The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th
day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the
Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its
encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State
in then withdrawing 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 encroachments have continued to increase, and
further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place
among nations, 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 Empire embracing Great Britain,
undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the
thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued,
which resulted, on the 4th of 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 independent States, they have 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."
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 between them and the State of Great
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States
proceeded to exercise its separate 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 defense,
they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a
League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust
the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the
Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that
each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power,
jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated
to the United States in Congress assembled."
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the
3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by
Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the
following 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,
propriety 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 concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that
each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN
AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of
Confederation, and on 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 submitted, 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 invested with their authority.
If only nine of the thirteen 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
eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an
independent nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and
the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily
implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt,
an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated 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 Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform
herself to the obligations she had undertaken.
Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite
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 to 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 fundamental 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 perform a material part of the agreement, entirely
releases 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
fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill
their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the
proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as
follows: "No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall be delivered up, on
claim of the party to whom such service or labor 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 making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the
territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio
River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the
several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect
these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But
an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the
institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, 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, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress
or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the
fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has
the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The
State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her
constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her
more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by
her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right
of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio
and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and
with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the
constituted 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 the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to
form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each
State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own
institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free
persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and
burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by
authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for
the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been
defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the
action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of
deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the
rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the
Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they
have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object
is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other
States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their
homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures
to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five 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
establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution
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 entrusted with the administration of the common 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 extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion 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 becoming citizens; and their votes
have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive
of its beliefs and safety.
On the 4th day 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 tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be
waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties 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 public opinion at the North has
invested a great political error with the sanction of 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 rectitude 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.
Adopted December 24, 1860