Messrs. Editors: The enclosed document was drawn up by a distinguished citizen of South Carolina, no longer engaged in public affairs, for the use of a member elect of the State Convention called at the last Session of the Legislature. The object was to furnish a plan of action short of actual Secession, yet decidedly in advance of any step taken by this or any other State in our controversy with the Federal Government—or rather with the people of the North. It was not expected that it would be brought forward until the Convention was assembled, and the various projects to which it will probably give birth had been presented. But as the member in whose hands it was placed, feels at liberty to make any use of it he deems proper, he forwards it to you for publication, believing that it may have a salutary effect to draw the public mind to its suggestions at an early period.
It was thrown into the rough form of an Ordinance merely for perspicuity.
April 29, 1851. A******
The people of South Carolina in Convention assembled, declare that:
I. The perpetual and undisturbed use of slaves of the Negro Race is indispensable to the full development of the chief resources of the staple growing States of America, including South Carolina.
II. The agricultural staples of the Southern States of the American Union, which are produced by slave labor, can, from their extent, variety, cheapness and prime importance, command nearly all the markets of the world, and make the whole human family more or less tributary to the prosperity and grandeur of these States, provided they can exercise the privilege of receiving, at their option, in return, the productions of all other countries, free from injuriously restrictive import duties.
III. The citizens of the Northern and non-slaveholding States of this Union, devoting their labor chiefly to manufacturing, farming and their incidents are, deeply interested in imposing high duties on the most important imports from other countries, in order to monopolize the markets of the slaveholding states for their own productions at high prices.—These States, therefore, will never willingly consent to any liberal system of free trade, such as the Southern states require. And influential, also, to an extraordinary degree, and permanently, it is believed, by false views of religion, humanity and policy, they will not permit the Southern states to hold their slaves undisturbed; and will not cease zealously to endeavor to abolish negro slavery everywhere and altogether.
IV. These non-slaveholding states, containing a numerical majority of the citizens of the United States, and having complete control of both Houses of Congress and the electoral College, with the certainty of being able to maintain such control as long as this Union lasts: and having heretofore strenuously excised their power, to impose high duties on imports, and to arrest the extension of African slavery for the express purpose of hastening its abolition; and there being no prospect that they will ever cease to impose such duties, and interfere with slaveholding—though to do either is a flagrant infraction of the Constitution of the United States—it follows that the existing Union of the non-slaveholding and slaveholding states of North America, is and ever will be wholly incompatible with the full development of the natural advantages of the latter states, and their attainments to that position of power, prosperity and happiness to which they are justly entitled.
V. The people of South Carolina, convinded (sic) of the truth and importance of these views are distinctly and unalterably opposed to a longer continuance of this Union; and are ardently desirous of its speedy dissolution and the formation of a Southern Confederacy composed of slaveholding states only. And they would promptly and gladly adopt any pratical measure to promote such dissolution, and the formation of such a confederacy.
VI. To effect these ends they would forthwith withdraw themselves from the existing Confederacy without reservation forever: and are only restrained from doing so by the following considerations,viz:
1. They have no sufficient reason to believe that any other slaveholding State would at this time follow their example and unite with them, but, on the contrary, they believe that all these States, their own excepted, are yet disposed to adhere to this Union, at least, until further injuries are inflicted on them.
2. They have reason to believe that if they did secede from the present Union, the non-slaveholding majority which controls the now National Government would immediately take measures to coerce them into entire submission to their will, which measures they are constrained to acknowledge, they clearly have not the physical ability, unaided by other slaveholding States, effectually to resist.
3. They have much ground to apprehend that from the narrow limits of the territory of South Carolina, and the sparseness of her population, she would not be sole, situated on the open sea, and bounded in the interior by States of the Union, even if permitted peaceably to secede, to maintain ,alone, the dignity and independence of a nation of respectable rank among the nations of the world.
VII. While for these reasons the people of South Carolina, reluctantly decline, for the present, to withdraw from the existing Union, and declare their State a separate and independent Sovereignty, they are so fully convinced of the fatal influence of the Union upon the interests and character of the slaveholding states, that they cannot doubt, the time is not far off, when these States or a sufficient number of them, will unite in such withdrawal and Declaration of Independence. And they are also fully convinced that placed as they and the people of the other slaveholding States are, in a permanent and hopeless minority in the present General Government, there is no utility in longer continuing, voluntarily, to take a part in its councils, or maintaining any connection with it, which can be dissolved without affording plausible pretexts for violent collision.
VIII. This Convention, therefore, ordains as fundamental and perpetual laws in the State of South Carolina, that
1. No Electors shall hereafter be appointed by this State to vote for President or Vice-President of theUnited States, and no vote shall be given by the State in these elections.
2. No Senators or Representatives to the Federal Congress shall hereafter be chosen by or in this State, and the seats of those already chosen are hereby vacated.
3. Every citizen of this State who shall hereafter accept and hold any office of honor, profit, or trust, under the General Government, or any of its departments—save such local civil offices as exist, or may be Constitutionally created in the State—shall be instantly and forever cease to enjoy all and every of the privileges of citizenship in South Carolina; and his property in the State shall be liable to a tax of six per cent. per annum ad valorem, which the Legislature shall impose by a general law at the next session.
4. The State of South Carolina shall not accept any appropriations made by the General Government, for the use of the State, or for the benefit of any portion of the citizens thereof, which it may be in her power to refuse without violating the Constitution of the United States.
5. The Legislature shall, at its next session, impose double taxes on all the property within this State belonging to persons residing hereafter for one month or more in any year in any non-slaveholding State or States, which tax may be increased at the option of the Legislature, but never reduced below double the amount paid by those residing continually in the slaveholding States.
6. The Legislature shall, to the extent it may deem expedient, and permitted by the Constitution of the United States, impose taxes on the manufactures and other production of the non-slaveholding States when imported into South Carolina.
7. The Legislature shall encourage manufacturing and internal improvements in this State, by granting, with due discretion, liberal charters to private companies applying for them, for these purposes. It shall encourage agriculture, and especially drainage, in every judicious manner. And it shall, at as early a period as may be convenient, apply all the surplus funds of the State, which can be so applied with benefit, to aid in the establishment of direct commercial intercourse with foreign nations, by steamships adapted to purposes of war, in case of need.
IX. This Convention of the people of South Carolina thus, from stress of circumstances, openly placing their beloved State in the position—which has, in point of fact, been long her actual position—of a conquered province: submitting, for the time, to tyranny and oppression, which they have not the power successfully to resist, and, therefore, forbear to attack, rest here, until, by the blessing of God, they shall acquire sufficient strength, either by the co-operation of others, or their own exertions, to assert and maintain all their just rights.
N.B. By the adoption of an Ordinance such as this, the Convention will redeem all the pledges of the State—actual and attributed, and will maintain unimpaired her honor, dignity, and influence. All collision with the General Government will be obviated, yet South Carolina will be morally out of the Union, and a blow stricken that will be fatal to the moral power of the Union itself. The Slave-holding States will not feel themselves rebuked, but conceded to, and their jealousy will cease, their sympathies will be enlisted, and should the platform thus erected prove a safe and peaceful one, a number of them will no doubt place themselves upon it at the next aggression of the General Government. Whenever Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi come to it, the Union is dissolved and a Southern Confederacy formed. In the meantime South Carolina can lose nothing that she has not already lost in this Union.—And those who really desire to see its dissolution will rejoice to find the entering wedge fairly fixed, while those—if there be any—who are merely playing a game in politics, and moving the people of this State, as they would pawns upon the board for their own ends, will be defeated and exposed.
If the Union is ever dissolved it is believed it must be done by some such process as that here suggested. It is altogether improbable that any number of States will ever, either consentaneously or in Convention, together, deliberately resolve on a direct rupture. When the highest excitement is created by Northern outrages, the area of the Southern States is too large and the population too scattered to expect that a sufficient number of individuals, to accomplish any thing of moment, will unite and act in concert upon sudden impulse. And the present state of things furnishes convincing proof that if any one State assumes the lead, asd (sic) endeavors by a violent course to seduce or compel other States to follow her, they will almost certainly draw back. The only plan that promises success is for the aggrieved States, to wheel out of line, each in her own time, and on her own sense of provocation, and having secured an impregnable position, calmly to wait until a proper number shall have formed on the same ground, and then to close up in solid column.