tain is so polluted, it is not to be expected that the stream will again be pure. The protection to which in all representative governments the people have been accustomed to look, to wit, the responsibility of the governors to be governed, has proved nerveless and illusory; under such a system, nothing but a radical reform in our political institutions can preserve this union. It is full time that we should know what rights we have under the Federal Constitution, and more especially ought we to know whether we are to live under a consolidated government, or a confederacy of States-whether the States be sovereign, or their local Legislatures be mere corporations. A fresh understanding of the bargain, we deem absolutely necessary. No mode can be devised by which a dispute can be referred to the source of all power, but by some one State taking the lead in the great enterprize of reform. Till some one Southern State tenders to the Federal Government an issue, it will continue to have its "appetite increased by what it feeds on." History admonishes us that rulers never have the forecast to substitute in good time reform for revolution. They forget that it is always more desirable that the just claims of the governed should break in on them" through well contrived and well disposed windows, not through flaws and breaches, through the yawning chasms of their own ruin." One State must under the awful prospects before us, throw herself into the breach in this great struggle for constitutional freedom. There is no other mode of awakening the attention of the co-States to grievances which, if suffered to accumulate, must dismember the Union. It has fallen to our lot, fellow citizens, first to quit our trenches. Let us go on to the assault with cheerful hearts and undaunted minds. Fellow citizens, the die is now cast. We have solemnly resolved on the course which it becomes our beloved State to pursue; we have resolved, that until these abuses shall be reformed, no more Taxes shall be paid here. "Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute." And now we call upon our citizens, native and adopted, to prepare for the crisis, and to meet it as becomes men and freemen. We call upon all classes and all parties to forget their former differences, and to unite in a solemn determination, never to abandon this contest until such a change be effected in the councils of the nation, that all the citizens of this confederacy shall participate equally in the benefits and the burthens of the Government. To this solemn duty we now invoke you in the name of all that is sacred and valuable to man. We invoke you in the name of that Liberty which has been acquired by you from an illustrious ancestry, and which it is your duty to transmit unimpaired to the most distant generations. We invoke you in the name of that Constitution which you profess to venerate, and of that Union which you are all desirous to perpetuate. By the reverence you bear to these your institutions-by all the love you bear to libertyby the detestation you have for servitude-by all the abiding memorials of your past glories-by the proud association of your exalted and your common triumphs in the first and greatest of revolutions-by the force of all those sublime truths which that event has inculcated amongst the nations-by the noble flame of republican enthusiasm which warms your bosoms, we conjure you in this mighty struggle to give your hearts and souls and minds to your injured and oppressed State, and to support her cause publicly and privately, with your opinions, your prayers, and your actions. If appeals such as these prove unavailing, we then command your obedience to the laws and the authorities of the State, by a title which none can gainsay. We demand it by that allegiance which is reciprocal with the protection you have received from the State. We admit of no obedience to any authority which shall conflict with that primary allegiance which every citizen owes to the State of his birth or his adoption. There is not, nor has there ever been "any direct or immediate allegiance between the citizens of South Carolina and the Federal Government; the relation between them is through the State." South Carolina having entered into the constitutional compact, as a separate independent political community, as has already been stated, has the right to declare an unconstitutional act of Congress null and void-after her sovereign declaration that the act shall not be enforced within her limits, "such a declaration is obligatory on her citizens. As far as its citizens are concerned, the clear right of the State is to declare the extent of the obligation." This declaration once made, the citizen has no course but to obey. If he refuses obedience, so as to bring himself under the displeasure of his only and lawful sovereign, and within the severe pains and penalties, which by her high sovereign power, the Legislature, will not fail to provide in her self-defence, the fault and the folly must be his own. And now, fellow citizens, having discharged the solemn duty to which we have been summoned in a crisis big with the most important results to the liberties, peace, safety, and happiness of this once harmonious, but now distracted confederacy, we commend our cause to that great disposer of events, who (if he has not already for some inscrutable purposes of his own, decreed otherwise) will smile on the efforts of truth and justice. We know that "unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman waketh but in vain ;" but relying as we do, in this controversy, on the purity of our motives, and the honor of our ends, we make this appeal with all the confidence, which in times of trial and difficulty, ought to inspire the breast of the patriot and the Christian. Fellow citizens, do your duty to your country, and leave the consequences to God. |