The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-07-22
Ante-Bellum "reminiscences Secession
Long Contemplated.

Mr.. Editor We left Vermont late in the
autumn of 1886, soon after the election re-
turns informed us that Martin Van Buren,
had been elected president of the United
States. We We're booked for the land of
Dixie. For about seven years we sum
mered and wintered in three of the Gulf
States-Alabama Mississippi and Louisi-
ana. As early as 1887 we met a Dr. Cal
houn in Alabama, native of South Caro-
lima, to whom we had been introduced as
near relative of the late distinguished John
G.. Calhoun, the "arch nullfer" and Sc
cessionist the chief apostle of those states
rights and state sovereignty dogmas on
which secession and rebellion were founded.
He was either a son or nephew of the great
nullitier. He gave us, freely and fully, his
political views. He expressed his belief in
the strongest terms that a separation be-
tween the North and South must inevitably
come, sooner or later The South was not
then ready to secede. South Carolina was
fully ripe and as soon as Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, and perhaps Louisiana, could be
worked up to the sticking point-and they
We're gradually working them up-a move
ment would be made to secede from the
Union and form a southern confederacy.
The people of the North and of the South
could not always live together, they were
so unlike in their makeup. Their civiliza-
tons, their politics, their religious and So
cial habits We're widely at variance He
liking the system of slave-labor. They
couldn't get along with it and we of the
South couldn't get along without it. But,
he continued it would be folly for South
Carolina to start off alone, but as soon as
she can get three other states to join her she
will start. If the North resists and won't
let us off peacefully, we must fight, as dis
agreeable as a civil war would be. During
most of the year 1888 we resided at De-
mopolis Alabama and boarded in the fam
Of A Irax fond &C
General Andrew Jackson, who, when presi-
dent, gave him an appointment in Alabama
as land register or receiver. Mr.. Crawford
was an intense democrat and a great adj
mirer of his uncle, with whom he held fire.
quent correspondence. He one day handed
us one of his uncle's letters, written in 1888
or 1884, about the time when South Carolina
threatened to rebel by resisting the revenue
laws and refusing to pay duty on goods i'm
ported into that state. The protective tariff
was the ostensble cause of grievance But
President Jackson sent war frigate into
Charleston harbor, threatening to lombard
the city if resistance was offered. Thus
was secession and rebellion nipped in the
bud. But to President Jackson's letter.
We read it over several times and its contents
are as fresh in mind as if we had read it
but yesterday Mr.. Calhoun and South Caro-
lima were reminded that no law enacted to
be applied to all parts of the country could be
made to operate with equal benefit to all,
but that the then existing tariff was as good
in this respect as other laws. But, added
the president, the tariff is only preteXt to
aid in fomenting quarrel with the general
government. Calhoun means a southern
confederacy. When the tariff question is
exhausted he will next take up the negro
as an etfectual method to agitate the public
mind Calhoun is a traitor to his country
and ought to be hanged higher than Hannah.
These last words are the exact words of the
letter, and are characteristic of odd Hick-
ory,' when giving expression to his indig-
nation. The dHiHlts of Calhoun and his
multiplying associates, as set forth by Presi-
dent Jackson in 1888, well corresponds with
the tone of Calhoun's relative in his CONVEX
sation with us in 1887. 1t was understood
by well-informed men acquainted with the
drift of southern politics that leading demo-
cratic politicians were aiming at a southern
confederacy for at least quarter of a cen
fury before the secession movement be-
gan in 1S6O-6l. The secessionists of Cal
houn's day We're organized under the
name of the states rights party, their
opponents (whigs and Union mem stigma
tized as nulliters. On our entrance into
the South, in December, 1886, we found the
people of South Carolina and Georgia di-
Vlded into two great partes-U nionists and
states rights men (whigs and democrats be-
ing terms rarely used in the two states
named), the late Alexander III. Stephens
being then Union leader in Georgia. There
We're few democrats among the Union
lists, but the great body of them was found
acting with the Calhoun party of nulifiers
while nearly all the wings, who rallied
under the lead of Henry Clay and Daniel
Webster, We're in the Union party. The his
torical records OF our country are full OF
evidence that secession was a long medi.
tated scheme of dsunion; that a southern
confederacy was. for many long years a fond
dream of leading democrats of the South
that while the abolition agitation at the
North may have aided them to some extent
that was only apretext, and gave them nC
more Just cause for seeding from the Union
than did the election of Abraham Lincoln
in 1860. Both were pretexts, as shallow as
they were dishonest. Well, the trial of Sc
cession was made, and its failure was as
disgraceful to the South as was the
false pretext under which the bloody con
test was inaugurated. Let us hope that this
and future generations will never witness
another attempt at secession. TIL.