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 EEPOET 
 
 SELECT COMMITTEE 
 
 APPOINTED liT THE 
 
 PLANTERS' CONVENTION. 
 
 Resolved, That a select committee of one from each Stale repre- 
 sented in the Planters' Convention, assembled at Memphis, Tennessee, 
 February, 1862, be appointed to take into consideration the nature of 
 the Avar in which the people of the Confederate States are involved, 
 and what general policy should be pursued to the end that the great 
 struggle for the constitutional liberty and the independence of the 
 Confederate States may be pre-eminently successful without impairing 
 the power of the American people and their future influence on the 
 destinies of nations. 
 
 The committee to whom the foregoing resolution was referred has 
 given the subjects therein embraced that careful consideration which 
 their importance at this time demands, and respectfully submit for 
 the adoption of this Convention the following report : 
 
 This world is prone to extremes. The greatly overheated air of the 
 perfect calm, which is calculated to produce pestilence and death, 
 brings the cooling storm which in its fury frequently uproots the 
 sturdy oak or strips it of its rich foliage. 
 
 Men and nations are not less liable to extremes than the elements. 
 Being created strictly under the law of mental and physical labor, 
 the calm of mental and physical indolence brings the labor of strife 
 and war. 
 
 War has its great evils, but that calm of peace, which produces 
 mental and physical indolence, is far more blasting to the human 
 family than the bloodiest and longest wars. The calm of peace had, 
 to some extent, produced idleness, extravagance and vice among our 
 people. If they now, promptly, do their duty to their country, and 
 the true and living God, the present storm of war will purify their 
 political atmosphere and prepare them for a future career of pros- 
 perity and greatness never equalled by any other people. 
 
 The wars of the Carthagenians against the Romans stirred up the 
 Roman people to the utmost limit of human valor and patriotism, and 
 thereby laid the foundation for the greatest empire of ancient times. 
 
Too great a centralization of the power of the Roman Empire brought 
 about the corruptions, vices ami indolence which burst the Great Em- 
 pire into many fragments. From one grand consolidated Empire 
 sprang many petty kingdoms and principalities. The practices of the 
 Christian Church in the Dark Ages became as corrupt as the policy 
 of the Government of Rome. The vices of the church brought forth the 
 Reformation, which divided it into many sectarian fragments, 
 After the breaking up of the Roman Empire, and the division? 
 of the Catholic Church, in the midst of religious and political 
 quarrels, and the many petty dissensions which agitated the old 
 world, the Continent of America was discovered. A people who 
 had wallowed for centuries in the mire of mental and physical 
 idleness were to give way to those who lied from the old world on ac- 
 count of religious and political persecutions, or to better their condi- 
 tion on a virgin soil. While the Catholic, the Cavalier, the Hugenot, 
 the Scotch and Irish spread over the land from the Chesapeake Bay to 
 the Mississippi River, the Puritans, the Dutch and Quakers rooted 
 out the Indians from Plymouth Hock to the Ohio. The Puritans. 
 who had iled from religious and political persecutions, had no sooner 
 obtained a little brief authority fti the New World than they became 
 cruel and relentless persecutors themselves ; Methodist, Baptist and 
 Catholic had to seek homes under a more Southern sun in order to 
 avoid the lash of their bigotry and intolerance. From the most sanc- 
 timonious Pharisees of the world the descendants of these people have 
 become regardless of the binding obligations of the most solemn oaths. 
 Their bigotry and intolerance in religious matters were, by the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution of the United States, and the establishment 
 of its authority, smothered up and suppressed. But as their religion 
 gave way, and their love of money increased, political intolerance 
 took the place of religious intolerance. Through a dollar and cent 
 calculation of interest, they abolished, within their limits, African 
 slavery, in such a manner as resulted in transferring the greater 
 number of their slaves to Southern masters. No sooner had they 
 pocketed the profits of the Slave Trade, and rid themselves of the in- 
 stitution of African slavery from motives of interest, than they com- 
 menced a political persecution against their Southern brethren for re- 
 maining slaveholders. Their extreme Phariseeism and their inordi- 
 nate love of wealth and power led them to believe that they are as 
 much superior to the Southern people as are the people of England to 
 the people of British India ; and that they should conquer, subjugate 
 and reduce the Southern people to the condition of the Hindostan. 
 
 The human mind can conceive of no worse condition than the Southern 
 people would be placed in should they fail to resist this political intol- 
 erance and maintain their independence. Enduring degradation, 
 poverty and ruin would be their fate. 
 
 The war, then, in which we are engaged, has for its causes an in- 
 tolerant spirit on the part of the North, making them fanatical ; a 
 belief on their part that we are their inferiors, and only entitled to 
 an inferior position in the Government; and a determination through 
 an extreme love of wealth and power, to rule over us for all time to 
 
come, for their own aggrandizement. (To this we cannot submit. 
 We have Constitutional Liberty at stake, and every dollar's worth of 
 property we possess, amounting at this time to no less than six thou- 
 sand five hundred millions of dollars worth in value.) From these 
 deep rooted causes combined, the vast amount of property at stake, 
 as well as every political right which we of the South hold dear, wo 
 may look for one of the most closely contested and desperate conflicts 
 of modern times. The North has the greatest population, but this is 
 more than counterbalanced by the justness of the Southern cause, 
 and their great natural advantages.- "He whose cause is just is 
 doubly armed." Their soldiers fight for power and plunder, ours for 
 everything dear to man. 
 
 The chivalrous spirit of the Cavalier, Ilugenot and Irish stock, 
 with the perseverance of the Catholic, and indomitable courage of 
 the Scotch spirit, Avill never permit the South to succumb to the Puri- 
 tan or Quaker blood of the North. 
 
 Slavery in some shape or form directly or indirectly, has existed 
 in all civilized communities in every age of the world. " The potter 
 hath power over the clay to make one vessel to honor and another to 
 dishonor." So long as there are great diversities in the human intel- 
 lect, so long as there are physical as well as mental diversities, and so 
 long- as there are higher and lower pusuits in life, some must be 
 richer, some must be greater than others ; some must command while 
 others are in duty bound to obey. 
 
 Diversity in the human intellect is not confined to families of the 
 same race, but extends to the different races of mankind. So long as 
 this inequality of the human race exists there will be the slavery of 
 races as well as of classes. There are three prominent systems of 
 slavery now existing in the world. The people of Hindostan are in a 
 state of national slavery to those of Great Britain. That class of 
 people in every country, who have no voice in making the laws, are 
 in a state of slavery to those who do. This is the slavery of one class 
 to that of another class. In the Confederate States there exists the 
 slavery of the negro to the white race. This is a natural state of 
 slavery, and the same established by the God of Abraham, of Isaac and 
 of Jac< b; a system which is beneficial to the slave and the master, to 
 the higher and lower race; one under which, notwithstanding untold 
 millions have, during the last half century, been transferred by'fraud- 
 ulent and unjust legislation from the Southern to the Northern States, 
 yet the average of Avealth to each individual is now greater in the lat- 
 ter than in the former. If we look to the distribution of that wealth, 
 if we look to the comfort and contentment of the whole population, 
 white and black, if we look to the number of paupers and criminals, 
 (population being considered,) as compared to these things in the so- 
 called free labor States, or other free labor countries, we have no cause 
 to regret the establishment of the institution of slavery in our limits. 
 So far from regrets, a full examination into this great question, in all 
 its bearings, has an brought overwhelming majority of our people to 
 the conclusion, that while they have no quarrel with or war to make 
 upon the people of the Northern States or other countries on account 
 
of any labor system which the ruling power of these people may deem 
 proper to establish or retain, they will never Bubmit to any change in 
 their own domestic -policy to gratify the intolerance nr supposed inter- 
 est of any other people. 
 
 When the higher law party of the North, whose leaders openly re- 
 pudiated the Bolemn obligations of their oaths to support the Consti- 
 tution of the United States, were borne into power by the (falsely so 
 called) Republican party of the North, the Southern people «ould Bee 
 no mode of perpetuating constitutional liberty on the North American 
 Continent, but by promptly cutting loose from States whose people 
 had determined to uphold principles bo detrimental to the peace and 
 prosperity of the whole country. 
 
 The people of the Southern States, if let alone to enjoy their own 
 agricultural pursuits in peace, would, be content for many years to 
 purchase their main supplies of" manufactured articles from the free 
 labor countries with crowded population, thereby being profitable cus- 
 tomers to the manufacturing States of the North, and a number of 
 European countries. At this time the one wars upon them, and the. 
 others to. avoid war with the North, and to see the power of the Amer- 
 ican people reduced by intestine strife, waives their right to sei aside 
 a blockade clearly void on account of its insufficiency. 
 
 Under such circumstances the people of the Confederate, States, 
 haying no navy to protect commerce, must mainly look within 'their 
 own limits for every essential necessary to achieve complete indepen- 
 dence and finally uphold American power. Having all the elements 
 of the. highest degree of prosperity in manufactures as well as that in 
 agriculture, if the war continues long and the blockade is not broken 
 up, they must become competitors instead of rich customers to the old 
 manufacturing countries. 
 
 Let our people be certain to plant an abundant supply of all that is 
 necessary for food, and go to making everything necessary to prose- 
 cute the war, within their own limits. Let them invest in commerce 
 and prepare the way without delay to build up a direct trade with all 
 friendly countries. We need direct trade houses or companies through 
 which to purchase war material and manufacturing machinery. The 
 English and French have their agents in our country to purchase their 
 supplies of cotton and tobacco, and sell ns their goods. . We need our 
 own agents in foreign countries to buy and sell for us. 
 
 The successful termination of the war in any reasonable time will 
 leave the Confederate States in possession of the basis of an extensive 
 commerce. It is altogether practical to establish a system of trade 
 through large, well regulated companies, and their agencies, which 
 would be as much preferable to the present system of trade as railroads 
 are superior over old wagon roads for traveling purposes. At this 
 time such a company could do much to extricate our trade from block- 
 ade difficulties. Every planter, every farmer and every manufacturer, 
 as well as every consumer of goods is deeply interested in the estab- 
 lishment of this system without further delay. For ten years it has 
 been discussed and now nothing is lacking but to carry it out practi- 
 cally. 
 
The Northern Government and Northern capitalists have made a 
 combination to procure our cotton at less than half its value. Our 
 government planters, merchants and bankers should make a combina- 
 tion in self-defence, and for future protection. 
 
 In the old Southern States for many years after the Revolutionary 
 War, the planting interests looked upon those engaged in the pursuits 
 of commerce or manufactures as inferior in position. This kept these 
 classes to a great extent out of the halls of legislation as representa- 
 tives of the Southern people, and has been one cause ofi the languish- 
 ing condition of commerce and manufactures within the Southern 
 States. 
 
 Commerce and manufactures are necessary pursuits to civilized 
 communities as well as agriculture, and there is nothing more dis- 
 honorable, in a proper course of business, in cither of these pursuits 
 than in planting. It requires as high an order of intellect and as 
 high a degree of intelligence to purchase a stock of goods or build a 
 steam engine as it does to plant and worm tobacco in Virginia or cul- 
 tivate cotton and invent traps to destroy the Miller which produces 
 the bowl worm in South Carolina. 
 
 The good of the country, at this time, requires that these unfounded 
 distinctions in regard to these pursuits should be at once discarded. 
 A number of leading men are strong advocates for opening up our 
 ports entirely free to the trade of the world. We think our govern- 
 ment should scan this policy very closely before adopting it. We will 
 have for a number of years a heavy tax to pay. To undertake the 
 whole collection directly, will appear very burdensome to our people, 
 who have so long paid the greater portion of their taxes indirectly. 
 Under the old tariff laws the taxes were levied as unequally as those 
 interested in protection could possibly have them made. Under our 
 present Constitution the duties must be laid for revenue, and by pro- 
 per care may be made to bear as equally upon our people as any direct 
 system of taxation now in force in any of the States. Prudence dic- 
 tates, under the necessity of collecting large amounts for some years T 
 that both the direct and indirect systems be kept up for the present on 
 the part of the Confederate government. Experience will teach our 
 Legislators whether to abandon one or the other modes of raising gov- 
 ernment money, or whether to keep both up permanently. For many 
 years we should preserve the impost system, if for no other purpose 
 than to tax fraudulent goods out of our markets. Before tho dissolution 
 of the Union a number of our State Legislatures found it advantageous 
 to their honest people to tax Yankee pedlars out of their limits on ac- 
 count of their cheating propensities. All the shabby goods of Xew 
 England should be taxed to prohibition. Such frauds should always 
 be legislated out of the country. 
 
 For several centuries past, the general political tenuency has been 
 from small powers and principalities to great kingdoms and empires. 
 The most prominent of these, during the present century is the Em- 
 pire of Russia, that of Fiance, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the. 
 United States of America. With rapid strides, the American Union 
 bid fair to become the first power of the world, when suddenly in con- 
 
sequence of the indorsement of the higher law doctrine of the (falsely 
 so called) Kepublican party, on the part of a majority of the legal 
 voters in the Northern States, the Union was severed as the only 
 mode left of preventing the whole country from sinking rapidly into 
 political and religious infidelity under the wicked rule of the higher 
 law and irrepressible conflict party of the North. As this baneful 
 doctrine was invented and persistently promulgated by the people of 
 New England and New York for their own aggrandizement at the ex- 
 pense of the other gnat section of the Union, "the sober second 
 thought" will separate the people of the Western States, and those of 
 the Pacific from tin' Eastern States, as it has already done those of 
 the Confederate States. 
 
 A better government and a far more permanent Union can then 
 be formed than that which has been broken up in consequence of New 
 England fanaticism, and the blind selfishness of the commercial and 
 manufacturing States of the Northeast. At the separation, the Con- 
 federate Congress, exempted by law. all the agricultural productions 
 and all the live stock of the "Western people, from taxation within 
 their limits, and by law, give them the free navigation of the Missis- 
 ippi river.* Notwithstanding this prompt generosity, the Western 
 people wage an unjust and bloody war against those who otherwise 
 would be their friends and best customers. 
 
 The commercial and manufacturing States of the Northeast, now 
 liave schemes of taxation and finance which will throw almost the en- 
 tire expense of the present war upon the agricultural and mining 
 States. This injustice will become so glaring and so enormous, that 
 the whole debt of the war will be repudiated by the Western people, 
 and the government paper of every description, Treasury notes in- 
 cluded, will fall dead upon those who are the holders. The shrewd 
 bankers and merchants of Philadelphia, Boston and New York, will 
 taltc good care to have none of it upon their hands. Their business 
 will be to puff it up as the best paper in the world, in order to get 
 clear of it themselves. As soon as this gigantic paper swindle, which 
 the bankers, merchants and manufacturers of the Northeastern States 
 are putting upon the farmers of the West, for the purpose of carrying 
 on an unjust war against the Southern people, for their own profit is 
 fully understood and severely felt, as it soon will be, another separation 
 will take place, which will end in the Western and Pacific States form- 
 ing a U#ion of their own. The Western people, through proper com- 
 mercial, treaties with Great Britain and the Confederate States, can 
 obtain cheaper outlets to the markets of the world through the Mis- 
 sissippi river and the St. Lawrence, than they now have through the 
 Hudron. The Pacific and Western States once separated from the 
 commercial and manufacturing States, which, in point of territory are 
 only as large as .two of the counties of Texas, will have no difficulty 
 in forming a friendly alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Con- 
 federate States. 
 
 * See pages 9 and 26, of the Acts and Resolutions of the first Session of the 
 Provisional Congress, held at Montgomery, Alabama, 1861. 
 
A great Union will thus be reconstructed, rid of that corrupt little 
 part which dissolved the original one. Each one of these sections 
 will make its OAvn domestic policy, without interfering with that of 
 the other. Peace, prosperity, constitutional liberty, and power will 
 again reign upon the best portion of the North American continent. 
 
 Not only has there been a strong tendency in modern times for 
 small principalities and powers to give way or be absorbed by exten- 
 sive kingdoms, empires and governments, but religious sectarian per- 
 secutions have to a great extent died out, and there is a strong ten- 
 dency to the union of religious sects as well as the union of States. 
 The rapid increase of war steamers, the great number and length of 
 railways, and the long lines of telegraph wires, are giving to the affairs 
 of the world an accelerated motion. More will be accomplished in 
 human affairs during the next century than has been for the last five 
 hundred years. 
 
 It is time the enlightened States and nations of the earth should 
 cease political persecutions, and war no more for the purpose of keep- 
 ing each other down. The prosperity of our thorough amicable rela- 
 tions, adds to the welfare of others. It is time that the various re- 
 ligious sects and denominations should entirely cease their bickering 
 and unite to uphold constitutional liberty, law, order, peace and vir- 
 tue under the worship of the only living and true God. 
 
 What then, under all the circumstances of home dissensions and 
 foreign jealousies, will best promote for the future the welfare and 
 power '(to do good) of the American people? First, to put down ef- 
 fectually the intolerance of New England and the worship, of the 
 golden calf on the part of the commercial and manufacturing States 
 of the North. 
 
 Secondly — to maintain and perpetuate State governments for the 
 protection of local rights and interests. 
 
 Thirdly — a further dissolution of the old Union into grand natural 
 sectional divisions, and each sectional grand division put under its 
 own Confederate or General government for the protection of sectional 
 rights. 
 
 Fourthly — a union of these grand divisions into one power, through 
 friendly treaties, for the protection of the whole. 
 
 J. B. GLADNEY, Chairman. 
 
 No relaxation of hostilities should take place on the part of the 
 Southern people, nor any peace or reconstruction propositions be en- 
 tertained as long as there remains any Northern troops within the 
 Confederate States, or blockading vessels upon the coast. 
 
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