Volume II Part 28 (2/2)

”A free Republican government like this, notwithstanding all its const.i.tutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the progress of society.

”Free labor has at last apprehended its rights and its destiny, and is organizing itself to a.s.sume the government of the Republic. It will henceforth meet you boldly and resolutely here (Was.h.i.+ngton); it will meet you everywhere, in the territories and out of them, where-ever you may go to extend slavery. It has driven you back in California and in Kansas; it will invade you soon in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Texas. It will meet you in Arizona, in Central America, and even in Cuba.

”You may, indeed, get a start under or near the tropics, and seem safe for a time, but it will be only a short time. Even there you will found States only for free labor, or to maintain and occupy.

The interest of the whole race demands the ultimate emanc.i.p.ation of all men. Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take effect, with needful and wise precautions against sudden change and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that remains for you to decide. The white man needs this continent to labor upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and his necessities are fixed.

”It is for yourselves, and not for us, to decide how long and through what further mortifications and disasters the contest shall be protracted before Freedom shall enjoy her already a.s.sured triumph.

”You may refuse to yield it now, and for a short period, but your refusal will only animate the friends of freedom with the courage and the resolution, and produce the union among them, which alone is necessary on their part to attain the position itself, simultaneously with the impending overthrow of the existing Federal Administration and the const.i.tution of a new and more independent Congress.”

Mr. Lincoln said during a discussion of the impending crisis:

”I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.

”I have always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. I have always been an old-line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision I would vote that it should.”

Notwithstanding the confident tone of Mr. Lincoln's statement that he did ”not expect the house to fall,” it _did_ fall, and great was the fall thereof!

On Sat.u.r.day, 9th of February, 1861, six seceding States met at Montgomery, Alabama, and organized an independent government. The ordinances of secession were pa.s.sed by the States as follows:

STATE. DATE. YEAS. NAYS.

South Carolina Dec. 20, 1860 169 ---- Mississippi Jan. 9, 1861 84 15 Alabama Jan. 11, 1861 61 39 Florida Jan. 11, 1861 62 7 Georgia Jan. 19, 1861 228 89 Louisiana Jan. 25, 1861 113 17

The following delegates presented their credentials and were admitted and represented their respective States:

ALABAMA.--R. W. Walker, R. H. Smith, J. L. M. Curry, W. P.

Chilton, S. F. Hale Colon, J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, David P.

Lewis, Thomas Fearn.

FLORIDA.--James B. Owens, J. Patten Anderson, Jackson Morton (not present).

GEORGIA.--Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, F. S. Bartow, M. J.

Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. Cobb, A. H. Kenan, A. H. Stephens.

LOUISIANA.--John Perkins, Jr., A. Declonet, Charles M. Conrad, D.

F. Kenner, G. E. Sparrow, Henry Marshall.

MISSISSIPPI.--W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, N. S. Wilson, A. M.

Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison.

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