The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-03
Letters to The Edifo-
Covenant With He'll and League With
 Death.0

"Covenant With He'll and League With
 Death.'
 Editor The Advertiser:
 for an hour of glorious old Cover nor Tom Watts! He preached, in sea- son and out of season, the righteous ness and safety of standing by the Con- stitution. How many of the blatant speakers who have heen firing the Southern heart" for the last six months, have read the Constitution, and know about it's history? If they know, they are wilfu!ly trying to mislead the peo- the precept and example of Northern fanatics who despised the Constitution of the country, and appealing 10 the higher law, deluged this country in blood brought on untold suffering in 1861. The Constitution of the United States recognized slavery. It contained a provision for the delivery up of a fu- gitive slave who went across the bor- ders. Wendell Phillips. Garrison, Se- ward and others roamed around the North denouncing the Constitution as "a covenant with hell and a league with death." They indulged in the parrot cry. we so often hear nowadays. that the enforcement of the Constitution of the United States was a meddling with local affairs and the rights of the States to govern themselves. They refused to bow to the decisions of the Supreme Court that the fugitive slavo law was constitutional. and resisted with all their might and main the exc cution of the law. The Northern States undertook to nullify the Constitution. They passed statute after statute to ob- struct the rights of Southern men un- der the Constitution. They passed what older men will remember as per sonal liberty bills,' and pit legal pen alties upon persons who aided in tho return of<fugitive slaves as kidnappers They forbade any State officer to aid the United States authorities in execut ing the Constitution. They forbade the use of State jails to confine United States prisoners in certain cases. Their unholy denunciation of the Constitu- tion and laws brought it's inevitable fruit. John Brown was encouraged by fanatical demonstrations at the North, Ferry with the hope to incite the slaves to rise up and murder their owners. He was promptly hanged. Bells tolled in the capitals of several Northern States in mourning for his death.
 It was these things that moved the Southern people to say We will depart in peace." They formed Constitution on the basis of the present Constitu- the principles of the Union. It was only when tn ere was no alternative but separation. that the people of the South reluctantly seeded. The border States clung to the Union until I.incoln's proc lamation of coercion. All of us know what followed.
 The people of Alabama in the begin- ming did not wish to go out of the Union. It is doubtful, to say the least of it. whether the majority of the dele gates when elected to the Constitution al Convention of 1861 were in favor of secession. The attitude of the men who ''cursed the Constitution of the United States" and the conviction that it was hopeless to try to live in peace with th em. brought on the secession of Ala bama. Every one who knows anything AI.A htak Nf tI country. knows that the South did not fight against the Constitution of the United States. It was only because the Northern people would not allow the Constitution of the United States to te enforced. Now the fanatics around our own firesides would have the Southern people turn around and retrace their steps. and assume the attitude of Gar riSOn. Phillips and Seward towards the Constitution of the country. The Leg islature meets and passes bills intended to destroy the Jurisdiction of the courts of the country. and to throw obstacles Constitution and laws. They appeal to the higher law" as glibly as did the tanatical agitators a few decades back. They proclaim that the Constitution is proper regulation of local affairs" when it permits men to go into the courts of the country to protect their property. These teachings are as false. fanatical and harmful now, as they were when promulgated In other sec tions fifty years ago, which were but the prelude to a war which butch cred one generation and involved the sue ceedins generation in long misery, and suffering. Evil conditions of late have produced many sermons and teachings about temperance. Temperance in liquor is not the only thing necessary to save the body polite. IL is time men were preaching against the horrid doc Urine that the Constitution framed by our Revolutionary fathers is a curse, and ought to be resisted by force, and when that is not prudent to pervert the legislative power of a great State to defeat the rights of citizens of the Uni ted States in the courts of the coun- try. SeneX.