resists the execution of them, even to the shedding of blood. It has grown so powerful that it now aspires to control the Federal Legislature. The slave-holding States are warned in time. They should be prepared for the issue. If it must come, the sooner the better. The time for concessions on our part and compromises has past." Again, Governor R. C. Wickliffe, who succeeded Hebert, in his inaugural address adopts a similar tone, and adds: “I do not wish to speak lightly of the Union. Next to the liberty of the citizen and the sovereignty of the States, I regard it as the primary object of patriotic desire.' It should be dear to us as a sentiment, and dearer to us for its real value. But it cannot have escaped observation, that the hold which the Union once had upon the affection of the South has been. materially weakened, and that its dissolution is now frequently spoken of, if not with absolute levity, yet with positive indifference, and, occasionally, as desirable."2 The election of Buchanan in 1856, however, came as a reassuring measure to the South, and the messages of the governors assumed a more hopeful tone; but in 1860 the rapid increase in numbers of the new Republican party aroused intense alarm, and the recent incursion of John Brown into Virginia summoned up the spectre of negro insurrection never entirely laid in the South.

.

No sooner was the election of Lincoln an assured fact than the legislature of Louisiana was called in extra session, and the governor's message expressed his belief that the election, "by a purely sectional vote, and in contempt of the earnest protest of the other section, was to be considered as evidence of a deliberate design to pervert the powers of the Government to the immediate injury and ultimate destruction of the peculiar institution of the South." In accordance with a very general view in the South that action looking toward secession should be taken before the inauguration of Lincoln, the governor further advised the

legislature to issue a call for a convention" to meet at once, and determine at once" the attitude of Louisiana. His own. view of the matter the governor expressed in no uncertain tone: "I do not think it comports with the honor and selfrespect of Louisiana, as a slave-holding State, to live under the government of a Black Republican President. I will not dispute the fact that Mr. Lincoln is elected according to the forms of the Constitution, but the greatest outrages, both upon public and private rights, have been perpetrated under the forms of law. This question rises high above ordinary political considerations. It involves our present honor and our future existence as a free and independent people. It may be said that, when this Union was formed, it was intended to be perpetual. So it was, as far as such a term can be applied to anything human; but it was also intended to be administered in the same spirit in which it was made, with a scrupulous regard to the equality of the sovereignties composing it. We certainly are not placed in the position of subjects of a European despotism, whose only door of escape from tyranny is the right of revolution. I maintain the right of each State to secede from the Union, and, therefore, whatever course Louisiana may pursue now, if any attempt should be made by the Federal Government to coerce a sovereign State, and compel her to submission to an authority which she has ceased to recognize, I should unhesitatingly recommend that Louisiana assist her sister States with the same alacrity and courage with which the colonies assisted each other in their struggle against the despotism of the Old World."

On January 7, when the election for members of the secession convention was held, the votes for the Southern Rights candidates is said to have been 20,448, and for their opponents 17,296.2 The policies of the opponents were

J. F. Condon in Martin, History of Louisiana, p. 457; Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science, subject "Secession." The present secretary of state for Louisiana (1903) informs the author that the returns of this election are not in his office, and that if they exist they are in Washington. No newspaper of the time published complete returns.

various, but the chief one was the cooperation1 of the Southern States within the Union. The convention met at Baton Rouge, January 23, 1861, and adjourned two months later, Saturday, March 23. The message of the governor to the General Assembly, which met on the same day, was also read to the convention. The governor held that the recent election in relation to the convention "had confirmed the faith of their Representatives in the Legislative and Executive station that the undivided sentiment of the State was for immediate and effective resistance; and that there was not found within her limits any difference of sentiment, except as to minor points of expediency, in regard to the manner and time of making such resistance, so as to give it the most imposing form for dignity and success."2

After the convention was organized and Alexander Mouton elected president, J. A. Rozier, the spokesman of the cooperationists, proposed, as a substitute for immediate secession, the following: "That a Convention be called in Nashville, February 25, 1861, of all the slave-holding States, or as many as will unite therein to procure amendments to the Federal Constitution protecting the slave-holding States; and if these cannot be procured, it shall forthwith organize a separate Confederacy of slave-holding States." This motion, however, was lost by a vote of 106 to 24. James O. Fuqua, representing a somewhat different view, offered a motion providing that the coercion of any seceding State be regarded by Louisiana as an act of war on all slaveholding States, absolving any State from allegiance to the Federal government, and furnishing Louisiana with an opportunity to make common cause with the State attacked; Louisiana, however, should send delegates to Montgomery, February 24, 1861, and assist in the formation of a Federal union of slaveholding States. This hybrid motion was lost, 73 to 47.3 The Slidell party, however, held that any plan for

66

1 A cooperationist, according to the Century Dictionary, was one who opposed secession unless carried out with the coöperation of other southern States."

2 Gayarré, Louisiana, IV, 690.

Journal of the Convention of 1861, pp. 11, 16.

cooperation within the Union was impossible of realization, as the army and the navy of the Federal government would have time to interfere before it could be executed.

Five States had already seceded, and on January 25, J. L. Manning, duly accredited commissioner of South Carolina, and John A. Winston, commissioner from Alabama, were conducted to the floor of the convention, and, showing their credentials like the ministers of foreign powers, addressed the convention on the wisdom of immediate secession. This appeal from sister States furthered the cause already strong in the convention. On the following day, January 26, the convention passed the Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 113 to 17. Eight of those who voted in the negative afterwards signed the ordinance, making the whole number of signers one hundred and twenty-one, only nine refusing. These nine were Roselius, Stocker, Rozier, Lewis of Orleans, Pierson, Taliaferro, Garrett, Hough, and Meredith. The ordinance was as follows:

"AN ORDINANCE

"To dissolve the union between the State of Louisiana and other States united with her, under the compact entitled 'The Constitution of the United States of America.'

"We, the people of the State of Louisiana, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the Ordinance passed by us in Convention on the 22d day of November, in the year eighteen hundred and eleven whereby the Constitution of the United States of America, and the amendments of the said Constitution, were adopted; and all laws and ordinances by which the State of Louisiana became a member of the Federal Union, be and the same are hereby repealed and abrogated; and that the union now subsisting between Louisiana and the other States, under the name of 'The United States of America', is hereby dissolved.

"We do further declare and ordain, That the State of Louisiana hereby resumes all rights and powers heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America; That her citizens are absolved from all allegiance to said government; and that she is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which, appertain to a free and independent State.

"We do further declare and ordain, That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States or any act of Congress, or treaty, or under any law of the State, and not incompatible with this Ordinance, shall remain in force, and have the same effect as if this Ordinance had not been passed."1

1

1 Report of the Secretary of State of Louisiana, 1902, insert facing

P. 112.

On the 18th of February, 1861, the Louisiana legislature passed the following joint resolutions:

"I. Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, in General Assembly convened, That the right of a sovereign State to secede or withdraw from the Government of the Federal Union, and resume her original sovereignty when in her judgment such act becomes necessary, is not prohibited by the Federal Constitution, but is reserved thereby to the several States, or people thereof, to be exercised, each for itself, without molestation.

"2. Be it further resolved, etc., That any attempt to coerce or force a sovereign State to remain within the Federal Union, come from what quarter and under whatever pretense it may, will be viewed by the people of Louisiana, as well on her own account as of her sister Southern States, as a hostile invasion, and resisted to the utmost extent."

The States of South Carolina, December 20, Mississippi, January 9, Florida, January 10, Alabama, January 11, and Georgia, January 18, had already seceded; and now Louisiana, "with sublime imprudence," to use Gayarré's phrase, decided to cast in her lot with theirs. John Perkins, Alexander Decluet, Charles M. Conrad, Duncan F. Kenner, Henry Marshall, and Edward Sparrow were elected as delegates to the Southern Congress, to meet at Montgomery, February 4, 1861.1

When it was moved that the convention submit the Ordinance of Secession to the popular vote for ratification, the motion was defeated by a vote of 84 to 45. The constitution, modified in accordance with the new conditions, wås to go into effect as the constitutions of the first States of the Union, except Massachusetts, went into effect-without popular ratification. There may have been other reasons for this, but the obvious and important one was that it was believed that there was no time to be lost in submitting to popular vote the action of the convention.2

1Crescent, February 4, 1861.

2 Perkins of Madison argued against the idea of Roselius that the convention was irregular and unconstitutional because called by the legislature, and he proceeded to cite authorities to show the contrary. Nor was it necessary to refer the ordinance back to the people for approval. "Why submit it to the people when it was known it would be unanimously agreed to? Why refer it at a time when our Sister States are calling for action!! action! action!"