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I speak, and I have a right to speak, for the Democracy of my Commonwealth. (Applause.) I have seen it for a generation in darkness and defeat, following steadfastly the old principles of an abiding faith. I felt it when it was rejected and proscribed. It mattered not to us. We knew 5 that its principles would triumph, and we lived to see the day when we planted the banner of Democracy for three successive years victorious in that stronghold of Republicanism and protection. (Applause.)

These victories were for the great principles of a national 10 party. They were her protest against sectionalism, and against fraternal government, which, either by force or by favor, should seek to dominate a dependent people. This was then the democracy of South Carolina and of Illinois, and bound us together from ocean to ocean. (Applause.)

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We did not think that we should live to see the time when these great Democratic principles which have triumphed over Republicanism should be forgotten in a Convention and we should be invited under new and radical leadership to a new and radical policy; that we should be asked to give up 20 vital principles for which we have labored and suffered; repudiate Democratic platforms and administrations, and at the demands of a section urging expediency, be asked to adopt a policy which many of us believe invites peril to our country and disaster to our party. (Applause.)

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In the debates of this Convention I have heard one false note from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I answer it, not in anger, but in sorrow, and I appeal to you, my associates of the Massachusetts delegation, do I not speak the true sentiment of my State (cries of "Yes" in the Massa- 30 chusetts delegation), and answer for our party, when I declare that they and we utter our earnest, emphatic and unflinching protest against this Democratic platform? I have heard from the lips of some of the old leaders of our party, at whose feet we younger men have loved to learn its principles, that the 35 new decline was the bright dawn of a better day. I would to

God that I could believe it! I have heard that Democracy was being tied to a star, not the lone star, my Texan friends, that we gladly would welcome, but to the falling star, which flashes for an instant and then goes out in the darkness of 5 the night. (Applause.)

No, my friends, we see not the dawn, but the darkness of defeat and disaster. Oh, that from this great majority, with its power, there might come the only word of concession and conciliation! Oh, that from you there might be held out the 10 olive branch of peace, under which all Democrats united could rally to a great victory!

Mr. Chairman, I have finished my work of protest. Let me, following the example of the Senator from South Carolina, utter the word of prophecy. When this storm has sub15 sided, when the dark clouds of passion, of prejudice, have rolled away, and there comes after the turmoil of this Convention the sober second thought of Democrats and of our people, then the protests we of the minority here make will be hailed as the ark of the covenant faith when all Demo20 crats united may go to fight for the old principles and carry them to triumphant victory.

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III.

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

Secession.

Delivered at the Georgia State Convention.
January, 1861.

["The convention assembled on the 16th of January. The number of members was two hundred and ninety-five. On the 18th, a resolution was passed, by a vote of one hundred and sixty-five ayes to one hundred and thirty noes, declaring it to be the right and the duty of the State to withdraw from the Union. On the same day they appointed a committee to draft an Ordinance of Secession. It was reported almost

immediately and in a single paragraph declared the repeal and abrogation of all laws which bound the Commonwealth to the Union, and that the State of Georgia was in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignity which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.' The debate on the ordinance elicited many warm expressions 5 of Union sentiments and it was on this occasion that Alexander H. Stephens made the [following] speech. Robert Toombs and his party were, [however,] strong enough to give to the ordinance, when it came up for a final vote, two hundred and eight ballots against eighty-nine. Civil War in America, B. J. Lossing, Vol. 1, p. 178.]

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MR. PRESIDENT: This step of secession, once taken, can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow, will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours 15 will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us; who but this Convention will be held re- 20 sponsible for it? And who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and 25 desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give, that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments what reason you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon 30 us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case; and what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been 35 invaded? What justice has been denied? And what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either

of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show the facts 5 (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend, and lover of the South, and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words of truth and soberness), of which I TO wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty 15 years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and 20 strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities, they may have done so ; but not by the sanction of government; for that has always 25 been true to Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at another act; when we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, out of which four States have been 30 carved, and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and, perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a 35 universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected to follow,

But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South, as well 5 as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South and but eleven from the North; 10 although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the free states, yet a majority of the Court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard 15 our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding presidents (pro tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater population, have 20 always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorney-generals we have had fourteen, while 25 the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the free states, from their greater commercial interest, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the 30 world-markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, auditors, and comptrollers filling the executive 35 department; the records show, for the last fifty years, that of

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