remunerative than as farm hand. Whenever the inevitable transition period might arrive, it was far more important to the freedman, than to the ex-slave owner, that society should be tranquil, wages sure and confidence perfect between the races. Until time had ripened all these conditions for consummation, their premature and abnormal disturbance was neither humanity to the slave nor a just expedient of war against his master.*

Considering, briefly, the second proposition of this Chapter, it is sufficient to say that the federal Constitution having evolved from native conditions, had fallen, in 1860, to foreign influences. In the free States, about one-third of the men of voting age were of foreign birth, while, in the slave States, not more than one in twenty were of foreign birth. True as it may be, that the bulk of the immigrants, then, were men of good intentions, farmers in large proportion, with some means, it is also true that they had no part in making the organic law of the Union, or their ancestors. They did not understand it and did not feel need of understanding it. A kingly power awaited them-the right to vote. They were content in its license. Hence it became impracticable to repair or amend the Constitution, as the system contemplated. The unity of Northern interests converted every strong man devoted to a Constitutional Union, there, into a sectional partisan. Firm and great as was Mr. Douglas he was borne on the tide of resistless public opinion, as cork upon a torrent. In 1858 he was an ardent State Rights advocate, debating with Lincoln. In 1861 he voted to supply an army to a part of the States to conquer the others. Nor was so brave and well meaning a man as Mr. Lincoln more able to stand before the pressure of the foreign vote, striving for the right but knowing nothing of its foundations. In 1858 Mr. Lincoln said in debate with Douglas:

"I am not now, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not now, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with

*When Richmond was occupied by the United States army, in April, 1865, the inhabitants were upon the verge of starvation and without money. The blacks were declared free by the invader, and rations were liberally dispensed to them. Many masters and their families were supplied in this way by their faithful servants with the necessaries of life.

white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

But, a few years later, in less than six hours before he received his death wound in the revolution inaugurated to abolish slavery, Mr. Lincoln signed a military order intended to elevate the black race to social and political control of the Southern States.

When the year 1860 opened the fruits of a wise and vigorous statesmanship blessed Alabama and the promise of the Commonwealth, in the course of peace and freedom, was unrivalled in all America. The public debt of the State had been adjusted, her honor established and an eminently successful monetary system put in operation; political animation prevailed throughout her borders; her inestimable mining and manufacturing resources had been discovered and proclaimed ; her main arteries of commerce had been laid. Idle, indeed, would be the allegation that the maturing manhood of the African was not involved in these accumulating beneficences of enlightened society. False, indeed, must appear in history the statesmanship which either ignored the fact or defeated its consummation. Four individuals had come out from the ranks of the multitude to fix above and beyond the public mind, in its forward movement, four avenues of advance--the release of the people from the banks; the organizing of the people to defend liberty; the discovery of the mineral wealth; and the instigation of enterprise to enlarged effort. Leadership effecting these results, in the chronological order named,. belongs to Martin, Yancey, Tuomey, and Milner, respectively. If the bondage of the African of the South was, in truth, a social and political evil, these were his humane liberators, the true Abolitionists, freeing the African, presently, from the statute which affirmed his bondage, but making sure a new and final economy for the masters, irreconcilable with a property status of labor.

CHAPTER 22.

The Charleston Convention.

1860.

Kansas, an unadmitted State, remained yet at the doors of Congress. A civil community, worthy of incorporation into a Confederacy of self-governing States, had never existed there. The very proceedings in which the feeble and fickle social elements had been forced into political form were sanguinary conflicts, on the soil, instigated by the mad passions of the colliding sections on the floors of Congress. Would the free States persevere, to the final extinction of the compact rights of the slave States? Would the slave States submit, because submission had become the logical sequence of the errors of the irremediable past? These were the questions which town, precinct and State meetings and conventions of the people were to determine, in the opening months of 1860. Congress had lost power; the people had assumed power.

When Mr. Yancey set out early, after writing to Mr. Meadows, for his summer vacation, he carried his physician's injunctions to avoid public speaking. After a few weeks spent in the mountainous regions of Georgia, he passed on to Greenville, South Carolina, and was so far restored as to return to the political work he had begun for the relief of the South. At Greenville he was received with demonstrations of public delight. He spoke there and elsewhere in the vicinity. July 28, he spoke at Columbia, to a crowded house. He said:

"It is not uncommon to hear those who hold my opinions

denounced as agitators. I, for one, accept the appellation. Error and ignorance occupy a more primitive relation to our lives than enlightenment and truth. Agitation, incentives to exertion, inducements which impel inquiry are sources of knowledge and wisdom. The prophets of old were agitators. Nature disturbs the peace, which broods over the land and the sea, like slumber, with the resistless rush of the hurricane, and the mad billows lash the shores of the hemispheres in their fury. Languishing beneath a tropical sun, animated nature pantingly seeks shelter from its burning gaze. The green slime covers the still waters; the deadly miasma rises. Suddenly, the heavens are over-clouded, the blazing electric meteors shoot, the deep toned thunders roll through the great vaults above, the torrents descend, the unrestrained winds career in madness and, as suddenly, athwart this gloomy aspect, nature resumes a smiling face and a purified breath overspreads her dominion. The Divine Martyr, dying, died amidst convulsions of nature which shook the earth in its foundations. His last injunction to His disciples was, to go forth to proclaim His words until every heresy should yield. If we have the right on our side it is our bounden duty to 'agitate.' If we are in the wrong, agitation will prove the truth. No good cause has ever been delayed by agitation, and every error has trembled before it."

The object of the speech was to urge the Democrats to be represented in the Charleston Convention. A few weeks later Mr. Yancey wrote to Mr. Rhett requesting him to prepare and publish, in the Charleston Mercury, the outline of a Southern policy. October 13, 1859, the Mercury, the confessed organ of the Southern leaders, appeared with a temporate and elaborate article embracing six distinct propositions of procedure: (1) The Legislatures of the Southern States, soon to assemble, should protest against the acts of the fourteen Northern State Legislatures nullifying the fugitive slave law of Congress and other demonstrations of hostility to a Constitutional Union, by declaring for the principle laid down in the Dred Scott decree; (2) the Legislatures of the Southern States should commit their States to abide by the action of the Charleston Convention, based on the principles laid down by that decree; (3) should the candidates to be nominated at

Charleston, on this principle, be defeated by the candidates of the Republican party, then the Legislatures should re-assemble, recall their Senators and Representatives in Congress, and devise some " means for their common safety ;" (4) should the National Convention of the Democratic party be so dominated by the free States as to refuse to accept the principle laid down by the Court, then the South, as a last resort, should put forward candidates for President and vice-President representing the true national policy; (5) should the true national candidates, so put forward, be elected, then the South should accept the result as the pledge of a Constitutional Union; (6) should the Northern sectional candidates be elected, demonstrating, beyond cavil, the insecurity of the society of the South, in the Union, then the proposed conference of Southern States should be had to determine what would be best to be done.

Every fresh outbreak of sectional discord, every "compromise" by which the trouble of the day had been "finally settled," every new Congress chosen had verified the prophecies of Mr. Calhoun's address, of 1849. There was no break in the order and extent of fulfillment, up to this day. Sectional conflict was to result in enforced emancipation, in subordination of masters to their former slaves, in the imposition of taxes intended to enrich one section and one class. North and South, united by the sword, would be dominated by some irresponsible power, a Congress, mayhap, for a season, and next a dictator. Nevertheless, in Congress and without, were many examples of Southern leaders who had confessed precipitate and inexplicable reversion of sentiments. The fact seemed ominous of the sudden turn of power and glory from the civilization of the slave States, whence the government had come forth, to abide in the civilization of the free States, born since the government. Most conspicuous of the recent converts was Mr. Jefferson Davis. The signature most valued by Mr. Calhoun to his Address was the signature of Mr. Davis. In 1858, while assisting in the celebration of Independence day, in Boston harbor, he compared his former associates in the South, the Secessionists, to "mosquitoes around the ox's horn." debate, of 1850, Mr. John Bell, from Tennessee, said, in the Senate: