Year: 1860

Felloao. Citizens of the Senate and


House Of Representatives:


Throughout the year since our last meet
ing the country has been emiuently pros
porous in all its material interests. The
general health has been excellent, our har-
vests have been abundant, and plenty
smiles throughout the land. Our commerce
and manufactures have been prosecuted
with energy and industry, and have yield
ed fair and ample returns. In short, no
nation in the tide of time has ever present
ed a spectacle of greater material prosperi-
ty than we have done until within very
recent period.


Why is it, then, that discomfort now so
extensively prevails, and the Union Of the
States, which is the source of all these bles-
sings is threatend with destruction? The
long-continued and incorporate interference
of the Northern people with the question of
slavery in the Southern States, has at
length produced its natural effects. The
different sections of the Union are now ar
rayed against each other, and the time has
arrived, SO much dreaded by the Father of
his Country, when hostile geographical par
ties have been formed. I have long fore
seen and often forwarned my countrymen
of the now impending danger. This does
not proceed solely from the claim on the
part of Congress or the Territorial Leglsla-
lures to exclude slavery from the Terrific
ries, nor from the efforts of different States
to defeat the execution of the Fugitive Slave
law. All or any of these evils might have
been endured by the South without danger
to the Union, Gas others have been,) in the
hope that time and reflection might apply
the remedy. The immediate peril arises
not so much from these causes as from the
fact that the incessant and violent agita-
ton of the slavery question throughout the
North for the last quarter of century, has
at length produced its malign influence on
the slaves, and inspired them with vague
notions of freedom. Hence sense of Sc
curity no longer exists around the family
altar.


The feeling of peace at home has given
place to apprehensions of servile insurrec-
tion Many matron throughout the South
retires at night in dread of what may befall
herselfand her children before the morning
Should this apprehension of domestic dan
ger, whether real or imaginary, extend and
Intensity itself until it shall pervade the
masses of the Southern people, then disun-
ion will become inevitable. Self-preserVa-
tion is the first law of nature, and has been
implanted in the heart of man by his Crea-
for for the wisest purpose and no political
Union, however fraught with blessings and
benefits in all other respects, can long con-
tinue, if the necessary consequence be to
render the homes and the fresides of near
ly half the parties to it, habitually and
hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the
bonds of such a Union must be severed.
1t is my conviction that this fatal period
has not yet arrived; and my prayer to God
is that He would preserve the Constitution
and the Union throughout all generations


But let US take warning in time, and
remove the cause of danger. 1t cannot be
denied that, for FIVE and twenty years, the
agitation at the North against slavery in
the South has been incessant In 1925
pictorial hand bills, and inAammatory ap'
peals, were circulated extensively through
out the South, of a character to excite the
passions of the slaves; and, in the lam
guage of General Jackson, "to stimulate
them to insurrection, and produce all the
horrors of servile war" This agitation,
has ever since been continued by the pub.
lie press, by the proceedings of State and
County Conventions, and by abolition SER
mons and lectures. The tine of Congress
has been occupied in violent speeches on
this never.ending subject; and appeals in
pamphlet and other forms, endorsed by
distinguished names, have been sent forth
from this central point, and spread broad
cast over the Union.


How easy would it be for the American
people to settle the slavery question forever
and to restore peace and harmony to this
distracted country.


They, and they alone, can do it. All
that is necessary to accomplish the object,
and all for which the Slave States have ever
contended, is to be let alone, and permitted
to manage their domestic institutions in
their own way. As sovereign States, they,
and they alone, are responsible before God
and the world for the slavery existing a
mong them. For this, the people of the
North are not more responsible, and have
no more right to interfere, than with simi.
lar institutions in Russia or in Brazil. Upon
their good sense and patriotic forbearauce
confess still greatly rely. Without the;l
aid, it is beyond the power of any Presi
dent, no matter what may be his own politi
cal proclivities, to restore peace and har
mony among the States. Wisely limited
and restrained as is his power, under oul
Constitution and laws, he alone can accomp
lish but little, for good or for evil, on such
momentous question.


And this brings me to observe that the
election of any one of our fellow-citizens te
the Office of President does not of itself at
ford lust cause for dissolving the Union
This is more especially true if bis election
has been effected by mere plurality, anc
not majority of the people, and has re
suited from transientand temporary causes
which may probably never again occur. In
order to justify resort to revolutionary re-
sistance, the Federal Government must be
guilty of "a deliberate, palpable and dan