Year: 1861

the 18th instant whether they will assem- ble in convention by their delegates, on the 4th of March, to adopt such measures as the public welfare may demand; and they are at the same time to elect those dele gates. All eyes are turned towards her, as the eighth and last cotton State, to see what, in the present great emergency, she will consider demanded by her interest and due to her honor.

 l am, l may say, without improprety, a native of our State, with all my interests inseparably connected and interwoven with hers. If this, and the best years of my life faithfully spent in her service, can entitle my counsels to any share of respect, feel, without vanity or presumption I am sure, that 1t Is my duty to offer them, whether they may win me thanks or odium.

 Within the limits of letter, 1t is not possible either to discuss all the questions involved in the present controversy or to reclte the huudredth part of the facts and circumstances that have brought about the present crisis. l can only select and al. Jude to a few ofeach, and say plainly what, Tn view of them, ought to be the determina- tion of the people of Arkansas, if they de- sire to care properly for their future well fare, and to control their own destinies.

 A revolution is in progress. This all admit. In less than ten days the southern republic will have been fully organized, and in action, beneath its own national flag It will be the same government that this was designed to be by our forefathers-the oonof,fnfia,, o,,J ed of the doctrines of negro equality, in- tolerant religious hatred, and partial sec- tional legislation, which has made us the mere tributaries and commercial yassals ot

 This has been produced and justified In. a long continued and systematic disres gard, denial, and violation of the int rights, interests, and equality of the poo. pie of the southern States. It has been hastened by the fact that on the 4th of March next, the powers of the general go- vernment are to pass into the hands of those whose rancorous hostility to our in terests and social institutions we are not permitted to doubt. Thus, those who are resolved to confne domestic slavery within its present limits, and to expel it from the border States, to make it odious every where, and to deny it protection every. where, will then have complete possession of those great powers by which such results are to be effected, after thirty years bitter struggle to obtain them.

 None but those who are experienced in the operation and effect of systematic legis- lation, and who are close observers of the vast influences ofexecutve power, can com prehend the hopeless condition of any peo pie that are, for series of years, to be sub ected to their joint exercise in hostile hands. That we are soon to be placed in that position, if we do not act promptly and effectually, is well known to every well-in- formed citizen.

 Our statesmen disagree, not as to the jus tice of our complaints, or of those appre- hensions that oppress the minds of the southern people; but as to the remedy by which they may most effectually defend and protect themselves.

 The people of seven States, connected with us by the strong ties of race and lin- cage, of common pursuits, and the same habits and manners and modes of thought, have elected secession as the only adequate remedy. It is a rightful remedy, and r- sort to it is amply justified by the syste- matic violation of the constitution by tie northern States. It is constitutional remedy; since, that each party to contraet shall keep it honestly is no more part of the contract than that if part of them 60 not, the other may at their option consider 1t rescinded.

 The doctrines of the Kentucky and Vr- ginia resolutions, 1798-'99 and separae State rights" always asserted and main tained by ourselves, and by the Jeffersonhn democracy of the northern States, now fir nish to us an adequate and peaceful remedy, and we have no other remedy except foci- ble revolution.

 The northern people and parties assert that this general government is govern ment of mgorities, and that the majority must and shall rule. We deny this pro- position, and while we admit that maor- ties inside of each State must rule as to that State, yet we claim that the federal govern ment IS government of States, each peo- pie being distinct, and represented in the federal government as a separate mass by its own State authorities, and not to be merged in the masses, or subverted by the will of other communities more numerous than itself. It is reserved right" that each State shall judge for itself of all in fractions of the constitution, and give all proper protection of life, liberty, and pro perty, against the interruptions tyranny of the myor7ties in other States.

 This is the contest; and it is a contest which involves the successful assertion of our equality in the Union, our social sy8- tenn, our property, our liberties, everything If we fail, that failure must result in our absolute submission to a northern fanatcal majority, popular despotism that is hos tile to us, and the gradual if not rapid loss of all these blessings.

 The " State rights' doctrines have been openly and ably sustained by the greatest American statesmen for the last sixty-three years. They were suited to the protection alike of ony and e0ery oppressed .Stote; whether it lay to the North or South The time when, or the occasion upon which, or the party by whom, a resort to them might first become necessary was foreseen by no one. It is the misfortune of the South that she bas been marked as the victim to oppression. It is the good fortune of the South that in prosperity she was just to all and maintained Mese principles, and that in her diversity she can consistently appeal to them, and protect her rights.

 Seven States, as l have said, have put an end to the discussion as to the right of secession, by exercising the right Wheth. CT it be constitutional or a revolutionary right, is question that has disappeared.- They have decided, and we know that it was, at least, the only adequate and effectu- al remedy.

 Admit that Geo operation" or joint ac- tion of the southern States, instead of sepa- rate State action would have been better and the fact remains that if co-operation had been waited for, we would have snnl' powerless beneath abolitionism, emancina, ton, negro eauality etc And with ~