The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-19 00:00:00

SOUTH CAROLINA.

The following is the " declaration of immediate
causes which induce and justify the secession of
South Carolina from the Federal Union :"

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Con-
vention assembled, on the 2d day of April, A.l).
1852, declared that the frequent violations of the
Constitution of the United States by the Federal
Government, and its encroachments upon the re-
served rights of the States, fully justified this State
in their withdrawal from the Federal Union; but,
in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other
slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to
exercise this right. Since that time these encroach-
ments have continued to increase, and further for-
bearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina, having
resumed her separate and equal place among na-
tions, deems it due to herself, to the remaining
United States of America, and to the nations of the
world, that she should declare the immediate causes
-which have led to this act.
In the year 1765 that portion of the British Em-
pire embracing Great Britain undertook to Make
laws for the government of that portion composed
of the 13 American colonies. A struggle for the
right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on
the 4th July, 1776, in a declaration by the colonies,
" That they are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent States, and that, as free and indepen-
dent States, they have full power to levy war, con-
clude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce,
and to do all other acts and things which indepen-
dent States may of right do."
They further solemnly declared that, whenever
any "form of government becomes destructive of
the ends for which it was established, it is the right
of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute
a new Government." Deeming the Government of
Great Britain to have become destructive of these
ends, they declared that the colonies " are absolved
from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that
all political connection bet Ween them and the State
of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis-
solved."

In pursuance of this declaration of independence,
each of the 13 States proceeded to exercise its sepa-
rate sovereignty, adopted for itself a Constitution,
and appointed officers for the administration of
government in all its departments—legislative,
executive, and judicial. For purposes of defence
t hey united their arms and their counsels ; and, in
1778, they entered into a league known as the
Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to
intrust the administration of their external rela-
tions Ito a common agent, known ,s the Congress of

Ithe United States, expressly declaring, in the first •
article, " that each State retains its sovereignty,
freedom, and independence, and every power, juris-
diction, and right which is not by this Confedera-
tion expressly delegated to the United States in
Congress assembled."
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolu-
tion was carried on, and on the 3d of September,
1783, the contest ended, and a definite treaty was
signed by Great Britain, in which she acknow-
ledged the independence of the colonies in the fol-
lowing terms:—
"Article 1. His Britannic Majesty acknowledges
the said United States—viz., New Hampshire,
Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be
free, sovereign, and independent States; that he
treats with them as such; and, for himself, his
heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the
government, property, and territorial rights of the
same and every part thereof."
Thus were established the two great principles
asserted by the colonies—namely, the right of a
State to govern itself ; and the right of a people to
abolish a Government when it becomes destructive
of the ends for which it was instituted. And con-
current with the establishment of these principles
was the fact that each colony became and was re-
cognized by the mother country as a free, sovereign,
and independent State.
In 1787 Deputies were appointed by the States
to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on the
17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended
for the adoption of the States the Articles of Union,
known as the Constitution of the United States.
The parties to whom this Constitution was sub-
mitted were the several sovereign States ' • they
were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them
agreed the compact was to take effect among those
concurring, and the general Government, as the
common agent, was then to be invested with their
authority.
If only nine of the 13 States had concurred, the
other four would have remained as they then were
—separate sovereign States, independent of any of
the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of
the States did not accede to the Constitution until
long after it had gone into operation among the
other 11; and during that interval they each exer-
cised the functions of an independent nation.
By this Constitution certain duties were imposed
upon the several States, and the excercise of certain
of their powers was restrained, which necessarily
impelled their continued existence as sovereign
States ; but, to remove all doubt, an amendment
was added, which declared that the powers not de-
legated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people. On the 23d
May, 1788,:South Carolina, by a Convention of her
people, passed an ordinance assenting to this Con-
stitution, and afterwards altered her Constitution
to conform herself to the obligations she had under-
taken.
Thus was established, by compact between the
States, a Government, with defined objects and
powers, limited to the express words of the grant.
This limitation left the whole remaining mass of
power subject to the clause reserving it to the
States or the people, and rendered unnecessary
any specification of reserved rights. We hold that
the Government thus established is subject to the
two great principles asserted in the Declaration
of Independence; and we hold, further, that the
mode of its formation subjects it to a third fun-
I da mental principle—namely, the law of compact.
We maintain that in every compact between two
or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that
the failure of one of the contracting parties to per-
form a material part of the agreement entirely re-
leases the obligation of the other; and that where
no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his
own judgment to determine the fact of failure,
with all its consequences.
In the present case that fact is established with
certainty. We assert that 14 of the States have de-
liberately refused for years past to fulfil their con-
stitutional obligations, and we refer to their own
statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its 4th
article, provides as follows :
" No person held to service or labour in one State
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be
discharged from such service or labour, but shall
he delivered up on claim of the party to whom
such service or labour may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact,
that without it that compact would not have been
made. The greater number of the contracting parties
held slaves, and they had previously evinced their
estimate of the value of such a stipulation by mak-
ing it a condition in the ordinance for the govern-
ment of the territory ceded by Virginia, which ob-
ligations and the laws of the general Government
have ceased to effect the objects of the constitution.
The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nest
York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
Wisconsin, end lowa, have enacted laws which
either nullify the acts of Congress, or render useless
soy attempt to execute them. In many of these
States the fugitive is discharged from service of la-
boar claimed, and in none of them has the State
Government complied with the stipulation in the
constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early
day, passed a law in conformity with her constitu-
tional obligation ; but the current of anti-slavery
feeling has led her more recently toenact laws which
render inoperative the remedies provided by her
own laws and the laws of Congress. In the State of
New Yorkeven the right of transit for a slave has
been deniedby her tribunals ; and the States of Ohio
and lowa have refused to surrender to justice fugi-
tives charged with murder, and with inciting ser-
vile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the
constitutional compact has been deliberately broken
and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States,
and the consequence follows that South Carolina is
released from her obligation.
The ends for which this Constitution was framed
are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect
union, to establish justice, insure domestic tran-
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote
the. general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavoured to accomplish by a
Federal Government, in which each State was re-
cognised as an equal, and had separate control over
its own institutions. The right of property in slaves
was recognised by giving to free persons distinct
political rights ; by giving them the right to repro-
sent, and burdening them with direct taxes for
three-fifths of their slaves ; by authorising the im-
portation of slaves for 20 years, and by stipulating
for the rendition of fugitives from labour.
We affirm that these ends, for which this Govern-
ment was instituted, have been defeated, and the
Government itself has been destructive of them by
the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those
States have assumed the right of deciding upon
the propriety of our domestic institutions, and
have denied the rights of property established in
15 of the States and recognised by the Constitution;
they have denounced as sinful the institution of
slavery; they have permitted the open establish-
ment among them of societies the avowed object of
which is to disturb the peace and eloin the property
of the citizens of other States. They have encou-
raged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave
their homes, and those who remain have been in-
cited by emissaries, books, and pictures to servile
insurrection.
For 25 years this agitation has been steadily
increasing until it has now secured to its aid the
power of the common Government. Observing the
forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has
found within that article establishingthe Executive
Department the means of subverting the Constitu-
tion itself. A geographical line has been drawn
across the Union, and all the States north of that
line have united in the election of a man to the high
office of President of the United States whose
opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is
to be intrusted with the administration of the com-
mon Government, because he has declared that that
" Government cannot endure permanently half slave
half free," and that the public mind must rest in the
belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate ex-
tinction.
This sectional combination for the subversion of
the Constitution has been aided, in some of the
States, by elevating to citizenship persons who, by
the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becom-
ing citizens; and their votes have been used to in-
augurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and
destructive of its peace and safety.
On the 4th of March next this party will take
possession of the Government. It has announced
that the South shall be excluded from the common
territory, that the Judicial tribunal shall be made
sectional, and that a war must be waged against
slavery until it shall cease throughout the United
States.
The guarantees of the Constitution will then no
longer exist ; the equal rights of the States will be
lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have
the power of self-government or self-protection, and
the ;Federal Government will have become their
enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the
irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain
by the fact that the public opinion at the North
has invested a great political error with the
sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief.
We therefore, the people of South Carolina, by
our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing
to the Supreme Judge of the world for the recti-
tude of our intentions, have solemnly declared
that the Union heretofore existing between

this • State and the other States of North
America is dissolved, and that the State of
South Carolina has resumed her position among
the nations of the world as a separate and
independent State, with full power to levy
war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish
commerce, and to do all other acts and things which
independent States may of right do.