Hence no matter what may be the decision of the Supreme Court, on that abstract questions still the right of the people to make it a slave territory or a free territory, is perfect and complete under the Nebraska Bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln will deem my answer satisfactory on this point." This is the distinct a.s.sertion of the power of territorial legislation to admit or exclude slavery; of the first in the race of migration who reach a territory, the common property of the people of the United States to enact laws for the exclusion of other joint owners of the territory, who may in the exercise of their equal right to enter the common property, choose to take with them property recognized by the Const.i.tution, built not acceptable to the first emigrants to the Territory. That Senator had too often and too fully discussed with me the question of "squatter sovereignty" to be justified in thus mistaking my opinion. The difference between us is as wide as that of one who should a.s.sert the right to rob from him who admitted the power. It is true, as I stated it at that time, all property requires protection from the society in the midst of which it is held. This necessity does not confer a right to destroy, but rather creates an obligation to protect. It is true as I stated it, that slave property peculiarly requires the protection of society, and would ordinarily become valueless in the midst of a community, which would seek to seduce the slave front his master, and conceal him whilst absconding, and as jurors protect each other in any suit which the master might bring for damages. The laws of the United States, through the courts of the United States, might enable the master to recover the slave wherever he could find him. But you all know, in such a community as I have supposed, that a slave inclined to abscond would become utterly useless, and that was the extent of the admission.
The extract on which reliance has been placed was taken from a speech made at Portland, and both before and after the extract, the language employed conclusively disproves the construction, which unfriendly criticism has put upon the detached pa.s.sage. Immediately preceding it, the following language was used:
"The Territory being the common property of States, equals in the Union, and bound by the Const.i.tution which recognizes property in slaves, it is an abuse of terms to call aggression the migration into that Territory of one of its joint owners, because carrying with him any species of property recognized by the Const.i.tution of the United States. The Federal Government has no power to declare what is property enywhere.{sic} The power of each State cannot extend beyond its own limits. As a consequence, therefore, whatever is property in any of the States, must be so considered in any of the territories of the United States until they reach to the dignity of community independence, when the subject matter will be entirely under the control of the people, and be determined by their fundamental law. If the inhabitants of any territory should refuse to enact such laws and police regulations as would give security to their property or to his, it would be rendered more or less valueless, in proportion to the difficulty of holding it without such protection. In the case of property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be practically debarred by the circ.u.mstances of the case, from taking slave property into a territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft repeated fallacy of forcing slavery upon any community."
And in a subsequent part of the same speech, the matter was treated of in this wise:
"The South had not asked Congress to extend slavery into the territories, and he in common with most other Southern statesmen, denied the existence of any power to do so. He held it to be the creed of the Democracy, both in the North and the South, that the general government had no const.i.tutional power either to establish or prohibit slavery anywhere; a grant of power to do the one must necessarily have involved the power to do the other. Hence it is their policy not to interfere on the one side or the other, but protecting each individual in his const.i.tutional rights, to leave every independent community to determine and adjust all domestic questions as in their wisdom may seem best."
In other speeches made elsewhere, in New England and in New York the equality of the South as joint owners was declared and maintained, as I had often done before the people of Mississippi and in the Senate of the United States when the subject was in controversy. The position taken by me in 1850, in the form of an amendment offered to one of the compromise measures of that year, was intended to a.s.sert the equal right of all property to the protection of the United States, and to deny to any legislative body the power to abridge that right. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case has fully sustained our position in the following pa.s.sage:
"If Congress itself cannot do this, (prohibit slavery in a Territory,) if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government--it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a territorial government to exercise them. _It could confer no power on any local government established by its authority, to violate the provisions of the Const.i.tution._
"And if the Const.i.tution recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave; and makes no distinction between that description of property and other property owned by a citizen, _no tribunal_, acting under the authority of the United States, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of private property against the encroachments of the government."
At the time of the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, it certainly was understood that the const.i.tutional rights to take slaves into any territory of the United States should thenceforth be regarded as a judicial question; and therefore special provision was made to facilitate the bringing of such questions before the Supreme Court of the United States. After the decision to which reference has just been made, the prominent advocate of the bill at the time of its enactment should have been estopped from recurring to his "squatter sovereignty"
heresies, though the decision should have been different from his antic.i.p.ation or desire. And as much interest has been felt in relation to his position, and some inquiry has been made as to my view of it, I will here say, that I consider him as having recanted the better opinions announced by him in 1854, and that I cannot be compelled to choose between men, one of whom a.s.serts the power of Congress to deprive us of a const.i.tutional right, and the other only denies the power of Congress, in order to transfer it to the territorial legislature. Neither the one nor the other has any authority to sit in judgment on our rights under the Const.i.tution.
Between such positions, Mississippi cannot have a preference, because she cannot recognize anything tolerable in either of them.
Having called your attention to the speech made at Portland, to show that other parts of it disprove the construction put upon the paragraph, which was taken from it, and reported to be a part of the speech delivered at Bangor, it may be as well on this occasion to state the circ.u.mstances under which the speech was made at Portland.
Immediately preceding the State election, I was invited, by the democracy of that city, to address them, and my attention was especially called to a delusion practiced on the people of Maine, by which many were led to believe that there was a purpose on the part of the South, through the government of the United States, to force slavery not only into the territories, but also into the non-slaveholding States of the Union. It was represented to me that in the last Presidential canva.s.s that one of the Senators of Maine had convinced many of the voters that if Mr. Buchanan should be elected, slavery would be forced upon Maine, and that the other Senator was arguing that the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court had given authority to introduce and hold slaves in that State. To counteract such impressions, injurious to the South and her friends, the remarks which have been extracted were made.
On that, as on other occasions, it was deemed a duty to correct misrepresentation and seek to vindicate our purposes from the prejudice which ignorance and agitation had created against us. If it was in my power in any degree to allay sectional excitement, to cultivate sounder opinions and a more fraternal feeling, it was a task most acceptable to me, and one for the performance of which I could not doubt your approval. But it has been my fortune to be the object of a malice which I have not striven to appease because I was conscious that it rested upon no injury or injustice inflicted by me.
The land swarms with Presidential candidates, announced by their agents or their friends, or by themselves, as the mode most available for preventing too zealous and partial friends from putting them in nomination. To these it was the source of unfounded apprehension, that I went to the coast of New England, instead of returning to Mississippi. If any of them had known the necessity which kept me from home, it is fair to suppose the aspirant for such distinction could not have been guilty of the meanness of suppressing that fact, and allowing misrepresentation to do its work in my absence.
For the wretch who is doomed to go through the world bearing a personal jealousy or a personal malignity, which renders him incapable of doing justice, and studious of misrepresentation, I can only feel pity, and were it possible to feel revengeful, could consign him to no worse punishment than that of his own tormentors, the vipers nursed in his own breast.
But long have I delayed what is my chief purpose, to speak to my friends, the men whose good opinion is to me of importance only second to the approval of my own conscience. So far as they have misunderstood me, it is a pleasure to set forth the true meaning of both my words and my deeds. To my traducers I have no explanations to offer and no apologies for any one. If State Rights men in the excess of their zeal have censured me, I have no reproaches for them, but cheerfully bear the burden which may be imposed upon me by zeal in the cause to which my political life has been devoted, and in imitation of Job, would bless the State Rights Democracy of Mississippi, even if the object of its vengeance: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."
If I had been asked what interpretation might possibly be put upon the published sketch of the remarks made by me at sea on the Fourth of July last, speculation would have been exhausted before it would have occurred to me that my State Rights friends would consider themselves described under the head of "trifling politicians," who could not believe that the country would remain united to repel insult to our flag as it had recently been on the occasion of the attempt to exercise visit and search in the Gulf of Mexico, under the pretext of checking the African slave trade. The publisher of that sketch has already announced that it was not a report, and that for its language I could not justly be considered responsible. To this it is needless that I should add any thing. But I have treated it, and will treat it in the view necessarily taken by those who construed it before such denial was made.
During the period of greatest adversity, in the hour of gloom and defeat, the State Rights Democracy had no cause to complain of my fealty. We struggled together, fell together, rose together, and to them I am indebted for whatever of consideration or position I possess. Endeared to me by our common suffering; grateful to them for the steadfast support with which they have honored me, accustomed to refer with pride to my ident.i.ty with them, it would have been strange indeed, if when separated from them under circ.u.mstances which turned any eyes, with more than ordinary anxiety towards my home, I should then have sought an occasion to heap reproachful language upon them.
Often it has been my duty to repel the accusations of others who sought to attribute to the State Rights Democracy opinions not their own, and to impute to them the purpose to agitate for the destruction of the government we inherited. As one of the State Rights party, I deny that the language published is a picture of me or my cla.s.s, and I have as little disposition now, as at any former time, to separate myself from the body of the party, with which I have so long acted, which I rejoice to see in power at home, and daily more and more respected in the other States.
I have thus defined who were not meant, and will now tell who were meant. Firsts they were the noisy agitators who were constantly disturbing the public peace and proclaiming that slavery is so great an evil, that the preservation of the Union is subordinate to the purpose of abolishing it. They who object to any protection, on the high seas or elsewhere, being given to slave property by the government of the United States; who would rejoice in any insult offered to the national flag if borne by a vessel sailing from a Southern port; and who have been for some time back circulating pet.i.tions for a dissolution of the Union on the ground of the incompatibility of the sections. And to these may be added the few, the very few of Southern men who fancying that they would have advantages out of the Union which they cannot possess within it, however fully the compact should be observed and State Equality maintained, desire its dissolution, and taking counsel of their pa.s.sions, decry the labors of all who seek to preserve the government as our fathers formed it, and to develop the great purposes for which it was ordained and established.
The other phrase which has been the subject of comment was, "and this great country will remain united." How "united" is set forth in the language to which this clause was a conclusion, "united to protect our national flag whenever a foreign power, presuming on our domestic dissention, should dare to insult it." The unanimity with which men of all parties in the two houses of Congress rallied to support the executive in maintaining the rights of our flag, had been the subject of my commendation. Upon that fact the idea expressed rested. At worst it could but have evinced too much credulity, and I trust I may die believing that whenever the honor of our flag shall demand it, every mountain and valley and plain, will pour forth their hardy sons, and that shoulder to shoulder they will march against any foreign foe which shall invade the rights of any portion of the United States.
And here permit me as a duty to you, and an obligation upon myself, to pay the tribute which I believe to be due the Northern Democracy.
Having formed my opinion of them upon insufficient data, I have had occasion, after much intercourse with them, to modify it. I believe that a great reaction has commenced; how far it will progress I do not pretend to say, but am hopeful that agitation will soon become unprofitable to political traders in New England, and this hope rests upon the high position taken by the Northern Democracy, and upon the increased vote which in some of the States, under the more distinct avowal of sound principles, their candidates have received. You may now often hear among them not only the unqualified defence of your const.i.tutional rights, but the vindication of your inst.i.tutions in the abstract, and in the concrete.
In the town of Portland, just preceding the election, a Democrat of large means and extensively engaged in commercial transactions and city improvements addressed the Democracy, arguing that their prosperity depended upon their connection with countries, the products of which were dependent upon slave labor; and the future growth and prosperity of their city depended upon the extension of slave labor into all countries where it could be profitably employed. He showed by a statistical statement the paralysing effect which would be produced upon their interest by the abolition of slavery. The Black Republican papers of course abused him, and compared him to Davis and Toombs, but his sound views were approved by the Democracy, and so far as I could judge, he gained consideration by their manly utterance.
A generation had been educated in error, and the South had done nothing in defence of the abstract right of slavery. Within a few years essays have been written, books have been published, by northern as well as by southern men, and with the increase of information, there has been a subsidence of prejudice, and a preparation of the mind to receive truth. Our friends are still in a minority. It would be vain to speculate as to the period when their position will be reversed. Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still ent.i.tled to our regard and respect. A few years ago those who maintained our const.i.tutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and Nebraska bill, went home to meet reproach and expulsions from public employment.
Even their social position was affected by that political act. The few years, however, which have elapsed, have produced a great change. They have recovered all except their political position. That bill which was considered when it was enacted, a Southern measure, for which Northern men bravely sacrificed their political prospects, has of late been denounced at the South as a cheat and a humbug. A poor return certainly, to those who conscientiously maintaining our rights, surrendered their popularity to secure what the men for whom they made the sacrifice now p.r.o.nounce to have been a cheat. It is true that bill has recently received in some quarters a construction which its friends did not place upon it when it was enacted. But it should be judged by its terms and by contemporaneous construction.
When I visited the people of Mississippi last year, the question of greatest public excitement, was connected with the action of the Executive in relation to the admission of Kansas as a State of the Union. You had been led to suppose that the President would attempt to control the action of the convention, and if the const.i.tution was not submitted to a popular vote, would oppose by all the means within his power, the admission of the State within the Union. You were also excited at a dogma which had been put forth, to the effect that no more slave States should be admitted. I agreed with you then, that if the President took such position he would violate the obligations of his office, and be faithless to the trust which you had reposed in him. I agreed with you then, that the exclusion of a State, because it was slaveholding, would be such an offence against your equality as would demand at your hands the vindication of your rights. What has been the result? The convention framed the const.i.tution, submitted only the clause relating to slavery to a popular vote, and applied for admission. The President in his annual message referred in favorable terms to the application, then not formally made, and when the Const.i.tution reached him transmitted it to Congress with a special message, in which he fully and emphatically maintained the right of admission.
After the convention had adjourned, Mr. Stanton, acting Governor of the Territory, called and extra session of the Freesoil Legislature, which has been elected, and it pa.s.sed an act to submit the whole const.i.tution to a popular vote. The President removed him from office,--a further evidence of the sincerity with which he was fulfiling your expectations in relation to Kansas. And it gives me pleasure here to say of him, what I am a.s.sured I can now say with confidence, that he will not shrink a hair"s breadth from the position he has taken, but will move another step in advance, and fall, if fall he must, manfully upholding the rights and defying the insolence of ill-gotten power.
When the bill was presented to the Senate for the admission of the State of Kansas, after a long discussion, it was adopted, with a provision which required the State after admission to relinquish its claim to all the land asked for in its ordinance, except 5,000,000 acres, that being the largest amount which had been ever granted to a State at the period of its admission. There was also a provision declaratory of the right of the people to change their const.i.tution at any time; though the instrument itself had restricted them for a term of years. I considered both those provisions objectionable; the first, because it was directory of legislation to be enacted by a State; and the second, because it was inviting to a disregard of the fundamental law, and had too much the seeming of a concession to the anti-slavery feeling which was impatient for a change of the const.i.tution. That bill failed in the House, and was succeeded by a bill of the Opposition which recognized the right of Kansas to be admitted with a pro-slavery const.i.tution, provided it should be adopted by a popular vote. This also failed, and in the division between the two Houses, a com- {sic}
As there has been much diversity of opinion in relation to that law, and I think much misapprehension as to its character, I will be pardoned for speaking of it somewhat minutely.
When it was known that the Conference Committee had prepared a bill, I mittee of conference was appointed, which framed the bill that became a law. being at the time confined to my house by disease, invited my colleague and the Representatives from the State to visit me, that we might confer together and decide upon the course which we would pursue. Before the evening of our meeting, a distinguished member of the House of Representatives, a member of the Committee, called and read to me the bill which they had prepared. It contained some features which I considered objectionable. He concurred with me, and promised to use his efforts to have them stricken out. When the Mississippi delegation a.s.sembled, our conference was full, and marked by the desire, first to protect the rights of our State, and secondly, to secure unanimity of action by its delegation. The objections which were urged, referred, as my memory serves me, entirely to the features which I had reason to hope would be stricken out. One of the delegation announced an unwillingness to support the proposed modification of the Senate proposition, lest it should be considered as yielding the point on which we had insisted that Congress could not require the Const.i.tution to be submitted to a popular vote. I refer to the lamented Quitman, whose sincere devotion to Southern interests, no one, who knew him, could question. I regretted that he deemed it necessary to vote, finally, against the measure, but I honor the motive which governed his course.
The ordinance which was attached to the Const.i.tution, was not a part of it, but a condition annexed to the application for admission. If Congress had stricken the ordinance out, the effect, I believe, would have been that of admitting the State without any reservation of the public land; would have transferred as an attribute of sovereignty the useful as well as the eminent domain. The Southern Senators who received the soubriquet of Southern ultras, held that position in 1850, in relation to the public lands of California, and it const.i.tuted one of their objections to the admission of that State at the time it was effected. To modify the ordinance, that is to change the condition on which the inhabitants of Kansas proposed to enter into the Union was necessarily to give them the right to withdraw their proposition.
It remained then for Congress if they reduced the amount of land asked for in the ordinance, either to provide the mode in which the inhabitants should accept or reject the modification or leave them to do it in such manner as they might adopt. The convention was defunct, the legislature was black republican and thought to be ent.i.tled to little confidence, and it seemed to be better that Congress should itself provide the mode of ascertaining the public will than leave that duty to the territorial legislature, such as it was believed and proven to be. It was a mere question of expediency, and I think the best course was pursued.
To have admitted the State without modification of the ordinance, would have been to grant five times as much of the public land as had ever been given to a State at the period of admission.
There was nothing to justify such a discrimination, and otherwise the State could not be admitted without referring the question or violating the principle of State sovereignty.
As a condition precedent, the general government may require the recognition of its right to control the primary disposal of the land, but can have no right to impose a condition with the mandate that it shall be subsequently fulfiled and no power to enforce the mandate if the State admitted should refuse to comply. Not for all the land in Kansas, not for all the land between the Missouri and the Pacific ocean, not for all the land of the continent of North America, would I agree that the federal government should have the power to coerce a State.
The necessity for having all conditions agreed upon before the admission of a State was demonstrated by Mr. Soule, in 1850, in the discussion of the bill for the admission of California. Mr. Webster replied to him but did not answer his argument, and the course of events seems likely to verify all that Senator Soule foretold.
Of the three methods which were supposable, I think Congress adopted the best; it was the only one which was attainable and secured all which was of value to the South. It was the admission by Congress of a State with a pro-slavery Const.i.tution; it was the triumph of the principle that forbade Congress to interfere either as to the matter of the Const.i.tution or the manner in which it should be formed and adopted.
The refusal of the inhabitants to accept the reduced endowment offered to them, and their decision to remain in a territorial condition, was, in my opinion, wise on their part and fortunate on ours. The late Governor, Denver, has forcibly pointed out to them their want of means to support a State government, and the propriety of giving their first attention to the establishment of order and the development of their internal resources. There were many reasons to doubt the fitness of the inhabitants of Kansas to be admitted as a State.
The condition of the country and the previous legislation of Congress made the case exceptional, and, in my judgment, justified the course adopted. I have, therefore, no apology or regret to offer in the case.
The Northern opponents of the measure have, among other denunciatory epithets, applied to it those of "bribery" and "coercion." "Bribery"
to give less by twenty millions of acres of land than was claimed, and "coercion" to leave them to the option of receiving the usual endowment, or waiting until they had an amount of population which would give some a.s.surance of their ability to maintain a State government. Though such is the requirement of the law, and designed to secure exemption from the mischievous agitation which has for several years disturbed the country and benefitted only the demagogues who make a trade of politics, we may scarcely hope to escape from a renewal of the agitation which has been found so profitable. The next phase of the question will probably be in the form of what is termed an "enabling act,"--a favorite measure with the advocates of "squatter sovereignty," who, claiming for the inhabitants of a Territory all the power of the people of a State, nevertheless consider it necessary that Congress should confer the power to form a Const.i.tution and apply as a State. Congress has given authority for admission in some cases, but I think it better to avoid than to follow the precedent. Not that I am concerned for the doctrine of "squatter sovereignty," but that I would guard against the mischievous error of considering the federal government as the parent of States, and would restrict it to the function of admitting new States into the Union, barring all pretension to the power of creating them.
It seems now to be probable that the Abolitionists and their allies will have control of the next House of Representatives, and it may be well inferred from their past course that they will attempt legislation both injurious and offensive to the South. I have an abiding faith that any law which violates our const.i.tutional rights, will be met with a veto by the present Executive.--But should the next House of Representatives be such as would elect an Abolition President, we may expect that the election will be so conducted as probably to defeat a choice by the people and devolve the election upon the House.
Whether by the House or by the people, if an Abolitionist be chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pa.s.s into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies. Without pausing for your answer, I will state my own position to be that such a result would be a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be destroyed and the observance of its mere forms ent.i.tled to no respect.
In that event, in such manner as should be most expedient, I should deem it your duty to provide for your safety outside of a Union with those who have already shown the will, and would have acquired the power, to deprive you of your birthright and to reduce you to worse than the colonial dependence of your fathers.
The master mind of the so-called Republican party, Senator Seward, has in a. recent speech at Rochester, announced the purpose of his party to dislodge the Democracy from the possession of the federal Government, and a.s.signs as a reason the friendship of that party for what he denominates the slave system. He declares the Union between the States having slave labor and free labor to be incompatible, and announces that one or the other must disappear. He even a.s.serts that it was the purpose of the framers of the Government to destroy slave property, and cites as evidence of it, the provision for an amendment of the Const.i.tution. He seeks to alarm his auditors by a.s.suring them of the purpose on the part of the South and the Democratic party to force slavery upon all the States of the Union. Absurd as all this may seem to you, and incredulous as you may be of its acceptance by any intelligent portion of the citizens of the United States, I have reason to believe that it has been inculcated to no small extent in the Northern mind.
It requires but a cursory examination of the Const.i.tution of the United States; but a partial knowledge of its history and of the motives of the men who formed it, to see how utterly fallacious it is to ascribe to them the purpose of interfering with the domestic inst.i.tutions of any of the States. But if a disrespect for that instrument, a fanatical disregard of its purposes, should ever induce a majority, however large, to seek by amending the Const.i.tution, to pervert it from its original object, and to deprive you of the equality which your fathers bequeathed to you, I say let the star of Mississippi be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the constellation to shine by its inherent light, if it must be so, through all the storms and clouds of war.
The same dangerously powerful man describes the inst.i.tution of slavery as degrading to labor, as intolerant and inhuman, and says the white laborer among us is not enslaved only because he cannot yet be reduced to bondage. Where he learned his lesson, I am at a loss to imagine; certainly not by observation, for you all know that by interest, if not by higher motive, slave labor bears to capital as kind a relation as can exist between them anywhere; that it removes from us all that controversy between the laborer and the capitalist, which has filled Europe with starving millions and made their poor houses an onerous charge. You too know, that among us, white men have an equality resulting from a presence of the lower caste, which cannot exist where white men fill the position here occupied by the servile race. The mechanic who comes among us, employing the less intellectual labor of the African, takes the position which only a master-workman occupies where all the mechanics are white, and therefore it is that our mechanics hold their position of absolute equality among us.
I say to you here as I have said to the Democracy of New York, if it should ever come to pa.s.s that the Const.i.tution shall be perverted to the destruction of our rights so that we shall have the mere right as a feeble minority unprotected by the barrier of the Const.i.tution to give an ineffectual negative vote in the Halls of Congress, we shall then bear to the federal government the relation our colonial fathers did to the British crown, and if we are worthy of our lineage we will in that event redeem our rights even if it be through the process of revolution. And it gratifies me to be enabled to say that no portion of the speech to which I have referred was received with more marked approbation by the Democracy there a.s.sembled than the sentiment which has just been cited. I am happy also to state that during the past summer I heard in many places, what previously I had only heard from the late President Pierce, the declaration that whenever a Northern army should be a.s.sembled to march for the subjugation of the South, they would have a battle to fight at home before they pa.s.sed the limits of their own State, and one in which our friends claim that the victory will at least be doubtful.
Now, as in 1851, I hold separation from the Union by the State of Mississippi to be the last remedy--the final alternative. In the language of the venerated Calhoun I consider the disruption of the Union as a great though not the greatest calamity. I would cling tenaciously to our const.i.tutional Government, seeing as I do in the fraternal Union of equal States the benefit to all and the fulfilment of that high destiny which our fathers hoped for and left it for their sons to attain. I love the flag of my country with even more than a filial affection. Mississippi gave me in my boyhood to her military service. For many of the best years of my life I have followed that flag and upheld it on fields where if I had fallen it might have been claimed as my winding sheet. When I have seen it surrounded by the flags of foreign countries, the pulsations of my heart have beat quicker with every breeze which displayed its honored stripes and brilliant constellation. I have looked with veneration on those stripes as recording the original size of our political family and with pride upon that constellation as marking the family"s growth; I glory in the position which Mississippi"s star holds in the group; but sooner than see its l.u.s.tre dimmed--sooner than see it degraded from its present equality-would tear it from its place to be set even on the perilous ridge of battle as a sign round which Mississippi"s best and bravest should gather to the harvest-home of death.
As when I had the privilege of addressing the Legislature a year ago, so now do I urge you to the needful preparation to meet whatever contingency may befall us. The maintenance of our rights against a hostile power is a physical problem and cannot be solved by mere resolutions. Not doubtful of what the heart will prompt, it is not the less proper that due provision should be made for physical necessities. Why should not the State have an armory for the repair of arms, for the alteration of old models so as to make them conform to the improved weapons of the present day, and for the manufacture on a limited scale of new arms, including cannon and their carriages; the casting of shot and sh.e.l.ls, and the preparation of fixed ammunition?
Such preparation will not precipitate us upon the trial of secession, for I hold now, as in 1850, that Mississippi"s patriotism will hold her to the Union as long as it is const.i.tutional, but it will give to our conduct the character of earnestness of which mere paper declarations have somewhat deprived us; it will strengthen the hands of our friends at the North, and in the event that separation shall be forced upon us, we shall be prepared to meet the contingency with whatever remote consequences may follow it, and give to manly hearts the happy a.s.surance that manly arms will not fail to protect the gentle beauty which blesses our land and graces the present occasion.