prefer that this resolution particularly should receive all the votes here? I am satisfied that if this resolution is referred to a Committee, as proposed by the gentleman from Madison, [Mr. Davis,] and as acquiesced in by the mover of it, [Mr. Coleman,] so that a day's delay may be had upon it for reflection and examination, it will be adopted by this Convention without a dissenting voice.

        An assurance, by a bare majority of this Convention, of aid to be given by the State of Alabama, would be considered by South Carohua almost as an insult. She might be delighted at first to hear and receive such an assurance; but when she learned the fact that the resolution had been adopted by a bare majority, she would be inspired with disgust; and she would swell with indignation, if it should appear, (as it may, upon a calm and thorough examination, and a comparison of the facts and figures) that the minority here were really the representatives of a majority of the sovereigns of this State. [Here there was some conversation--in questions by Mr. Morgan and Mr. Yancey--as to Mr. Smith's source of information upon the popular vote of the State.] I receive my information from tables in public prints; I do not assert them to be true; but I believe that a popular majority of the State is represented here by the minority.

        But that is not now material. If you press this resolution now, you will pass it by a meagre majority; and so soon as South Carolina is advised of this disagreeable fact, she will consider your promises as unreal; she will exclaim: Poor Alabama! she sent

us an apple with gold on its outside, but with ashes on its core--

                         "Dead sea fruits that tempt the eye
                         But turn to ashes on the lip."

        I have the greatest respect for South Carolina; her sone are gallant, her statesmen are wise, her clime is genial, her history is great, her aspirations are sublime. She is to be revered for one thing, if for nothing else: she has given to this age a Demosthenes; that is her immortality--may it not be her last and her greatest glory. And because I respect her, I would deal with her in a way not to deceive--not to disappoint her. I would gratify her, and at the same time satisfy myself.

        Sir, we of the minority ask of the majority but the ordinary civilities of parliamentary decorum; time to deliberate and examine. We claim that our errors are errors of the head, and we concede to others what we claim for ourselves. If there be here a sincere desire to cultivate kindly relations, and to harmonize on the great questions upon which we are now called to act, this disposition on the part of the majority to press upon us measures to final action upon an hour's notice, must be abandoned. You may have the power to do as you please; but indiscreet haste will neither promote the popularity of your measures, nor convince the public that you are right.

        I can but admire the wise and deliberative tone in which the gentleman from Coffee, [Mr. Yelverton,] has just expressed himself on this subject. Yielding nothing of the ardency of his opinions, he yet sees no harm in a day's delay. "A week's delay," in the patriotic language of the gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Watts,] "would be cheerfully yielded by him, for the sake of a unanimous vote in favor of the resolution."

        For my part, I wish the resolution adopted; and I am satisfied, sir, that on to-morrow it would be passed unanimously, and I sincerely hope that it will be referred.

        MR. YANCEY said:

        Mr. President--The gentleman from Tuscaloosa has sneeringly said, that it will be but poor consolation to South Carolina, when we tender the promise to aid her against coercion by the General Government, by a meagre majority of one. I think, sir, I understand the allusion. It is useless to disguise the fact, that in some portions of the State there is disapprobation towards our action; and, I venture to tell the gentleman from Tuscaloosa, that when that Ordinance shall be passed, even if it be by the meagre majority of one, it will represent the fullness, and the power, and the

majesty of the sovereign people of Alabama. When it shall be the supreme organic law of the people of Alabama, the State upon that question will know no majority or minority among her people, but will expect and demand, and secure unlimited and unquestioned obedience to that Ordinance. If gentlemen imagine, or indulge the hope, that there will be opposition to that expressed will of the people, I tell them that it will not be from any portion of the people of Alabama, but from the enemies of the people of Alabama. The State is a unit in its sovereignty; the people of the State constitutes a unit in allegiance to its high decrees. If there shall be found any who shall dare oppose it, they will not be of the people; they will not be of a minority or majority of the people, as some choose to call them. They must throw off the character of citizenship in this State, and assume a new character in accordance with their new position. It is useless, Mr. President, to disguise the true character of things with soft words. Men, who shall, after the passage of this Ordinance, dissolving the union of Alabama with the other States of this Confederacy, dare array themselves against the State, will then become the enemies of the State. There is a law of Treason, defining treason against the State; and, these who shall dare oppose the action of Alabama, when she assumes her independence of the Union, will become traitors--rebels against its authority, and will be dealt with as such. Sir, in such an event, the nomenclature of the Revolution of 1776 will have to be revived. The friends of the country were then called Whigs, and the enemies of the colonies were called Tories, And I have no doubt that, however they may be aided by abolition forces, the God of Battles and Liberty will give us the victory over the unnatural alliance, as was done, under similar circumstances, in the Revolution.

        In this great contest there are but two sides--a Northern and a Southern; and when our Ordinance of Secession shall be passed, the citizens of the State will ally themselves with the South. The misguided, deluded, wicked men in our midst, if any such there be, who shall oppose it, will be in alignment with the abolition power of the Federal Government, and as our safety demands, must be looked upon and dealt with as public enemies.

        The above is a very brief report of Mr. YANCEY'S speech on this occasion. It is here inserted from the "Montgomery Mail." and is supposed to have been drawn up, so far, by Mr. Yancey himself. The speech as delivered, occupied nearly half an hour; was uttered with great vehemence, and embraced many topics not here reported. It threw the Convention into the highest excitement.

        MR. WATTS said, [in substance:]

        Mr. President--I regret exceedingly the tone of the speech just made by my colleague [Mr. Yancey.] This is no time for the exhibition of feeling or for the utterance of denunciations. The minority have simply asked a parliamentary courtesy, which ought not to be denied; especially, as there is no emergency calling for immediate action on the resolution. It is extremely desirable that this resolution should be passed unanimously; and I earnestly hope that the motion to refer it may prevail; and, I believe, that on to-morrow, it can, and will be passed by a majority of One Hundred--all the votes of this Convention.

        [MR. WATTS retained the floor some considerable time, seeming to have been actuated by a desire to mollify the feeling, and quiet the excitement that prevailed in the Convention.]

        MR. JEMISON said:

        Mr. President--I had not intended to say more upon the resolution under consideration; but I cannot permit to pass in silence, the extraordinary and unprovoked remarks of the gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Yancey.] I say unprovoked, for they were wholly uncalled for by any thing that fell from either my colleague or myself. The gentleman charges me with having spoken of his native State, South Carolina, with levity--slightingly. I have done no such thing. I have never spoken of that gallant State slightingly. I have differed with her leading politicians, but I have not spoken disrespectfully of them, or their State. I can differ with men upon measures of policy, and yet believe them honest and patriotic. But, sir, nothing was said by me as to the State of South Carolina, her politicians, or her policy. I spoke only of the dispatches, or telegrams, that have been poured in upon us in such profusion, upon every subject and every occasion. Some of them, it is true, were from the gentleman's native State; some from other States--they came from all quarters. They came so thick and fast, they seemed like snow-flakes, to fall from the clouds. Of these telegrams, but without singling out those from any particular State or locality, I did speak with levity and incredulity. I spoke as I thought, as I felt, and as I believe, but without disrespect to any State, individual or class.

        The gentleman from Montgomery has made the remarks of myself and colleague, the text or rather the pretext of reading for the benefit of ourselves and the minority of this Convention, a

long, and very racy and pointed commentary upon the law of Treason. He tells us the political nomenclature of "76" will be revived; that parties will be known and distinguished as of yore, by the names of Whig and Tory; that in times past the friends of the country were known as Whigs, and its enemies as Tories. He tells us further, that there is such an offence as Treason, and reminds us that though the Ordinance of Secession may pass by a majority of a single vote, that those who shall not submit to it are guilty of the crime of treason, and must, and will be punished as traitors.

        For whom and by what authority does the gentleman speak? He speaks in the plural. In all frankness, said he, "we speak thus, we tell our opponents," &c. Are we to understand him as speaking for himself alone, or does he speak as the organ of the majority, party in this Convention, of whom he is the acknowledged leader? I cannot believe that he has spoken the sentiments of the majority, or any member of it but himself. I cannot think such sentiments are entertained by any other member of this Convention. I had not expected to hear such sentiments from any quarter. They are unmerited--they are uncalled for and unprovoked by any thing that has been uttered by my colleague or myself, or by any other member of the minority; they are unjust; they are unbecoming any gentleman on this floor. [Hon. Mr. Yancey rose, and the President called Mr. J. to order, whereupon he took his seat. There was much confusion at this moment, and Mr. Yancey, also, was called to order by the President.] After order was restored, Mr. J. proceeded. Mr. President, when I took upon myself the duties of a delegate to this Convention, it was with a full knowledge and proper appreciation of all its difficulties and responsibilities. I took my seat here with a fixed and firm resolution not only to preserve the courtesies of debate, but to cultivate friendly intercourse and relations with each and every one, but to encourage calm and friendly discussion; to keep down every crimination or recrimination by pouring oil upon the troubled waters. My most earnest desire has been to see good feeling and harmony preside over our deliberations; that whenever we should take final action, that all should cordially and cheerfully unite in support of that action. This has been my most ardent desire--this my most settled determination. From this determination and from this purpose, I cannot be driven by any ill-timed or unmerited remarks, come from what source they may. But, sir, when the great leader of the majority shall call the minority party tories, shall denounce us as traitors and pronounce against us a traitor's doom, were I to pass it in silence, the world would properly consider me worthy of the denunciation and the doom.

        [Here MR. YANCEY rose to explain. He said his remarks were not applicable to, or intended for, the minority of this Convention; they were intended for those in certain portions of the State, where it was said the Ordinance of Secession, if passed, would be resisted.]

        MR. JEMISON continued:

        I am glad, Mr. President, to hear the gentleman disclaim any imputation of disloyalty to the minority in this Convention. But has he bettered it by transferring it to the great popular masses in certain sections of the State where there is strong opposition to the Ordinance of Secession, and where it is said it will be resisted? Will the gentleman go into those sections of the State and hang all who are opposed to Secession? Will he hang them by families, by neighborhoods, by towns, by counties, by Congressional Districts? Who, sir, will give the bloody order? Who will be your executioner? Is this the spirit of Southern chivalry? Are these the sentiments of the boasted champions of Southern Rights? Are these to be the first fruits of a Southern Republic? Ah! is this the bloody charity of a party who seeks to deliver our own beloved sunny South from the galling yoke of a fanatical and puritanical abolition majority? What a commentary on the charity of party majorities! The history of the reign of Terror furnishes not a parallel to the bloody picture shadowed forth in the remarks of the gentleman. I envy him not its contemplation. For the interest of our common country, I would drop the curtain over the scene; and palsied be the hand that ever attempts to lift it.

        After the explanation and disclaimer of the gentleman [Mr. Yancey,] it is due to him, and to myself, that I should say--which I do with great pleasure--that the particular remark of mine to which he excepts, was intended to illustrate my notions of parliamentary decorum, and not to apply to him individually.

        MR. DAVIS, of Madison, said:

        Mr. President--I cannot allow this occasion to pass without saying a word in reply to what has fallen from the gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Yancey.] Under other circumstances, his remarks might pass unnoticed; but I feel that I owe it to those I represent, at least, correctly to state the position which they hold, upon the question so unexpectedly brought before this body. I claim, sir, to know their views, and I say to this Convention that they have not intended to resist its action, when in conformity to the wishes of the people of the State. The question with them,

sir, is: does the Convention represent the popular will of the State? If it does, they will stand by it, no matter what its decision may be. Now, sir, I need scarcely say that the act of this Convention will not be conclusive in this matter. And why? Because, as every one knows, the popular vote of this State may be one way; the Convention another, and this resulting from the manner in which it was called, by those who are guilty of an usurpation of power. In short, Mr. President, the sovereignty of this body is denied, and its action will be sustained or resisted, as the popular will may be reflected through it.

        The gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Yancey,] asserts upon the authority of a newspaper statement, the vote to be one way; the gentleman from Tuscaloosa, [Mr. Smith,] upon like authority, claims it to be another. I submit, sir, that in deciding a question of such moment, the proof on either side, is unsatisfactory. The people of the State will so regard it. We have the means in our hands of ascertaining their will, by submitting our action for their ratification or rejection; and should a course so manifestly just, be refused, a Committee of this Body, with the evidence at the door, can arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. In either event, I pledge those I represent to stand by the expressed will of the people, I repeat, that I know this to be the position of my constituents, and such, so far as my knowledge extends, is the position of the people in North Alabama.

        MR. YANCEY:

        I said nothing about the people in North Alabama.

        MR. DAVIS:

        So sir, you did not, but it is very well understood by every member on this floor to whom your remarks were applicable. If it should turn out that the popular vote is against the Act of Secession, should it pass, I tell you, sir, that I believe it will and ought to be resisted. The minority of the people of this State ought not to control the majority. But we are told that this is a representative Government--not a pure Democracy, and in this form minorities may rule. If our State Government be representative in this sense, who made it so? The people who, in Convention, framed its Constitution and organic law. They set it on foot, and whilst it moves in the orbit which they prescribed, grant that it is representative, and has the feature which is claimed. Secession, however, destroys that Constitution, and the people are muzzled

in this Convention by a Legislature, which derived its existence from the instrument to be destroyed. But I do not propose to discuss this matter. Judging from the speech of the gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Yancey,] that is not the mode in which it will be decided. We are told, sir, by him, that resistance to the action of this Convention is treason, and those who undertake it, traitors and rebels. The nomenclature of the resolution will then be revised, and the epithet of tory, in future, may ornament the names of Alabamians. I cannot accept this as applicable to my constituents; nor neither do I perceive the fitness or force of the intended illustration. The Whigs of the Revolution were the friends of this Government--the Tories its enemies. If names shall hold the same relation to the Government now as then, I shall have no objections to the historical reminiscence. And not less odious, in my estimation, than the name of tory, is the doctrine which is claimed of the right to coerce an unwilling people. We must be dealt with as public enemies. But yesterday, sir, this Convention condemned this doctrine. With one voice, you declared against it, and expressed your determination to meet such an invasion of your rights as it ought to be met, with arms in your hands. It will be asserted as readily against a tyrant at home as abroad; as readily by the people of my section against usurpation and outrage here, as elsewhere. And when compelled to take this course, they will cheerfully, no doubt, assume all the responsibility that follows the act. I seek no quarrel with the gentleman from Montgomery, or his friends. Towards him personally, I entertain none other than the kindest feeling. But I tell him that should he engage in that enterprise, he will not be allowed to boast the character of an invader. Coming at the head of any force which he can muster, aided and aisisted by the Executive of this State, we will meet him at the foot of our mountains, and there with his own selected weapons, hand to hand, and face to face, settle the question of the sovereignty of the people.

        The Convention adjourned without having taken any further action on the resolution.

FOURTH DAY--SECRET SESSION--JANUARY 10.

        Gen. J. W. A. SANFORD, Commissioner from the State of Georgia to the State of Alabama, was invited to a seat within the bar of the Convention.

        The President laid before the Convention an official dispatch from the State of Mississippi.

        Received at Montgomery January 9th, 1861, by telegraph from Jackson:

To Hon. WM. M. BROOKS:

        I am instructed by the Mississippi State Convention to inform you that the State of Mississippi, by a vote of her Convention, approaching unanimity, has seceded unconditionally, from the Union, and desires, on the basis of the old Constitution, a new Union with the seceded States.

WILLIAM S. BARRY,
President of the Convention.

        And also dispatches from Charleston, as follows:

        Received at Montgomery January 9th, 1861, by telegraph from Charleston:

To John A. ELMORE:

        The Steamer with reinforcements, was fired into by the Forts, disabled, retreated and lying at anchor. This is certain. The reports of her hauling down her colors I do not vouch for.

WM. E. MARTIN.

        Received at Montgomery January 9th, 1861, by telegraph from Charleston:

To J. A. ELMORE, or the President of the Convention:

        Anderson, it is said and believed, intends firing upon our shipping, and cutting off communication with the fort.

WM. E. MARTIN.

        Received at Montgomery January 9th, 1861, by telegraph from Charleston:

To JOHN A. ELMORE, or President of Convention:

        Anderson writes to the Governor he will fire into all ships. Governor replies, and justifies what we did. Now Anderson replies, his mind is changed, and refers the question to Washington.

WM. E. MARTIN.

ORDINANCE OF SECESSION

        MR. YANCEY, from the Committee of Thirteen, reported as follows:

        The Committee to whom it was committed to consider upon, and report, what action was necessary to be taken by this Convention, in order to protect and preserve the rights and independence of the people of the State of Alabama, beg leave to report, that they have calmly and thoughtfully considered the great matter committed to them; and they have instructed me to report the accompanying Ordinance and Resolutions.

W. L. YANCEY,
Chairman.

An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of Alabama and other States united under the compact styled "The Constitution of the United States of America."

        WHEREAS, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of President and Vice President of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the Constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security; therefore,

        Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn, from the Union known as "the United States of America," and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be, a Sovereign and Independent State.

        SEC. 2. Be it further declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention assembled, That all the powers over the Territory of said State, and over the people thereof, heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America, be and they are hereby withdrawn from said Government, and are hereby resumed and vested in the people of the State of Alabama.

        Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi,

Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the 4th day of February, A. D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security.

        And be it further resolved, That the President of this Convention be, and is hereby instructed to transmit forthwith, a copy of the foregoing Preamble, Ordinance, and Resolutions to the Governors of the several States named in said resolutions.

        Done by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled at Montgomery, on this, the eleventh day of January, A. D., 1861.

MINORITY REPORT.

        Mr. CLEMENS, from the minority of the same Committee, made a report with resolutions as follows:

        The undersigned a minority of the Committee of Thirteen, to whom was referred all matters touching the proper mode of resistance to be adopted by the State of Alabama, in the present emergency, beg leave to present the following

REPORT:

        Looking to harmony of action among our own people as desirable above all other things, we have been earnestly desirous of concurring with the majority in the line of policy marked out by them, but, after the most careful consideration, we have been unable to see, in Separate State Secession the most effectual mode of guarding our honor and securing our rights. Without entering into any argument upon the nature and amount of our grievances, or any speculations as to the probability of our obtaining redress and security in the Union, but looking alone to the most effectual mode of resistance, it seems to us that this great object is best to be attained by the concurrent and concerted action of all the States interested, and that it becomes us to make the effort to obtain that concurrence, before deciding finally and conclusively upon our own policy.

        We are further of opinion that, in a matter of this importance, vitally affecting the property, the lives and the liberties of the whole people, sound policy dictates that an ordinance of secession should be submitted for their ratification and approval. To that

end, the resolutions which accompany this report have been prepared and are now submitted to the Convention.

        The undersigned purposely refrain from a detailed statement of the reasons which have brought them to the conclusions at which they have arrived. The action proposed by the majority of the Committee is, in its nature, final and conclusive--there is no chance for rehearing or revision; and we feel no disposition to submit an argument, whose only effect will be to create discontent, and throw difficulties in the way of a policy, the adoption of which we are powerless to prevent. In submitting our own plan and using all fair and honorable means to secure its acceptance, our duty is fully discharged; to insist upon objections when they can have no effect but to excite dissatisfaction among the people, is alike foreign to our feelings, and our conceptions of patriotic duty.

        The resolutions hereinbefore referred to, are prayed to be taken as part of this Report, and the whole is herewith respectfully submitted.

JERE. CLEMENS,
DAVID P. LEWIS,
WM. O. WINTSON,
A. KIMBAL,
R. S. WATKINS,
R. JEMISON, JR.

        WHEREAS, repeated infractions of the Constitution of the United States by the people and States of the Northern section of the Confederacy have been followed by the election of sectional candidates, by a strictly sectional vote, to the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States, upon a platform of principles insulting and menacing to the Southern States; and WHEREAS, it becomes a free people to watch with jealous vigilance, and resist with manly firmness every attempt to subvert the free and equal principles upon which our Government was originally founded, and ought alone to be maintained; therefore,

        Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana. Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, be and they are hereby requested to meet us in general Convention in the city of Nashville, in the State of Tennessee, on the 22d day of February, 1861, for the purpose of taking into consideration the wrongs of which we have cause to complain; the appropriate remedy therefor, and the time and manner of its application.

        Be it further resolved, That the State of Alabama shall be represented in said Convention by nine delegates, one to be selected

from each Congressional district, and two from the State at large, in such manner as shall hereafter be directed and provided for by this Convention.

        Be it further resolved, That our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general Convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and the Southern States, to wit:

• 1. A faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, and a repeal of all State laws calculated to impair its efficacy.
• 2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offences against the laws of one State and escaping into another.
• 3. A guarantee that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia, or in any other place over which Congress has exclusive jurisdiction.
• 4. A guarantee that the inter-State slave trade shall not be interferred with.
• 5. A protection to slavery in the Territories, while they are Territories, and a guarantee that when they ask for admission as States they shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery as their Constitutions may prescribe.
• 6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.
• 7. The foregoing clauses to be irrepealable by amendments to the Constitution.

        Be it further resolved, That the basis of settlement prescribed in the foregoing resolution shall not be regarded by our delegates as absolute and unalterable, but as an indication of the opinion of this Convention, to which they are expected to conform as nearly as may be, holding themselves, however, at liberty to accept any better plan of adjustment which may be insisted upon by a majority of the slaveholding States.

        Be it further resolved, That if the foregoing proposition for a conference is refused, or rejected, by any or all of the States to which it is addressed, Alabama, in that event, will hold herself at liberty, alone, or in conjunction with such States, as may agree to unite with her, to adopt such plan of resistance, and mature such measures, as in her judgment may seem best calculated to maintain the honor and secure the rights of her citizens; and in the meantime we will resist, by all means at our command, any attempt on the part of the General Government to coerce a seceding State.

        Be it further resolved, That the President of this Convention be instructed to transmit copies of the foregoing preamble and resolutions to the Governors of each of the States therein named.

        And also the following resolution from the same:

        Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That an ordinance of secession from the United States is an act of such great importance, involving consequences so vitally affecting the lives, liberty and property of the citizens of the seceding State, as well as of the States by which it is surrounded, and with which it has heretofore been united, that in our opinion it should never be attempted until after the most thorough investigation, and discussion, and then only after a full and free ratification at the polls by a direct vote of the people, at an election held under the forms and safeguards of the law in which that single issue, untrammelled and undisguised in any manner whatever, should alone be submitted.

        MR. CLEMENS moved that the preamble and first series of resolutions be taken up and substituted for the ordinance.

        The ayes and noes was demanded.

        The ayes and nays were then called on the motion of Mr. Clemens, and it was lost. Ayes, 45, nays, 54.

        Those who voted in the affirmative are Messrs. Allen, Barclay, Beard, Bulger, Clarke, of Lawrence, Clemens, Coffee, Coman, Crumpler, Davis, of Madison, Earnest, Edwards, Ford, Forrester, Franklin, Gay, Green, Guttery, Hood, Inzer, Jemison, Jones, of Fayette, Jones, of Lauderdale, Johnson, Kimball, Leonard, Lewis, McClellan, Posey, Potter, Russell, Sanford, Sheets, Sheffield, Slaughter, Smith, of Tuscaloosa, Steadham, Steele, Taylor, Timberlake, Watkins, Whitlock, Wilson, Winston, Wood--45.

        Those who voted in the negative are Messrs. President, Bailey, Baker, of Barbour, Baker, of Russell, Barnes, Beck, Blue, Bolling, Bragg, Catterling, Clarke, of Marengo, Cochran, Coleman, Crawford, Creech, Crook, Curtis, Daniel, Dargan, Davis, of Covington, Davis, of Pickens, Dowdell, Foster, Gibbons, Gilchrist, Hawkins, Henderson, of Pike, Henderson, of Macon, Herndon, Howard, Humphries, Jewett, Ketchum, Love, McClanahan, McPherson, McKinnie, Morgan, Owens, Phillips, Ralls, Rives, Ryan, Shortridge, Silver, Smith, of Henry, Starke, Stone, Watts, Webb, Whatley, Williamson, Yancey, Yelverton--54.

        MR. CLEMENS offered the following amendment:

        Provided, however, that this ordinance shall not go into effect until the 4th day of March, 1861, and not then unless the same shall have been ratified and confirmed by a direct vote of the people.

        The ayes and noes were taken on the amendment, and were ayes, 45, nays, 54, and the amendment was lost.

        Those who voted in the affirmative are, Messrs. Allen, Barclay, Beard, Bulger, Clarke, of Lawrence, Clemens, Coffee, Coman, Crumpler, Davis, of Madison, Earnest, Edwards, Ford, Forrester, Franklin, Gay, Green, Guttery, Hood, Inzer, Jemison, Jones, of Fayette, Jones, of Lauderdale, Johnson, Kimball, Leonard, Lewis, McLellan, Posey, Potter, Russell, Sanford, Sheets, Sheffield, Slaughter, Smith, of Tuscaloosa, Steadham, Steele, Taylor, Timberlake, Watkins, Whitlock, Wilson, Winston, Wood--45.

        Those who voted in the negative are Messrs. President, Bailey, Baker, of Barbour, Baker, of Russell, Barnes, Beck, Blue, Bolling, Bragg, Catterling, Clarke, of Marengo, Cochran, Coleman, Crawford, Creech, Crook, Curtis, Daniel, Dargan, Davis, of Covington, Davis, of Pickens, Dowdell, Foster, Gibbons, Gilchrist, Hawkins, Henderson, of Pike, Henderson, of Macon, Herndon, Howard, Humphries, Jewett, Ketchum, Love, McClanahan, McPherson, McKinnie, Morgan, Owens, Phillips, Ralls, Rives, Ryan, Shortridge, Silver, Smith, of Henry, Starke, Stone, Watts, Webb, Whatley, Williamson, Yancey, Yelverton--54.

        MR. YANCEY moved to take up the Ordinance of Secession, and that it be adopted.

        Pending this motion MR. CLARK, of Laurence, said:

        Mr. President--As separate secession is not a right, so it is not a remedy. As a question of policy, merely, a more appalling picture can scarcely be presented to the eye of the patriot and philanthropist, than that of separate State secession. There is something repulsive in the very exclusiveness of its name.

        It is no remedy, because it would remove no evil. The slavery question, the "Iliad of all our woes," would not be decided in our favor, or even settled in any way. It would still continue a vital and ever-present issue. If we succeed in quieting or removing this cause of disturbance, we have accomplished all--if we fail, nothing. How shall separate secession effect this result? It would be a revolution of the Government, it is true, but it would not revolutionize the Northern mind. It would neither hush the pulpit, calm the forum, nor purify the quarters of Black Republicanism.

        This mode of action certainly can afford no relief for the past. It is equally clear, it can provide no security for the future. Destitute

of the ordinary means of self-defence--in no condition to demand an alliance, and without the power to invite one--the General Government provoked into hostility by our disobedience --other governments refusing to acknowledge our independence-- the surrounding States forced to become enemies by our dictation; shut out from the Pacific on the West, the Atlantic on the East; with Federal fleets cautiously watching our manoeuvres from the Gulf of Mexico--our border exposed on every side--abolitionism always ready to foray upon us--with no fugitive slave law to protect our property--without a treasury, an army or a navy--we should be, indeed, the Niobe of nations. Intimidated by our own weakness, distressed by our exposed condition, and exhausted by destructive efforts at self-preservation--all history teaches that but one fate would await us. The proud spirit of our people bruised, broken, and at last overcome by these combined agencies, would demand protection, as the dernier resort, from some stronger power--and Alabama ultimately become a dependency of Great Britain, or of France, or perhaps be forced to return "in secret, in silence and tears" to the American Confederacy! The minor States of ancient Greece, alternately paying tribute to Sparta or Athens, great as the power of one or the other was paramount, afford a mournful and instructive lesson upon this melancholy subject. The small feudatories of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in England, also offer sad examples of the well established historical truth, that a weak State can only maintain a nominal independence--a sort of political wardship when environed by more powerful neighbors. Separate secession, therefore, so far from enabling us the more effectually to secure the interests of slavery, would only invite the descent and make us the easy prey of Northern marauders. Nations are not improvised. They are the slow and steady growth of centuries. "A thousand years scarce seem to make a State."

        The sense of insecurity, which our forlorn condition would beget, most certainly, would drive capital away; just at the time, too, when we should need it most. The cost of administering a government is in inverse proportion to its size. Federal officers with Shylock avidity, would seize the public revenue in every collection district, and direct taxation would be the only resource for funds with which to support the machinery of government. Our people, oppressed to the earth by a system of taxation more intolerable than that of despotic Austria, and impelled likewise, by the instinct of self-preservation, would strike their tents and emigrate to the West. Thus deserted by population, our lands would pass out of demand, and depreciate; and our negroes, too, cease to be valuable for want of a market. This emigration would go on

chiefly from the white population, and the dismal proportion of negroes which we have already, would then become absolutely alarming. Our lovely State, with its few Caucasian inhabitants, would be converted into a kind of American Congo.

        Should Alabama and South Carolina withdraw their representation in Congress, the democratic majority there, which makes the present of slavery secure, according to the infamous Phillips, would be destroyed; and Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, the great central slave and border States being left--ungenerously abandoned to the implacable vengeance of their relentless foe, would seek safety for their slaves in emigration, and fair equivolency in Southern markets; and, besides crowding the Gulf States with a ruinous surplus of the black race, would themselves, by gradually yielding up their lands to the exclusive culture of incoming whitemen from the North, become free States. Thus the institution of slavery, gradually receding before the Northern avalanche of abolitionism, pressing down upon it like a glacier in the gorges of the eternal Alps, and coming southward from State to State, would finally perish. We should then believe, but all too late, the recent declaration of Senator Wade, "separate State secession is the decree for universal emancipation." This evil could not be remedied by laws prohibiting the immigration of negroes to the State. In thus attempting to avoid Charybdis, we should be wrecked upon Scylla. To obstruct the inter-slave-trade, is, at once, to "clip the golden hair from the head of Nisus." The Black Republicans desire nothing more. It is the policy, therefore, of Alabama to remain, if not in the Union, at least in the South with Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, interposed between her and the region of danger, if for no other purpose than to give protection to her own property. But she owes this much, at least, to those States themselves. Her patriotism, chivalry and magnanimity could never be excused for ingloriously deserting them in this hour of awful peril. The hostile tread of abolition invaders will only desecrate the virgin soil of Alabama, when the courage of the Old Dominion becomes a myth and the Kentucky rifle a fable.

        Surely, Alabama ought to exhibit no indecent haste in cutting the companionship of Virginia. She is a powerful auxiliary--a tried friend. If the State of Virginia, losing annually a hundred times as much property as our own, and submitting to a thousand indignities to which our people are strangers, can remain in the Union, at least long enough, to select with some deliberation the best mode of retiring from it, certainly Alabama's honor will not be compromised by the determined abandonment of a friend,

so dear and invaluable. It is said that if Virginia and Kentucky do not wish to be deserted, let them follow Alabama. But is it not eminently discourteous, selfish and unkind, for any one State to arrogate the Supreme Dictatorship of fourteen equals?

        Southern sentiment is opposed to separate State secession; and if not a majority, at least a large minority of our own people are violently hostile to it This circumstance, alone, should be conclusive against the policy. A large part of the produce of North Alabama finds a market in Tennessee, or passes through that State on its way to it. North Alabama has no idea of permitting her citizens and cotton to run the guantlet of passports, custom houses, and the other machinery of a foreign government as they go to market. Already many of her best and truest citizens are speaking of secession from Alabama and annexation to Tennessee: thus illustrating at once the utter absurdity of the doctrine of secession, as well as foreshadowing the storm that is impending over our own State. Shall we ever live to behold the day when Alabama, having assumed the untried responsibilities of separate secession, shall find herself torn, convulsed and rent in twain by the dissensions of her own people? Shall the martial roll of the warlike drum ever be heard reverbrating through the deep ravines of the Sand Mountains, calling the clansmen of the hills against our brothers of the South? Shall grim-visaged war lift his horrid front" above the Arcadian valley of the Tennessee, and bestain and overspread with slaughter's pencil those beautiful and picturesque landscapes, brighter than any scene which ever flashed admiration upon the shepherd's soul among those flowering peaks, where "smooth Peneus glassy flood reflects purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene?" Shall the very Eden of peace, become the home of strife, of carnage and of destruction? The bare probability of such a thing "fills me, and thrills me with terrors no mortal ever felt before." Great God forbid it!

        In her name, and by her authority, I implore you to yield something, for once, to the demand of North Alabama--to your brothers who have the same common cause, danger and destiny, the same fathers and mothers to watch over and pray for you; who love and cherish you, and whose brave hearts and strong arms will bleed and strike for you in peril's darkest hour. Although cautious in council, North Alabama, when the conflict comes, if come it must, will lead your army to victory and to glory.

        What abolition aggression do you resist by going out of the Union alone? Will it repeal the personal liberty bills of the North? Will it return a single fugitive slave? Can it prevent the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia? or the suppression

of the inter-State-slave trade? Alabama by seceding, voluntarily relinquishes whatever of interest she has in the golden fruitage of the territories--the Hesperides of America. Has the cotton bloom no interest in the Indian territory worth Alabama's attention? Can you witness without a pang the federal assetts go to enrich the coffers of your enemies? Will you shed not a tear when you bid farewell to that army and navy, around which so many glorious recollections cluster, and in which Southern valor has won such unperishable laurels? But above all, to say nothing of the grave of Washington and the home of Clay, are you ready tamely to surrender the Temple of the Constitution--the Jerusalem of our hopes--to the Saracens who beleager it? Southern patriots! can you repose in quiet upon your pillows while the Constitution of your fathers--the grandest effort of human workmanship--writhes in the harpy hands of Black Republicanism? Can you prevent this deplorable consummation by separate State action? Delude not yourselves with the vain hope, that if this Government is picked to pieces by fragments, it, or any considerable portion of it, can, upon some self-adjusting principle, ever rëunite in sufficient strength to demand and assert our claim to any of the Federal property which we shall abandon. Has history been written in vain? Shall we not profit by the experience of the past? If our fathers, surrounded by all of the terrors of the Revolution, could scarcely form a Union, how can their sons expect, in times of peace, to restore the unity of a disintegrated South? If a few weak and nerveless colonies--without money and without men--doubted long, and finally agreed with great reluctance, do you suppose that fifteen Sovereign States, as you so love to call them, would mingle again gracefully into one? Said Mr. Madison, in 1829, "In the event of a dissolution of the Union, an impossibility of ever renewing it is brought home to every mind by the difficulties encountered in establishing it. But you ask me, where then would be a unity of interest, a unity of climate and a unity of soil--what would prevent a union in politics? The same causes which came so near defeating the hopes of liberty under the Articles of Confederation, and which rendered the present Constitution a necessity. The same causes which have operated in all ages and in all instances wherever the federative system has been attempted. History abounds with examples. The bad passions of men, and the passions of bad men. The ambitious schemes of selfish, political leaders, and the honestly entertained views of others--petty rivalry and jealousies--various views of government, questions of boundary, perhaps, and conflicting commercial regulations."

        But suppose you could succeed, after striking Alabama from the constellation of States, in provoking a war with the General Government, if it was not imposed upon you, and by thus desolating her fair borders and slaughtering her peaceful citizens, draggoon the other Southern States unto your assistance and a union with you, would you do it? Every instinct of philanthropy, and common humanity answers for you a thousand times, no. My chief objection, therefore, to separate secession, is, that it would be a disunion of the South: a thought so gloomy and awful that it needs only to be mentioned.

        These are a few of the numerous objections to peaceable separate State secession. But could this policy be carried out peaceably? I think not. It must be followed sooner or later, by an appeal to the high arbitrament of arms--where the eloquence of artillery would debate, and the bayonet's bloody point decide. The annals of all time furnish but few, if any, instances of a people changing their allegiance by a bloodless revolution. If the General Government were to attempt to coerce the State, that would determine the question at once. If the incoming administration, however, should adopt the constitutional constructions of its predecessor, the unpleasant alternative will be presented of engaging in a civil war, or of submitting to the collection of the Federal revenue. A brave people, ground down by taxation, will not be long in deciding that question. I shall not argue to it. A settled gloom comes over the mind and deadly sickness steals upon the heart at its mere contemplation. One paragraph from that magnificent burst of oratory, uttered by Mr. Webster in the great strife of 1850, which gathers new splendor from the impending crisis, is worth more than all of my argument: "Who is so foolish--I beg everybody's pardon--as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live--covering this whole country--is it to be thawed and melted away by secession as the snows on the mountains melt in under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might produce disruption of the Union: but sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce. I see it must produce war, and such a war I will not describe in its twofold character."

        The only hope for a peaceable secession is in a United South; and that alone can afford certain security to the future of slavery Now is the time, too, if ever, that it can be effected. Southern sentiment, although opposed to separate secession, is ripe for a Union of the South. That moral revolution which must always precede political changes, has been already wrought. Lincoln's election--a standing menace to slavery--by a party organized upon a basis of hostility to that species of property, in which all of the Southern States are so largely interested, will force the South into unity of idea.

        A united South! What music to the patriot's car! In it would be realized the brightest dreams of Southern statesmanship--the life-long ambition of the great Calhoun consummated--and the institution of slavery protected forever against the propagandism of the Northern mania. A united South implies all that is profitable in practice, beautiful in theory, and stupendous in conception. A salubrious climate, fertile soil, and nearly nine hundred thousand square miles of slave territory; fifty navigable rivers, unlocked by the rigors of winter; a sea coast by ocean and gulf almost immeasurable; a population in the year 1850 of nearly ten millions; her property worth, exclusive of slaves, in round numbers, three billions; and fifty-five millions of acres of improved land, groaning beneath the richest of harvests. The cash value of her farms, two billions of dollars; her farming implements alone worth sixty millions of dollars; her agricultural products, estimated at six hundred and thirty-two millions of dollars; each agriculturist earning in the sweat of honest industry, an average of one hundred and seventy-one dollars per annum: a capital of ninety-six millions of dollars employed in manufactures, and working up in raw material a value of eighty-seven millions of dollars. [Here Mr. Clark enlarged upon the resources of the South, and continued:] Besides, the South is the nursery of the Arts and Sciences, the land of the philosopher; the home of the orator and statesman, the poet, the historian and the divine. Its chivalry unvanquished by flood or by field, and its beauty blooming like "wild roses by the abbey towers" in every hamlet and village. While these statistical facts, taken indiscriminately from the census of 1850, augmented by a decade's increase, demonstrate that the South, under the present Government, has attained a distinction almost unrivalled in material progress, they admonish us to exercise great patience before we destroy the Constitution which has supplied us with so much nourishment, growth and wealth. They also show that the South, united, possesses within herself, all of the elements of greatness, prosperity and independence. Our independence would then be

acknowledged, and our power, influence and vast resources would invite alliances. Coercion would then become a thing impossible, and even fanaticism itself would not attempt it. The united freemen of the South, standing above the soil of their nativity, and battling around the urns and sepulchres of their fathers, can never be conquered. We should then possess, in short, all of the requisites of a great nation; the evils incident to separate secession above alluded to, would be prevented; and in this way, if at all, the long train of deplorable disasters consequent upon civil war, avoided.

        The North know that we are injured and that the grounds of our complaint are just. They know that if there is any wrong in the fugitive slave law, we are indebted to them for it. Almost before their tracks were dry on the decks of the May-flower, in 1643, only twenty-three years after,

                         "A band of exiles moor'd the bark
                         On the wild New England shore."

        Commissioners from Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other places enacted a Fugitive Slave Law.

        Let the South in her united majesty once more come forth "with her cohorts gleaming in purple and gold," and, lifting her mighty voice, like the sound of many waters, above the granite hills of New England, utter again to Abolitionism, the edict of heaven: "thou shalt not steal." We owe it to the interests of liberty--to republican institutions, and to the great rights of man throughout the civilized world. We owe it to that long line of posterity which shall rise up and bless us--to the present with all of its untold grandeur--and to the illustrious past.

        An act, involving such momentous consequences as the tearing down or building up a government implies, should not be done in passion, pique or precipitation. We should at least determine the successor before we dethrone the incumbent--agree upon the form of a new government before we destroy the old. Our ancestors were nearly a century and a half in erecting the present government of the United States; and in the Convention which assembled in Albany in 1754, its ruling spirit, Dr. Franklin, and his associate commissioners, unlike our separate secession advocates, spurned the idea of separate Confederacies. Indeed, colonial history fully proves that the great statesmen who were acting under a high and patriotic sense of their responsibilities to mankind, and whose deliberations resulted in the formation of a government, which up to the present moment has been regarded with wonder and admiration by the civilized world, were controlled by two principles, which obtain but little favor with the government makers of the present day: the greatest caution and a strong desire for

united action. They were acting, too, under circumstances ten times more alarming than those which surround us, and with precisely the same object in view--self-protection against external danger. Even after hostilities had commenced in the province of Massachusetts, they published resolutions renouncing trade with Great Britain, Canada and the Colonies; they preferred petitions to the King; and it was only after argument, persuasion, remonstrance, entreaty, non-intercourse and every other conciliatory measure had been exhausted, that they struck the final blow which made America free.

        What a change has come over the spirit of South Carolina's dream! Then she was prudent, cautious, full of delay; even up to the first day of July, 1776, although her arms had flashed forth at Fort Moultrie in a blaze of glory, she had not given in her adherence to the Declaration of Independence; and the reason, still more singular, was that one of her deputies wanted time to unite others in the project.

        For these reasons, with many others, it is the policy of Alabama, clearly indicated, to invite a Conference of the Southern States for consultation and endorsement. What should be the policy of that Convention, it is not for me to anticipate. But, that great good would result from it we may safely hope. If some plan of reconciliation were derived by it which should satisfy the demands of the Southern States, as I confidently believe would be done, certainly every good patriot would hail it with delight. But if after we have made this last appeal to the justice of the North--after we have exhausted, like our revolutionary fathers, argument, persuasion and entreaty, injustice and wrong shall continue to rule then counsels--thus manifesting the determination to wage the "irrepressible conflict" until the foot of the slave shall no longer tread the soil of the South--then no constitutional scruples about State sovereignty or Federal coercion will be mooted; the South in grand, unbroken and consolidated unity, would appeal to that right which is higher than all constitutions--which tears down and sets up governments--which topples dynasties and crushes empires--which dethrones kings and decapitates tyrants--the implacable right which the Great God of the Universe has granted to man in the eternal charter of the skies--the right of every community to freedom and happiness, and of every people, when the government established over them becomes incompetent to fulfill its purposes, or destructive of the essential ends for which it was instituted, founded upon the law of nations and the reason of mankind, and supported by the best authority and most illustrious precedents, to throw off such government and provide new guards for

their future security. If the wisdom, the patriotism and the experience of the land, assembled in solemn council, after calmly surveying the facts and maturely, considering the consequences of their act, shall be of the opinion that the dearest interests of our people require the destruction of the government, let them quietly ascertain and define our grievances; and then having adopted the example of the immortal fathers of the first revolution, in vindication of the second, "let facts be submitted to a candid world." But if this Convention should neither restore peace nor declare independence, our condition would be no worse than it is now. Once more, therefore, in the names of Liberty, of Peace, of happy hours--of the aged, of the poor, of our mothers, of our sisters--of helpless humanity throughout the borders of our State, I implore you to concede something to the counties of North Alabama.

        MR. TIMBERLAKE offered the following amendment:

        Amend by inserting the following after the second section of the Ordinance, viz:

        And it being the desire of the State of Alabama to form a Provisional Government, and a Southern Confederacy, upon the basis of the Constitution of the United States of America, with such of the slaveholding States as will join in forming the same; and the present resumption of its powers are declared to be for that purpose.

        MR. TIMBERLAKE said:

        In proposing this amendment, he hoped to so explain an ordinance by the adoption of which, Alabama proposes to resume the powers heretofore delegated to the Federal Government, as to confine the future action of the State, in the exercise of those powers, to the formation of a Confederacy of Southern States. He was unwilling to clothe Alabama with those powers for any other purpose; he could but regard the experiment of States, (formerly belonging to the United States,) setting up for themselves separate independent Governments, as being dangerous and unwise in policy, and as it had been a question upon which the parties in this Convention differed in the late canvass, both agreeing that the object and purpose of secession was the formation of a new Confederacy with Southern States. The Ordinance thus explained, will be complete for that purpose. He was willing that Alabama should resume the delegated powers for that purpose and for no other.

        This Convention has power to adopt all measures for the defence of the interest and honor of Alabama, as well before as after the act of separation.

        MR. WHATLEY said:

        The amendment of the gentleman from Jackson, is already incorporated in the Ordinance proposed by the Committee. The only spirit and object of the Ordinance is to accomplish what the gentleman proposes. It seems that no explanation or solicitations by the Chairman of the Committee, and other members, can suit the taste of the gentleman from Jackson; I therefore move to lay his amendment on the table.

        MR. YANCEY said:

        He was willing to vote for a proposition that it was the desire and intention of the people of Alabama in seceding, to join other seceding States in erecting a Southern Confederacy of States upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States of America. But he could not vote for the proposition of the gentleman from Jackson, [Mr. Timberlake.] because it announced such design as the sole motive in seceding from the Union. He asked the attention of the gentleman from Jackson to this distinction. If he really desired an announcement, upon the part of delegates, that they intended to use all proper efforts to frame a Confederacy of Southern States upon Republican principles, let him alter his amendment so as to express that idea, and he will receive a hearty support from the friends of secession in this Convention. For us to vote for this amendment as now worded, is to ask us to declare a motive for secession which was never entertained by its friends.

        The advocates of secession placed their action upon far higher grounds. They believed that the rights and liberties of the people of Alabama were assailed, and endangered by the Northern majorities, who control a majority of the States, and who are about to control the legislation of the Union.

        Believing this, secession, or withdrawal of the State from under the power of that hostile majority, was advocated purely for the purpose--for the purpose alone--of protecting and preserving the endangered rights of the people of this sovereign State--even though not another State should follow our example. Though this was the sole purpose of secession, yet we all believed that other States would secede, and in that event it was our hope that

        they would join us in forming a new Confederacy upon old-fashioned Republican principles.

        After a short discussion, Mr. WHATLEY renewed his motion to lay the amendment on the table.

        The ayes and noes were called, and resulted: ayes 62--noes 37.

        Those who voted in the affirmative were Messrs. Brooks, Allen, Bailey, Baker of Barbour, Barnes, Beck, Blue, Bolling, Bragg, Catterling, Clarke of Marengo, Clarke of Lawrence, Cochran, Coleman, Crawford, Creech, Crook, Curtis, Daniel, Dargan, Davis of Covington, Davis of Madison, Davis of Pickens, Dowdell, Foster, Gibbons, Gilchrist, Green, Hawkins, Henderson of Macon, Henderson of Pike, Herndon, Howard, Humphries, Jewett, Jones of Lauderdale, Ketchum, Lewis, Love, McClanahan, McClellan, McPherson, McKinne, Morgan, Owens, Phillips, Ralls, Rives, Ryan, Sheets, Shortridge, Silver, Smith of Henry, Starke, Stone, Watts, Webb, Whatley, Williamson, Wood, Yancey, Yelverton--62.

        Those who voted in the negative were Messrs. Baker of Russell, Barclay, Beard, Brasher, Bulger, Clemens, Coffey, Coman, Crumpler, Earnest, Edwards, Ford, Forrester, Franklin, Gay, Guttery, Hood, Inzer, Jemison, Jones of Fayette, Johnson, Kimball, Leonard, Posey, Potter, Russell, Sanford, Sheffield, Slaughter, Smith of Tuscaloosa, Stedham, Steele, Taylor, Watkins, Whitlock, Wilson, Winston--37.

        MR. YANCEY moved the following amendment, to be inserted immediately after the Ordinance, and before the resolutions:

        "And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government, upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States."

        The amendment of Mr. Yancey was adopted.

        MR. WATTS announced the presence of Ex-Governor J. W. Matthews, Commissioner from Mississippi, who was, on motion, invited to a seat within the bar of the Convention.

        On motion of MR. JEMISON, the Convention then adjourned until to-morrow (Friday), at 11 o'clock, A. M.

FIFTH DAY-JANUARY ELEVENTH.

        The President laid before the Convention the following official dispatches from the State of Florida:

        TALLAHASSEE, Jan. 10.--Florida has seceded unconditionally by a vote of sixty-two to seven.

M. S. PERRY.

        The other was from Hon. E. C. Bullock, Commissioner from Alabama to Florida, precisely similar to the one from Gov. Perry.

        The President announced that the special order before the Convention for this day, was the report of the majority from the Committee of Thirteen, and the Ordinance of Secession.

        MR. JEMISON, who was entitled to the floor, said:

        That he had thought of submitting to the Convention, this morning, some extended remarks touching this most important question; but, upon reflection, he would decline to do so. His own mind had long been made up to acquiesce in whatever the majority of the Convention might do. He was pledged, unconditionally, to his constituents to this course; and he would cheerfully carry out his pledge; and, he trusted, to their satisfaction. He would not only acquiesce himself in the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, but, upon his return to his constituents, he would use all honorable exertions, if need be, to satisfy the people with the action of this body. This he deemed to be his duty, as suggested by every consideration of patriotism. The public welfare demanded unity of action; and, so far as he was concerned, the best energies of his mind would be devoted to that end.

        MR. DARGAN said:

        I wish, Mr. President, to express the feelings with which I vote for the secession of Alabama from the Government of the United States; and to state, in a few words, the reasons that impel me to this act.

        I feel impelled, Mr. President, to vote for this Ordinance by an overruling necessity. Years ago I was convinced that the Southern

States would be compelled either to separate from the North, by dissolving the Federal Government, or they would be compelled to abolish the institution of African Slavery. This, in my judgment, was the only alternative; and I foresaw that the South would be compelled, at some day, to make her selection. The day is now come, and Alabama must make her selection, either to secede from the Union, and assume the position of a sovereign, independent State, or she must submit to a system of policy on the part of the Federal Government that, in a short time, will compel her to abolish African Slavery.

        Mr. President, if pecuniary loss alone were involved in the abolition of slavery, I should hesitate long before I would give the vote I now intend to give. If the destruction of slavery entailed on us poverty alone, I could bear it, for I have seen poverty and felt its sting. But poverty, Mr. President, would be one of the least of the evils that would befall us from the abolition of African slavery. There are now in the slaveholding States over four millions of slaves; dissolve the relation of master and slave, and what, I ask, would become of that race? To remove them from amongst us is impossible. History gives us no account of the exodus of such a number of persons. We neither have a place to which to remove them, nor the means of such removal. They therefore must remain with us; and if the relation of master and slave be dissolved, and our slaves turned loose amongst us without restraint, they would either be destroyed by our own hands--the hands to which they look, and look with confidence, for protection--or we ourselves would become demoralized and degraded. The former result would take place, and we ourselves would become the executioners of our own slaves. To this extent would the policy of our Northern enemies drive us; and thus would we not only be reduced to poverty, but what is still worse, we should be driven to crime, to the commission of sin; and we must, therefore, this day elect between the Government formed by our fathers (the whole spirit of which has been perverted,) and POVERTY AND CRIME! This being the alternative, I cannot hesitate for a moment what my duty is. I must separate from the Government of the United States, and abandon the Government of my fathers, one under which I have lived, and under which I wished to die. But I must do my duty to my country and my fellow-beings; and humanity, in my judgment, demands that Alabama should separate herself from the Government of the United States.

        If I am wrong in this responsible act, I hope my God may forgive me; for I am not actuated, as I think, from any motive save that of justice and philanthropy!

        MR. POSEY said:

        Mr. President--Before the vote is taken, I desire to offer some reflections, not arguments, upon this solemn occasion. I admit the time for argument is passed. The test votes taken upon the question clearly indicate the determination of a majority on this floor, to withdraw Alabama from the Government left us by our fathers, and which all here once valued as our richest inheritance.

        "I come to bury Cræar, not to praise him." Mr. President, I know you are a man, having the feelings of a man, and can appreciate the sensations of the minority. Reflect how you would have felt before you had been prepared, head and heart, to dissolve our relations with the Federal Government. We of the minority have not advanced so far; we would make one more effort to preserve the Federal Government, and by united action with the other Southern States, demand and sustain all our just rights; and should such united demands be refused by the States of the North, then to withdraw together from the Union.

        The minority believe the Ordinance of Secession ought to be submitted to the people; our constituents believe the same, and would submit more willingly to the vote of the people themselves. This Ordinance will be more distasteful to them, because they have not been allowed to ratify or reject it. I hope they will acquiesce in the action of a majority of this Convention. Division at home would be worse than Secession; this is the opinion of the minority on this floor, upon mature reflection. The first impression of some of us, was, if the Convention refused to submit the question to the people, to bolt the Convention and return home. This intention we have abandoned; the conciliatory course of the majority on this floor, was wise and prudent, and has induced us to remain; and as we conceive, without being responsible for the Act of Secession, we can stay here and aid in providing for the emergencies of the future.

        MR. JONES, of Lauderdale, said:

        That he had not wasted the time of the Convention by factious opposition to the action of the majority; he did not desire to do so now, yet he thought the act about to be performed would justify him in occupying the time of the Convention for a few moments.

        This had been the most solemn hour of his life--he expected to feel no more solemn when he should stand in the presence of the King of Terrors.

        We are to sever the ties that have hitherto bound us to the Federal Union, and enter upon an unknown sea of experiment. He would not argue the propriety of that act. The whole history of this Convention proves that the decision is already made--that each member has determined the course he will pursuse, and is prepared to meet the responsibility of his acts both now and hereafter.

        Knowing this, he would not have said one word, but for the fact that it was reported and believed by many, that the constituency he represented were submissionists: this is a great mistake.

        The people of Lauderdale are as jealous of their rights, and as ready to resent an infraction of those rights, as any people represented on this floor--they have solemnly and unanimously declared, time and again, that they would not submit to Black Republican rule on the principles enunciated by that party--they hold doctrines announced in your resolutions of Monday last to be their principles, and stand pledged to maintain them.

        'Tis true, they differ with you about the time and mode of redress; they think that hasty secession is not the proper remedy; they think it unwise, impolitic and wanting in proper courtesy to our brethren of the border States. Thus you see, we do not differ about the fact, but the manner of redress--the remedy. But whether your mode or ours be wisest, he would not argue; that must be left for future history to decide.

        He had been much moved by the remarks offered by the gentleman from Green, [Mr. Webb]. Seventeen years ago he had met that gentleman in the House of Representatives, when they were mere boys; since then, they had met in both ends of the Capitol, and he had ever found him ready to accord full and ample justice to my section. North Alabama had never drawn a draft on him, he did not honor. Then, sir, if the danger which he describes shall befall his section of the State, he will find us ready and willing to share every toil and divide every danger. Though differing totally from the majority on this subject, yet he was a son of Alabama, born and reared upon her soil, he had not, nor expected to live beyond her limits. To her he owned his first allegiance, and through her a second to the Federal Union. When Alabama shall sever this last allegiance and bid him stand in her defence, he had but one course of duty left. When her banner was unfurled he should stand beneath it--her friends should be his friends and her enemies his.

        These opinions were widely known to his constituents, and they sent him here because they endorsed them. He would only add that he had a boy 15 years old now training in your ranks, and

his mother says that when he is called his father must go with him; and he could not shrink from the responsibility.

        MR. INZER said:

        Mr. President--This is the most solemn period of my life. Although a young man, I have been looking forward for years to a dissolution of the States composing this Confederacy. The Great Compact has already been broken. South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi have seceded, and before the going down of the sun the State of Alabama will have declared her independence, and no longer be one of the United States of America. I am pledged to oppose the Ordinance. I told the people of the county which I have the honor to represent, that if elected, I would most assuredly vote against immediate separate secession; and today I stand here ready to redeem my pledge, and will vote against the Ordinance. But when it becomes the organic law of my State, I will support it, as I believe it to be my duty to do so. I believe the people of my county will stand by the action of the State in her sovereign capacity; and I am in hopes that Alabama will go on with her great work to independence and prosperity. I told the people of St. Clair, [Mr. Inzer's county,] while canvassing the county, that I was in favor of coöperation; but said, if Alabama should secede separate and alone, I would go with her and stand by her in every peril, even to the cannon's mouth; and I now repeat it, I am for Alabama under any and all circumstances.

        MR. SMITH, of Tuscaloosa, said:

        Mr. President--I will not at this time express any argument of opposition I may entertain towards the Ordinance of Secession. I have many reasons for this course.

        I meet here a positive, enlightened and unflinching majority. I have respect for them, and I despair of being able to move them.

        In times like these, when neighboring States are withdrawing one by one from the Union, I cannot get my consent to utter a phrase which might be calculated, in the slightest degree, to widen the breaches at home. My opposition to the Ordinance of Secession will be sufficiently indicated by my vote; that vote will be recorded in the book; that book will take up its march for posterity; and the day is not yet come that is to decide on which part of the page of that book will be written the glory or the shame of this day.

        It is important to the State that you of the majority should be

right, and that I should be wrong. However much personal gratification I might feel hereafter in finding that I was right on this great question, and that you were wrong, that gratification would indeed be to me a poor consolation in the midst of a ruined and desolated country. Therefore, as the passage of the Ordinance of Secession is the act by which the destiny of Alabama is to be controlled, I trust that you are right, and that I am wrong. I trust that God has inspired you with His wisdom, and that, under the influence of this Ordinance, the State of Alabama may rise to the highest pinnacle of national grandeur.

        To show, sir, that the declarations I now make are not forced by the exigencies of this hour, I read one of the resolutions from the platform upon which I was elected to this Convention:

        "Resolved, That we hold it to be our duty, first, to use all honorable exertions to secure our rights in the Union, and if we should fail in this, we will maintain our rights out of the Union--for, as citizens of Alabama, we owe our allegiance first to the State; and we will support her in whatever course she may adopt."

        Thus, Mr. President, you will observe that the course I now take is the result of the greatest deliberation, having been matured before I was a candidate for a seat in this Convention; and there is a perfect understanding on this subject between me and my constituents.

        It but remains for me to add, that when your Ordinance passes through the solemn forms of legislative deliberation, and receives the sanction of this body, I shall recognize it as the supreme law of the land; my scruples will fall to the ground; and that devotion, which I have heretofore, through the whole course of my public life, given to the Union of the States, shall be concentrated in my allegiance to the State of Alabama.

        MR. GREEN said:

        He would vote against the Ordinance, but would sustain the action of the Convention. His people would ratify and fully endorse it. Mr. G. spoke feelingly, and said he hoped the people of Alabama would be a unit.

        He had been elected as a coöperationist; and would now greatly prefer a consultation with the slaveholding States before he severed the bonds of the Union. But, he would not withhold his acquiesence from the will of a majority here, however much he might be convinced, in his own mind, of the propriety of coöperation. In this great day of interest, it becomes all good men to be united

in the same ranks to promote the general welfare of the people, and to oppose our enemies in a solid and determined body.

        MR. KIMBALL said:

        Mr. President--The passage of the Ordinance is now a settled fact; and I do not rise, sir, to make factious opposition to its passage. It is due to myself, it is a duty I owe the people whom I represent on this floor, that I should express to this body, the power delegated to me by my people. Now, sir, I represent in part, thirty-three hundred votes, as good and true people to the South as lives on Alabama soil. It is true they were opposed to separate secession; that opposition, nevertheless, made them none the less opposed to Black Republicanism; but in my opinion, the more effectual. In all my intercourse with my fellow-citizens, I found none who did not cordially desire a united South, not a dissenting voice. In the "Advertizer" of this morning, I find a dispatch expressing the opinion of Gen. Scott, who is said to be the great War Spirit, who unhesitatingly says, that with a certain unanimity of the Southern States, it would be impolitic and improper to attempt coercion. This is the effect we expected to consummate by the action of coöperation. We believed it would be effectual with less loss of blood and treasure. Now, sir, to show our sincerity in effectual resistance, I read from the platform, published to the people, on which we went before them for the position we occupy on this floor. One of the resolutions in said platform, says:

        "That in order to secure the coöperation of the South as a unit, and justify ourselves in the eyes of the world, we consider it wise and politic that a general Convention of all the Southern States should be called to adopt an ultimatum to the Northern Republicans, and that unless such ultimatum so presented be adopted, that then our safety, and the preservation of our rights, demand that those rights should be maintained, even if it result in the secession of the State of Alabama and the rupture of the Union."

        Now, sir, this shows a laudable effort on the part of the people of Tallapoosa, to avoid the horrors of war by securing a united action of the South on an ultimatum. The rejection of which, would certainly greatly tend to our unanimity--a most desirable object.

        Another objection I have to the passage of the Ordinance, under existing circumstances, is the evident disposition and settled purpose of this Convention not to submit this Ordinance to the people for their rejection or ratification. It is right and proper, this should be done. The sovereign people of the State of Alabama, on a great question of this sort, should be consulted; they are the parties

whose interest is to be affected. In this opinion all parties were agreed, and I now read the resolution to which none (of the candidates,) in Tallapoosa objected:

        "That the Sovereignty of Alabama remains with the people thereof, and that the result of the Convention called by the Governor, let it be what it may, should be referred back to the people for their rejection or ratification."

        As one of the Committee of Thirteen, I desired this should be done; but as this Convention has decreed otherwise, as a loyal citizen of Alabama, I must yield; and I am satisfied my constituents will concur, and will stand by Alabama in weal and woe.

        MR. JOHNSON said:

        Mr. President--Similar reasons to those assigned by gentlemen as having influenced them in arriving at the conclusion to sustain the Ordinance when passed, has operated upon and influenced me in forming a similar conclusion. This question differs very materially from all ordinary political questions. To have opposed the policy of separate State secession, before any action taken or expression given by this Convention, was certainly legitimate, and, I think, wise; but having ascertained that there is a well-defined majority of this body in favor of that policy, further resistance should cease.

        It is either factious or revolutionary, or both; and hence, in my opinion, should not be persisted in.

        The minority of this body, with which I have acted, have voluntarily and patriotically pledged themselves, unanimously, to resist abolition aggression.

        We have had an opportunity of expressing our preference as to the mode and measure of resistance which we would offer to present and anticipated aggressions.

        We preferred the calling of a Convention of all, or as many of the slaveholding States, as would meet us in such Convention, in order that we might avail ourselves of their counsel, their grievances, and their simultaneous action. This Convention decided that to be impracticable.

        Then, sir, acting upon the principle that the people are sovereign, and should be permitted to exercise their inalienable right to supervise the action of their agents, in a matter involving their dearest rights and destiny, we proposed to refer the action of this Convention to the people, for their ratification or rejection.

        This was decided to be impolitic or unnecessary. Having thus failed, sir, to induce the Convention to adopt our policy or mode

of resistance, the alternative is presented: Will we adopt Secession as a mode of resistance? or will we say to the world that we prefer Submission to this mode of resisting abolition aggression?

        I prefer secession to submission, and will not only sustain your Ordinance when passed, but will go farther, and say that, if responsibility attaches to its passage, I will share that responsibility.

        I will vote for the ordinance, believing that Talladega county is unwilling to shun a responsibility which other counties of the State are willing to assume. The entire delegation from Talladega, as well as those from Coosa, will vote for the Ordinance.

        We are not influenced, in casting this vote, by a desire to conciliate the majority here, or to obtain popularity elsewhere, for the records of this body will show our preference, and views as to the mode of resistance which should be adopted. We desire that our common enemy should know and appreciate, that so far as relates to a determination to resist their aggression, there is but one feeling in Alabama: and although we may and do differ as to the means by which we will protect our rights and our institutions, yet I wish them to see and feel that, although our line of policy is rejected by a majority of a Convention of that people. yet we will accept another means and another policy.

        I have no hesitancy in saying, sir, that I believe the entire people of Alabama will sustain this Ordinance when passed, and I humbly hope we may go on in our course of greatness and prosperity, and that this action may redound to the honor and interest of the entire people.

        MR. WATKINS said:

        Mr. President--The Ordinance before us, proposing the severance of this State from a Government so deeply rooted in the affections of the people, is a matter of such grave concern, and involves so many great and vital considerations, as to make it necessary that I, in common with others who have preceded me, should say something touching the vote I am about to give.

        A native of one of the Southern States, who, for more than twenty years of continued residence in this State, has enjoyed her beneficence and protection, because wedded to her soil, identified with her institutions, and, withal, jealous of her honor and watchful in guarding against any infraction of the rights of her people, I feel it to be a duty, no less of affection than gratitude, on this great occasion, to declare the most devoted fealty to her, and to pledge all I have and am in her behalf, whatever may be her fate.

        The constituency I represent--with whose sentiments I fully

coincide--are deeply and strongly attached to the Union of the American States; and, although they acknowledge and feel that grievous evils exist, which call for prompt and efficient resistance, they believe that a more satisfactory, safe, and effective remedy can be had, by a coöperative effort on the part of all the Southern States, than by the more desperate and hazardous expedient of separate State secession, proposed in the Ordinance before this Convention. I shall vote against the Ordinance, in obedience to the will of the people I represent, and will cheerfully await the verdict of the future as to the wisdom which actuates it.

        MR. BEARD said:

        Mr. President--I came to this Convention a warm friend to the policy of consulting and coöperating with all the slaveholding States, or with as many of them as would agree to meet us for the purpose of consultation. I have labored faithfully to carry out my desires--as much so as any member here; and I still believe that that would be the best, safest and wisest course for Alabama to adopt in this trying emergency. But my opinions in this regard will not lead me to stubborness in my opposition to what this Convention, in its wisdom, may decide to do. That I am, and have been, in favor of resistance to the rule of Black Republicanism, has already been shown by my vote on the resolution which was adopted by this Convention on the first day of our meeting. If this Convention shall decide on immediate secession, as the surest and wisest mode of resistance; and if, in the wisdom of the counsel that prevails here, it shall be decided that this is the remedy for the surest redress of our grievances, while I may not agree to endorse this with my vote, I am the last man in the State of Alabama who would lift a voice of opposition to your decree. I will acquiesce in your action, and I will support, heartily, the State of Alabama, in all the difficulties that may beset her now or hereafter, so long as I am able to raise my voice in her councils or my arm in her defense. And I can safely say as much for the people of my county--who, though by a large majority, have been in favor of coöperation and consultation with the slaveholding States, yet they will earnestly support the State of Alabama in all her troubles, even though the necessities of the times should call them to take up arms, and to muster in the ranks of the army in military array. I, as well as they, will be prepared, under whatever emergencies may arise, to shoulder my musket and to do as good service for our country as any man on this floor. We will be found to be in the rear of none in our readiness to act when the moment of danger comes.

        I shall vote against the Ordinance of Secession, but to that extent alone will my opposition be carried.

        MR. STEELE said:

        That he would stand with the bravest and truest of Alabama's sons in support of the action of the Convention, and in defence of the honor and independence of Alabama. Though opposed to the Ordinance, and in favor rather of the policy of consulting with the other slaveholding States, yet he would not carry his opinion so far as to embarrass, in any manner, the will of the majority of the delegates in this Convention. In the hour of danger he would know no country but Alabama; and he would be ready, he hoped, to show his allegiance, in some practical way, whenever the State should need his services.

        MR. CRUMPLER said, in substance:

        [Speaking for himself and colleagues,] that he and his colleagues were elected on the coöperation ticket, and had acted and voted with the coöperation party on every measure before the Convention. He now felt it to be his duty, with the facts before him, to vote for the Ordinance of Secession and the resolutions. His colleagues, Col. Taylor and Maj. Leonard, would cheerfully vote with him. We pledge ourselves to do all in our power to induce our constituents to sustain and fully sanction the action of the Convention, believing now that Secession is the only proper and effectual mode of resistance. Our first plan being defeated, we feel bound to vote for prompt and immediate secession--that being the only effectual plan now left us by which to preserve our rights, our honor, our equality and our liberties. Let all patriotic citizens now UNITE AND RALLY, AS ONE PEOPLE, around the standard of free and independent Alabama, and all will be well.

        MR. CLARK, of Laurence, said:

        After having manifested by my remarks of yesterday, a more decided opposition to the passage of the Ordinance of Secession than any other member of this Convention, the observations I am about to make, I trust, may not be deemed wholly inopportune. Sir, I have loved, honored and revered the Union of our fathers. I have cherished it for the good it has accomplished--the liberty it has secured, and the public and private prosperity it has dispensed. The treasure expended in its defence, the privations patriotically

endured, and the many heroic lives voluntarily sacrificed to purchase the blessings it affords, I have never forgotten, and can never forget.

        Where now are Columbia's classics? What becomes of her legends and her traditions? Where are her anniversaries--her Bunker Hills, her Lexingtons, her Yorktowns? Where, her national airs--her hymns of freedom? Entombed in the storied urns and sepulchres of the Past.

        These recollections will be treasured up in the hearts of our countrymen as the sacred mementoes of a dead friend. They are Liberty's bright gems, sprinkled upon the page of oblivion, which patriotism, in after years, will delight to gather and string around the neck of memory. I have opposed the Secession movement from its incipiency to its completion. Coöperative action I have thought was the better policy, and my opinion is, now, unchanged. I shall vote against the Ordinance. But when the Ordinance shall become the LAW of the State, the same reasons which have been urged with so much force against Secession, apply with equal cogency in favor of acquiescence. Resistance to this Ordinance could only result in strife and dissension among our people. If any one believes that I would be guilty of inciting hostile divisions between different sections of the State, and thus enkindle the flames of civil war throughout the borders of Alabama, he has very much mistaken his man.

        MR. EDWARDS said:

        Mr. President--I have opposed the passage of the Ordinance of Secession in every honorable way that I possibly could. I am opposed to separate State action, but to carry this opposition further, is wholly unnecessary now in this Convention. I have opposed it, sir, because I believed such a course unwise on the part of Alabama. Again, I oppose its passage because in all cases where the fundamental principles of Government are to be changed, such changes should be submitted to the people for their approval or disapproval. It is contended by the friends of the Ordinance, that the majority of the people have spoken out in regard to this matter; but, sir, this is doubtful. Then, sir, as there are some doubts in regard to which way the majority stands in this particular case, I do contend, that the action of the Convention ought to be submitted to the people for their adoption or rejection at the ballot-box. Mr. President, the people whom I have the honor to represent upon this floor, did not presume to think that this Convention would pass an Ordinance of Secession without its reference to

them; but, sir, they, together with many others in Northern Alabama, will be greatly disappointed in that respect. My constituents made it obligatory upon me, to use my best exertions to have the action of the Convention referred to them. This I have done to the best of my ability. But I, together with the party with whom I have acted, have signally failed. Inasmuch, therefore, as the action of the Convention is final, I am not prepared at this time to say, whether the people of my county will acquiesce in it or not. I know, sir, they are excited to a considerable extent, and when the news reaches my county that Alabama has seceded from the Union. I anticipate the excitement will run much higher.

        Sir, when I return home, I am in duty bound, to state to my fellow-citizens the action of this Convention, and in doing so, I will here state, that I will use no effort on my part to excite them to rebellion.

        MR. RALLS said:

        Mr. President--I rise not for the purpose of making a speech, but simply a remark or two. My position as a delegate, is in some respects peculiar. I am not a coöperation secessionist.

        The people who have sent me here have no demands to make of the North. One of the resolutions adopted at the meeting nominating me, was that secession was the only remedy.

        Straight-out, was the phrase used in the canvass, instead of separate State action; although it was explained to the people that every State must act for itself, as one State could not for another One word as to the term straight-out. At the time I was nominated, the Union was unbroken, and the subsequent action of South Carolina furnished an example of straight-out secession, as understood by my people; that is to say, secession without an assurance that any other State would assume the same attitude; and against this I was pledged.

        Now, what are the circumstances by which we are surrounded? South Carolina is out; so also is Florida; so also is Mississippi; and there can be no doubt that Georgia, my native State, will take the same proud position next week, and that Louisiana and Texas will follow in rapid succession. Yea, Mr. President, may I not go a step further and say, that there is good ground to hope that the border slaveholding States will wheel into line and unite their destiny with the extreme Southern or cotton States?

        I find then around me the coöperation that my constituents desire--that is, coöperation in seceding.

        That these seceding States, impelled by a common danger, and attracted by common interests and sympathies, will unite again in the establishment of a republican form of government, thus securing the liberty and peace of the people, is in my mind, a question that admits of no doubt. This opinion has been long entertained, publicly expressed, and the developments of every day confirm me in it.

        The way is clear. I shall vote for the Ordinance.

        MR. SHEFFIELD said:

        Mr. President--I rise with great diffidence, on this occasion, knowing my inability to do justice to the subject before the Convention. I merely wish to state my position before the vote is taken on the Ordinance. I have known, for days, that the Ordinance would pass. I have used every exertion to prevent it, but without a hope of success. I have written home to my constituents, that such would be the case, and asking them whether, in that event, they desired me to sign it. As an individual, I will sustain the action of my State, honestly and zealously; and if war should come, I will not only counsel my people to submit to the decision of the Convention, but to maintain it with arms in the field. I have opposed secession as long as opposition was of any avail. Now that the Ordinance will pass, as a patriot, I feel bound to take the side of my native State in any contest which might grow out of it. I will vote against the Ordinance.

        MR. POTTER said:

        Mr. President--Sir, as every member of this body must necessarily take position, either for or against this measure, by the vote which will very soon be cast, I feel in duty bound to offer some reasons why my vote shall be cast against the passage of this Ordinance at the present time.

        Sir, the decision which we make to-day upon this, in all human probability, the most momentous question that shall ever be settled by the people of Alabama, may, for weal or woe, tell more potently upon all ages to come, than any which will ever claim our consideration or demand our action.

        Now, sir, I desire to say to the members of this honorable body, that when I first entered this Hall I came with decided convictions as to the true policy of our State, in the present emergency; and I am now prepared to state that nothing which has occurred here, nor any developments which have been made elsewhere, have at all changed my previous opinion.

        I maintain now, as I have maintained before, that separate State secession, if a remedy at all for our political grievances, is not the only remedy--nay, is not the best remedy. And laboring as I do under this conviction, I cannot advocate the adoption of this measure, until I become convinced of my error.

        Sir, there are a few plain, simple propositions which should claim the serious consideration of every member of this Convention.

        First--Our grievances should be redressed. This is what we all desire, and only differ in regard to the proper method to be adopted. For one, I have not been able to see that secession is the best mode, and therefore I cannot adopt it.

        Second--All our rights should be secured and maintained. It cannot be denied that our rights and interests have been disregarded and set at nought by many of our sister States. But can we come up to the full measure of duty, and secure all to which we are entitled by the act of secession? I think not; and therefore I cannot adopt it as our true policy.

        Third--It is very desirable to have security at home. Will secession give us this? It may, or it may not. And it really appears to me, sir, that in this respect we are about to make a very doubtful experiment, which may lead to a most disastrous result. And as there does not appear, to me, to be any positive necessity for taking this course, now, in justice to myself, and to those whom I represent, I feel called upon to oppose it.

        Fourth--Our honor should be vindicated. Now, sir, if secession can be shown to be the best means of its vindication, then will be presented at least one powerful argument in favor of this measure. But I must confess, sir, that to my mind, the truth of this proposition has not yet been shown. There is among men a morbid sense of honor which often leads them to extremes, and involves them in disgrace while they vainly seek to maintain their false views of true honor. Against these false views and fatal extremes, it is the part of wisdom for us to be carefully guarded. Entertaining these views of propriety and prudence, I cannot do otherwise, under present circumstances, than withhold my support from a measure whose wisdom and policy are so doubtful.

        Fifth--We ought to do ourselves justice. Now, it is apparent to me, sir, that the act of secession will cost us such a sacrifice of interest in the public property of the United States, as will do the people of Alabama great injustice. If, sir, this were the only line of policy possible to be pursued, then we should adopt it at once, let it cost what it might; but until we are fully satisfied that no better line of policy can be pursued, we should hesitate to

adopt a measure so hazardous in itself, and involving so great a sacrifice.

        Sixth--We wish to perpetuate Southern institutions. This, sir, is an imperative duty which we owe to ourselves and to posterity. And the great question for us to solve, is this: Will secession secure the perpetuity of these institutions? Sir, I am so well satisfied that there is a better way, a more certain method of securing this object, so desirable, nay, so necessary, that I cannot give my consent to the adoption of this extreme measure.

        Seventh--We want harmony among ourselves. This, sir, is of so much importance to our success, that, so far as possible, it ought to be secured. In view of the conflicting opinions now so prevalent, I am unable to see how it is possible to do justice to public sentiment if we now pass this Ordinance, and refuse to refer the action of this Convention to the people of the State for their ratification or rejection. And this, sir, will evidently be the result, if this measure shall be sustained by a majority of this body. For these, and other reasons not mentioned, I am constrained, sir, to act upon the principle that what my judgment condemns my hand shall not indorse. I therefore vote in the negative.

        MR. BULGER said:

        Mr. President--Being as I am among the oldest, as well as the humblest of the members of this Convention, it is perhaps proper that I should be one of the last to speak on this, the most important question that has ever been debated in the State of Alabama. Sir, believing as I do, that separate State secession is unwise and impolitic, and not a remedy for any wrong of which we complain in the Union, I deem it unnecessary for me at this time to attempt an array of reasons that bring me to this conclusion. This I did before the people that sent me here. When we had an exciting contest, I told my friends that secession was a vital issue, that they should consider coolly; that if it was decided against them, it would become their duty to acquiesce; that we were all on board of a common bark--if it foundered and went down, we must all go down together; that we could not, if we would, separate our destiny from those with whom we differed. And now, sir, finding as I do, that secession, immediate and separate, without reference to the people for their ratification or rejection, is a foregone conclusion, and having voted against every proposition leading to that conclusion, except one, on which I was prevented voting by severe indisposition, I will now content myself

with recording my vote against the final act of secession. Havdone so, I will have discharged my whole duty to those whom I represent on this floor. The act of secession having been consummated by the majority of this Convention, whether rightfully or wrongfully, it becomes the action of Alabama; I feel it to be my duty to cease all opposition to that act, and coöperate with the majority, to the best of my ability, in reconstructing a Government adapted to the new state of affairs by which we are surrounded. That done, my first and paramount allegiance is due to the State of Alabama; and if an attempt be made to coerce or invade her, although I am advanced beyond the ordinary age of a soldier, I will seek some humble position in an army of defense, where I can render some service in support of the rights, the interests and the honor of my country.

        MR. WINSTON said, in substance:

        That he would say a few words, now that the important measure for which the Convention was called, was about to be disposed of; that he was opposed to the hasty step about to be taken, and should record his vote against it; that the die was cast--it was the determination of the majority of the Convention to pass the Ordinance of Immediate Secession. That being the will of this Convention, the sovereignty of Alabama, sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, the same destiny awaited all. He represented a constituency opposed to this hasty dissolution of the best Government the world ever knew; they were a brave and patriotic people, and notwithstanding their veneration for the Union of their Fathers, they, he had no doubt, would acquiesce in and sustain their State in this its final determination; and will rally to the standard of Alabama whenever their services shall be needed to repel Black Republican force, should the same ever be employed to subjugate them. He had contended, and so declared by his vote, that this Ordinance about to be passed, should be referred to the people for their approval or rejection, and that an effort should be made, in the Union, to adjust our existing difficulties with the North, by calling a Convention of all the slaveholding States, and proposing as an ultimatum certain concessions to be made by the Northern people, which, if not granted, then to separate. But these had been voted down by the majority of the Convention, and now the Ordinance of Immediate Secession was about to be passed by that same majority, severing the link which binds Alabama to the Federal Union, and no alternative is now left the minority but to acquiesce in that determined act of the

majority. This done, Alabama stands forth as an independent sovereignty--in anticipation of which event, he had written to his son, then a cadet at the military academy at West Point, to resign his position there and return home, that he might unite his destiny with that of his native State--that for nearly two years in that excellent school, the knowledge he had acquired of military tactics might be of some service in the approaching stormy times. He assured gentlemen that whatever glory might attach to this act of precipitation, would belong to the leaders of that movement--to all of which they were most clearly entitled.

        In conclusion, he was then ready to record his vote against it.

        MR. DAVIS of Madison, said:

        Mr. President--I, too, have a word to say upon this occasion. I cannot remain unmoved amid such solemn occurrences. I shall speak briefly and I hope frankly. It cannot be denied that circumstances have greatly changed since this Convention met on last Monday. We have seen State after State, in the exercise of its sovereign powers, withdrawing from the Union in the few past days. Florida has seceded; Mississippi has seceded--each by overwhelming majorities. It is now no longer a serious apprehension that Alabama will stand alone in this movement of secession. It is confidently asserted that Georgia and Louisiana and Texas will follow. Under this aspect of the case, it is not remarkable that a great change has also come over the Convention--a change clearly indicated by the speeches that have been this day delivered in this hall.

        I shall vote against the Ordinance. But if Alabama shall need the strong arm of her valorous sons to sustain her in any emergency which, on account of this Ordinance of Secession, may arise within her borders, by which her honor or the rights of her citizens are likely to be endangered, I say for myself and for my constituents--and I dare say for all North Alabama--that I and they will be cheerfully ready to take our part in the conflict. We may not indorse the wisdom of your resolves, but we will stand by the State of Alabama under all circumstances.

        MR. YANCEY said:

        Mr. President--If no other gentleman desires to address the Convention, I will exercise the usual parliamentary privilege accorded to the Chairman of the Committee reporting a measure-- that of closing the debate by assigning a few reasons why the measure before you should be adopted. In common with all others

here, I feel that this is a solemn hour, and I congratulate the Convention that the spirit that prevails is both fraternal and patriotic--that whatever of irritation or suspicion had prevailed in the earlier hours of our session, has been, in a great degree, dissipated, and has given way to a juster appreciation of the motives and the conduct of each other. In the Committee, the majority yielded to the minority all the time that they desired for deliberation; and since the report has been made, the majority in the Convention has also yielded to the wishes of the minority in this respect, and every delegate, who desired to do so, has addressed the Convention in explanation of his vote, and has taken as much time as, in his judgment, was necessary to his purpose. If, in the earlier stages of our proceedings, it has been thought, as it has been said by some gentlemen, that an undue celerity of movement was pressed by the majority, I beg those gentlemen to believe that this conduct on our part was dictated solely by our convictions of duty, and not from any--the least desire to precipitate others into a vote, before they were prepared to give it understandingly. Time was deemed, by the friends of independent State action, to be either success or defeat in the inauguration of this great movement--success, if there was a prompt and unequivocal withdrawal from this Union--or defeat, if time was used to delay and to dishearten. You who were opposed to such action, from a sense of duty, would necessarily be for all such delays as would aid in accomplishing its defeat; we who were for it, from a like sense of duty, were necessarily in favor of a prompt decision of the question. Each has acted, doubtless, upon well-founded ideas of duty. All that was necessary to a better understanding of each other, was a belief in that fact, a belief in the good faith of each other; and I rejoice that to-day has furnished ample evidence that we now mutually entertain that belief; and, on the part of the majority, I return sincere thanks to the venerable delegate from Lauderdale, [MR. POSEY,] who, though compelled to vote against this Ordinance, yet has characterized the conduct of the majority in this matter, as giving evidence of "wisdom, discretion, and a spirit of conciliation."

        As to the measure itself, [the Ordinance and Resolutions,] whatever of merit it possesses, is the result of consultation between the majority and minority of the Committee. I am sure that the members of that Committee will indulge me in alluding to what passed in its sessions. The majority decidedly preferred to adopt a simple Ordinance of Secession. But determined, for the sake of harmony, to do all in their power to disarm prejudice, and to bring about a fraternal feeling, they did not hesitate to yield their

own cherished desire in this particular, when my friend from Madison [Mr. Clemens] proposed to amend our proposed Ordinance by adding thereto the preamble and resolutions, which form a part of his report. It is well known that some of the people have been led to believe that the friends of secession desired to erect Alabama either into a monarchy, or into an independent State, repudiating an alliance with other States. As for myself, I can truly declare that I have never met with any friend of secession, entertaining such views. The proposition submitted by my friend from Madison, [Mr. Clemens,] being in perfect accordance with the wishes and desires of the majority, and amply refuting these misconceptions, the one which we would have preferred to have voted upon separately, was at once agreed to, and the result is, the measure now before us for consideration.

        On the first day of our session a resolution was unanimously adopted, declaring that the people of this State would resist the administration of Lincoln for the causes and upon the principles there enunciated. On the question of resistance, then, there is no difference in this Body--all are for resistance. But there is a difference between members as to the mode, the manner of resistance. Some believe that when the rights of our people are denied or assailed by the parties to the Federal compact, or by the Federal Government, that secession from this compact is the rightful remedy. Others believe that secession is wrong, and that the remedy is revolution. A careful reading of the Ordinance on your table will show, that the resistance therein provided may be called revolution, disunion, or secession, as each member may desire. The caption styles it "an Ordinance to dissolve the Union," &c. In the body of the Ordinance, the people of the State are "withdrawn from the compact," &c. It is true, that the mode of resistance is organic; it is an organic coöperation, not of States, but of the people of this State in resistance to wrong. In this respect it harmonizes differences. Another difference, both in the popular mind and in that of delegates, is, that resistance should be by coöperation of States, and not by independent State action. That difference has been harmonized by the conjunction of the Ordinance and Resolutions, as reported by the Committee. Coöperation and separate State action, as far as they can be effected, under our obligation to the Federal compact and in harmony with the principles of State sovereignty, have been joined in this measure. It is true, there are a class of coöperationists, whose views are not met by this measure--those who have advocated coöperation to secure submission--to defeat resistance. But there are none of that character here. While the friends of independent

State action in this Ordinance do obtain a declaration as to the rights of the people of Alabama; and as to our determination to sustain them, the friends of coöperation, for the purpose of effectual resistance, also obtain a declaration of our desire and purpose to unite with all of the slaveholding States who entertain a like purpose, in confederated or coōperative resistance, and in a confederated government upon the principles of the Federal Constitution.

        As far as it was possible, then, to do so, without yielding principles, the friends of resistance have used every reasonable effort to meet on a common ground. And I rejoice in the belief that the effort has been successful, and that there will be a far greater unanimity manifested when the vote shall be taken on this measure, than was even hoped for, when we first met in this Hall-- From the remarks of gentlemen to-day, many will be compelled to vote against this measure by reason of instructions of their people, who otherwise would vote for it. I sincerely respect these motives, and think that those occupying such positions act correctly in their premises.

        Mr. President, we are fortunate in having the example of our Revolutionaay fathers sustaining the plan of action here proposed --separate State action and then coöperation in confederating together. South Carolina, after several months deliberation, with a view to resisting British aggression, formed a State government early in the year 1776. Virginia did so in June, 1776, declaring her separate and independent secession from the Government of Great Britain. Afterwards, on the 4th of July, 1776, the Congress of the United States agreed upon and adopted a joint Declaration of Independence. It was after the colonies had acted separately and independently, that both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States were severally adopted.

        The friends of independent State action have also cause to congratulate themselves, that as far as the people of the Southern States have spoken, they have unanimously expressed themselves in favor of independent State action.

        South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida, have each already acted independently. In this Convention a majority are known to be in favor of that kind of action. We have already received information that a majority of delegates in favor of such action has been elected, both in Georgia and Louisiana. I commend this significant fact to all who feel disposed to condemn an independent State movement.

        Some have been disposed to think that this is a movement of

politicians, and not of the people. This is a great error. Who, on a calm review of the past, and reflection upon what is daily occurring, can reasonably suppose that the people of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana who have already elected conventions favorable to dissolution, and the people of Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia were contemplating an assembling in their several conventions, have been mere puppets in the hands of politicians? Who can for a moment thus deliberately determine that all these people, in these various States, who are so attached to their government, have so little intelligence that they can be thus blindly driven into revolution, without cause, by designing and evil minded men, against the remonstrances of conservative men? No, sir! This is a great popular movement, based upon a wide-spread, deep-seated conviction that the forms of government have fallen into the hands of a sectional majority, determined to use them for the destruction of the rights of the people of the South. This mighty flood-tide has been flowing from the popular heart for years. You, gentlemen of the minority, have not been able to repress it. We of the majority have not been able to add a particle to its momentum. We are each and all driven forward upon this irresistible tide. The rod that has smitten the rock from which this flood flows, has not been in Southern hands. The rod has been Northern and sectional aggression and wrong, and that flood-tide has grown stronger and stronger as days and years have passed away, in proportion as the people have lost all hope of a constitutional and satisfactory solution of these vexed questions. In this connection, I would say a few words upon the proposition to submit the Ordinance of Dissolution to a popular vote. This proposition is based upon the idea that there is a difference between the people and the delegate. It seems to me that this is an error. There is a difference between the representatives of the people in the law-making body and the people themselves, because there are powers reserved to the people by the Convention of Alabama, and which the General Assembly cannot exercise. But in this body is all power--no powers are reserved from it. The people are here in the persons of their deputies. Life, Liberty and Property are in our hands. Look to the Ordinance adopting the Constitution of Alabama. It states "we the people of Alabama," &c., &c. All our acts are supreme, without ratification, because they are the acts of the people acting in their sovereign capacity. As a policy, submission of this Ordinance to a popular vote is wrong.

        In the first place, we have gone too far to recede with dignity and self-respect. Such a submission involves delay dangerous to our safety. It could not well be effected before the 4th of March.

        The policy is at war with our system of government. Ours is not a pure Democracy--that is a government by the people--though it is a government of the people. Ours is a representative government, and whatever is done by the representative in accordance with the Constitution is law; and whatever is done by the deputy in organizing government is the people's will.

        The policy, too, is one of recent suggestion; if I am not mistaken, it was never proposed and acted upon previous to 1837. Certainly the Fathers did not approve it. The Constitutions of the original Thirteen States were adopted by Conventions, and were never referred to the people.

        The Constitution of the United States was adopted by the several State Conventions, and in no instance was it submitted to the people for ratification. Coming down to a later day, and coming home to the action of our State sires, we find another example against such submission. The Constitution of the State of Alabama was never submitted for popular ratification.

        One other and most important consideration is, that looking to the condition of the popular mind of the minority of the people on this question, such a course will but tend to keep up strife and contention among ourselves. Such a submission, it is clear to my mind, will but result in a triumph of the friends of secession--and an additional amount of irritation and prejudice be thus engaged in the minds of the defeated party. Some gentlemen seem to think that in dissolving the Union, we hazard the "rich inheritance" bequeathed to us. For one I make a distinction between our liberties and the powers which have been delegated to secure them. Those liberties have never been alienated--are inalienable. The State Governments were formed to secure and protect them. The Federal Government was made the common agent of the States, for the purpose of securing them in our intercourse with each other, and the foreign powers. The course we are about to adopt makes no war on our liberties--nor indeed upon our institutions--nor upon the Federal Constitution. It is but a dismissal of the agent that first abuses our institutions with a view to destroy our rights, and then turns the very powers we delegated to him for our protection against us for our injury. These powers were originally possessed by the people of the sovereign States, and when the common agent abuses them, it seems to me but the dictate of common sense, as well as an act of self-preservation, that the States should withdraw and resume them.

        The Ordinance withdraws those once delegated by Alabama--and the resolutions accompanying it, propose to meet our sister

States in Convention, and to confederate with them on the basis of the very Constitution, which was the bond of compact and union between Alabama, and the other States of the Union. We propose to do as the Israelites did of old, under Divine direction--to withdraw our people from under the power that oppresses them, and, in doing so, like them, to take with us the Ark of the Covenant of our liberties.

        There is but one more point upon which I desire to say a few words. My venerable friend from Lauderdale, asked us to forbear pressing the minority to sign the Ordinance, In my opinion it is not a necessity that it be signed by members. Its signature dose not necessarily express approval of the act. Signing it is but an act of attestation, in one sense, as when the President of the Senate signs an act of the General Assembly, which he has voted against. I am willing to vote for all reasonable delay, to enable members to consult their constituents. But I beseech gentlemen to bear in mind that when the Ordinance shall be signed, the absence of the signatures of any members will be a notice to our enemies that we are divided as a people--and that there are those in our midst who will not support the State in its hour of peril. The signature of the Ordinance, while waiving no vote given against it--while giving up no opinion, is an evidence of the highest character that the signer will support his country.

        It will give dignity, strength, unity to the State in which we live, and by which each of its citizens should be prepared to die, if its exigencies demand it. I now ask that the vote may be taken.

        MR. CLEMENS said:

        Mr. President--In many of the sentiments just expressed by the gentleman from Montgomery, [Mr. Yancey,] I concur; in many of them I do not concur; and I think it would have been much better if many of them had not been expressed.

        I have a word or two, sir, which I wish to say, before the final vote is taken upon the Ordinance, giving my reasons for my vote--but I would prefer to state those reasons when my name is called.

        When Mr. CLEMENS' name was called, he said:

        Mr. President--Each member of this Convention, however unpretending may have been the obscurity of his past life, this day writes a name in history which will endure long after we ourselves shall have passed from the stage of action. In honor or

reproach; in glory or in shame, there it is stamped, and stamped forever. Under such circumstances, I feel that a word of explanation as to my course, will not be out of place.

        I shall vote for this Ordinance; but frankness and fairness requires me to say that I would not vote for it, if its passage depended upon that vote. If it was left to me to decide whether this plan of resistance, or another, should be adopted, I have already indicated a strong preference for that other which you have voted down.

        As matters now stand, my vote will not affect the decision of the question here in one way or the other. I am looking beyond this hall, and beyond this hour. The act you are about to commit, is, to my apprehension, treason, and subjects you, if unsuccessful, to all the pains and penalties pronounced against that highest political crime, or noblest political virtue, according to the motives which govern its commission. Whatever may be my opinion of the wisdom and justice of the course pursued by the majority, I do not choose that any man shall put himself in danger of a halter in defence of the honor and rights of my native State, without sharing that danger with him.

        I give this vote, therefore, partly as an assurance that I intend in good faith to redeem the pledge which I have made again and again, in public or in private, in speeches, and through the press, that whenever the summons came to me to defend the soil of Alabama, whether it was at midnight, or at mid-day--whether I believe her right or wrong, it should be freely, promptly answered.

        Sir, I never had a doubt as to the course it became me to take in such an emergency as this. I believe your Ordinance to be wrong--if I could defeat it, I would; but I know I cannot. It will pass, and when passed it becomes the act of the State of Alabama. As such, I will maintain and defend it against all and every enemy, as long as I have a hand to raise in its defence. As an earnest that I mean what I say, I am about to place myself in a position from which there can be no retreat.

        I have other reasons, Mr. President, which I do not mention here, because to do so would in some measure counteract them. They are known to my friends, and there I shall leave them, until time and the course of events shall render their publication proper. For the present, it is enough to say that I am a son of Alabama; her destiny is mine; her people are mine; her enemies are mine. I see plainly enough, that clouds and storms are gathering above us; but when the thunder rolls and lightning flashes, I trust that I shall neither shrink nor cower--neither murmur

nor complain. Acting upon the convictions of a life-time, calmly and deliberately I walk with you into revolution. Be its perils--be its privations--be its sufferings what they may, I share them with you, although as a member of this Convention I opposed your Ordinance. Side by side with yours, Mr. President, my name shall stand upon the original roll, and side by side with you I brave the consequences. I vote in the affirmative.

        Mr. YANCEY, by leave of the Convention, corrected a clerical error in the resolution of the Ordinance, by changing "third" to "fourth" day of February.

        The question being upon the adoption of the Preamble, Ordinance of Secession and Resolutions as amended, the vote was taken by ayes and noes, and they were adopted--ayes 61, noes 39.

        Those who voted in the affirmative are: Messrs. Brooks, Baily, Baker, of Barbour, Baker, of Russell, Barnes, Barclay, Beck, Blue, Bolling, Bragg, Catterling, Clarke, of Marengo, Cochran, Coleman, Clemens, Crawford, Creech, Crook, Crumpler, Curtis, Daniel, Dargan, Davis, of Covington, Davis, of Pickens, Dowdell, Foster, Gibbons, Gilchrist, Hawkins, Henderson, of Macon, Henderson, of Pike, Herndon, Howard, Humphries, Johnson, Jewett, Ketchum, Leonard, Love, McClanahan, McPherson, McKinne, Morgan, Owens, Phillips, Ralls, Rives, Ryan, Shortridge, Silver, Slaughter, Smith, of Henry, Starke, Stone, Taylor, Watts, Webb, Whatley, Williamson, Yancey, Yelverton--61.

        Those who voted in the negative are: Messrs. Allen, Beard, Brasher, Bulger, Coffey, Coman, Clarke, of Lawrence, Davis, of Madison, Earnest, Edwards, Ford, Forrester, Franklin, Gay, Greene, Guttery, Hood, Inzer, Jemison, Jones, of Lauderdale, Jons, of Fayette, Kimball, Lewis, McClellan, Posey, Potter, Russell, Sanford, Sheets, Sheffield, Smith, of Tuscaloosa, Stedham, Steele, Timberlake, Watkins, Whitlock, Wilson, Winston, Wood--39.

        Those in italics, who voted for the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, were elected as coöperationists.

        Mr. President BROOKS announced the result of the vote, and that the Ordinance of Secession was adopted, and that Alabama was a free, sovereign and independent State.

        Mr. YELVERTON introduced the following resolution:

        Resolved, That the secrecy be removed from the proceedings of this day, and that the President of the Convention be requested to telegraph the information of the passage of the ORDINANCE OF SECESSION to our members of Congress, and to the Governors of the slaveholding States.

        Mr. YELVERTON'S Resolution was adopted, and by motion of Mr. Yancey, the doors were thrown open.

        It would be difficult to describe with accuracy the scenes that presented themselves in and around the Capitol during this day. A vast crowd had assembled in the rotundo, eager to hear the announcement of the passage of the Ordinance. In the Senate Chamber, within the hearing of the Convention, the citizens and visitors had called a meeting; and the company was there addressed by several distinguished orators, on the great topic which was then engrossing the attention of the Convention. The wild shouts and the rounds of rapturous applause that greeted the speakers in this impromptu assembly, often broke in upon the ear of the Convention, and startled the grave solemnity that presided over its deliberations.

        Guns had been made ready to herald the news, and flags had been prepared, in various parts of the city, to be hoisted upon a signal.

        When the doors were thrown open, the lobby and galleries were filled to suffocation in a moment. The ladies were there in crowds, with visible eagerness to participate in the exciting scenes. With them, the love songs of yesterday had swelled into the political hosannas of to-day.