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DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 REY. DE. E. J. BRECKINRIDG: 
 
 ON THE DAY OF NATIONAL HLTVULIATION, 
 
 January 4, 186ii, at Lexington, Ky. 
 
 (Photographically Seported for the Preshytetian Herald.) 
 
 It is in circumstances, my friends, of 
 terrible solemnity, that this great nation 
 presents herself in an attitude of humil- 
 iation before the Lord God of Hosts ; in 
 circumstances of great solemnity, that 
 she stands before the bar of all surround- 
 ing nations, under that universal public 
 opinion which gives fame or stamps with 
 infamy, and hardly less solemn than both 
 is her attitude at the bar of distant ages, 
 and especially our own posterity, that 
 awful tribunal whose decrees can be re- 
 versed only by the decree of God. 
 
 It is the first of these three aspects, 
 either passing by in silence or touching 
 very slightly the other two, that I am to 
 consider before you now. And what I 
 ehall chiefly attempt to show is, that our 
 duties can never be made subordinate to 
 our passions without involving us in ruin; 
 and that our rights can never be set above 
 our interests without destroying both. 
 
 In taking this direction, let us bear in 
 mind that the proclamation of the Chief 
 Magistrate of the Republic which calls 
 U3 to this service, asserts, in the first 
 place, that ruin is impending over our 
 national institutions; and asserts, in the 
 Bccond place, that so far as appears to 
 him, no human resources remain that arc 
 adequate to save them; and, in the third 
 place, that the whole nation, according to 
 his judgment, ought to prostrate itself 
 before God and cry to Him for deliver- 
 ance. Upon this I have to say, in the 
 great name of God, and by the authority 
 of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world, 
 these two things : 1. That national judg- 
 ments never come except by reason of 
 national sins ; nor are they ever turned 
 aside except upon condition of repent- 
 ance for tlie sins which produo;^Q them ; 
 
 and, 2. That repentance for sin, as it i« 
 the absolute and universal, so it is the in- 
 fallible condition of divine pardon and 
 acceptance, not only in the case of indi- 
 viduals, but more obviously still and more 
 immediately in the case of nations, since 
 nations, as such, have no existence in a 
 future life. Wherefore, if we are in the 
 way of fearful evils we are also in the way 
 of clear duty, and therein we may hope 
 for assured deliverance in the degree, 1. 
 That every one will go before another in 
 earnest endeavors to rectify in himself all 
 that is abominable to God ; and, 2. That 
 every one will evince towards others the 
 forbearance which he desires that God 
 should extend to him. Wherefore, also 
 we may boldly say that the remedy from 
 God to us need not be expected to man- 
 ifest itself by means of political parties, 
 or by means of combinations of political 
 leaders, or by means of new political 
 compacts, or by means of additional legal 
 enactments, or by means of more explioit 
 constitutional provisions; but that it 
 must come from God to us and be made 
 manifest through a profound movement 
 in the source of all power in free govern- 
 ments, namely: 1. In the hearts of indi- 
 vidual men turning from their sins, theiff 
 follies and their madness ; and, 2. In the 
 uprising of an irresistible impulse thus 
 crealed,whichoverthe length and breadth 
 of the land shall array itself in the power 
 of God against every endeavor to bring 
 upon us the evils which we are imploring 
 God to avert. 
 
 The first and greatest of these evib 
 that we beseech God to avert, and that 
 we should strive with all our might bo 
 prevent, is the annihilation of the natioa 
 itself, by tearing it into fragments. Mea 
 may talk of rights perpetually and oat- 
 
^ 
 
 rageously violated ; they may talk of in- united with irresistible national force, 
 juries that are obliged to be redressed ; and all directed to the glory of God and 
 they may talk of guarantees without the good of man. And this is that glo- 
 which they can submit to no further rious estate now declared to be in fearful 
 peace ; and there is doubtless much that peril, and which we are called upon to 
 has force and much more that is capti- beseech God to preserve unto us. 
 vating to ardent minds in such esposi- * On the other hand, the evils of rend- 
 tions^f our sad condition; for what ing this nation. Which of the blessings 
 problem half so terrible was ever agitated that I have enumerated— and I have 
 upon which it was not easy to advance enumerated only those which appeared 
 jnuch on every side of it? I will not to me to be the most obvious — which of 
 consume the short time allowed to me in these is there, peace, freedom, prosperity, 
 examining such views. What I assert in independence, the glory of our example, 
 answer to them all, is that we have over- the power to do good and to prevent evil, 
 whelming duties and incalculable inter- the opportunity to give permanent effi- 
 ests which dictate a special line of con- ciency all over this continent, and in a 
 duct, the chief aim of which should be certain degree all over this earth to the 
 the preservation of the American Union, Gospel of God ; which of these blessings 
 jind therein of the American nation. is there that may not be utterly lost to 
 
 To be more explicit, it seems to me vast portions of the nation ; which of 
 that there are inestimable blessings con- them may not be jeoparded over this 
 nected with the preservation of our Na- whole continent; which of them is there, 
 tional Union and that there are intoler- that may not depart forevermore from us 
 able evils involved in its destruction. — and our posterity, in the attempt to de- 
 For the blessings — there is the blessing stroy our oneness as a people, and in the 
 of peace amongst ourselves; there is the results of that unparalleled self-destruc- 
 blessing of freedom to ourselves and to tion ? Besides all this, how obvious and 
 our posterity; there is the blessing of in- how terrible' are the evils over and above, 
 ternal prosperity secured by that peace which the very attempt begets, and which 
 and freedom, never before excelled if at- our after- progress must necessarily make 
 t&ined by any poople : there is the bless- permanent if that attempt succeeds. 1. 
 ing of our national independence, secured We have already incurred the perils of 
 by our invincible strength against all the universal bankruptcy before the first act 
 powers of the earth combined ; there is is achieved by one of the least important 
 the blessing of our glorious example to of the thirty -three States. 2. We have 
 all nations and to all ages; there is the already seen constitutional government, 
 blessing of irresistible power to do good bothinitsessenceaad in its form, trampled 
 to all peoples, and to prevent evil over the under foot by the convention of that State; 
 face of the whole earth ; there is the and all the powers of sovereignty itself, 
 blessing of an unfettered Gospel, and an both ordinary and extraordinary, assumed 
 open Bible, and a divine Saviour, more by it in such a manner that life, liberty 
 and more manifested in our whole na- and property have no more security in 
 tional life as that life deepens and spreads. South Carolina than anywhere under 
 subduing and possessing the widest and heaven where absolute despotism or ab- 
 the noblest inheritance ever given to any solute anarchy prevails, except in the 
 people, and overflowing and fructifying personal characters of the gentlemen who 
 all peoples besides. It is the problem hold the power. 3. We have already seen 
 sought to be solved from the beginning that small community preparing to treat 
 of time, and, to say the least, the nighest with foreign nations, and, if need be, in- 
 approximation made to its solution, name- troduce foreign armies into this country; 
 ly, the complete possession of freedom headlong in the career in which she dis- 
 
dains all counsel, scorns all consultation 
 and all entreaty, and treats all ties, all 
 recollections, all existing engagements 
 and obligations, as if her ordinance of 
 secession had not only denationalized 
 that community, but had extinguished 
 all its past existence. 4. We see the glo- 
 rious flag of this Union torn down and a 
 colonial flag floating in its place ; yea, Tve 
 Bee thatcommunity thrown into paroxisms 
 of rage, and the cabinet at Washington 
 thrown into confusion, because in the har- 
 bor of Charleston our national flag, in- 
 stead of being still further dishonored, 
 yet floats over a single tower ! What, 
 then, did they expect who sent to the 
 harbor of Charleston, to occupy the na- 
 tional fortresses there, the son of a com- 
 panion of Washington, a hero whose 
 yeins are full of revolutionary blood, and 
 whose body is covered with honorable 
 Bears, won in the service of his country? 
 Why did they send that Kentucky hero 
 there if they did not intend the place 
 they put into his hands to be kept to the 
 last extremity? But I need not enlarge 
 upon this terrible aspect of what is com- 
 ing to us all if the Union is destroyed. 
 These are but the beginnings of sorrows. 
 The men and parties who initiate the reign 
 of lawless passion, rarely escape destruc- 
 tion amid the storms they create, but are 
 unable to control. Law comes from the 
 depth of eternity, and in its sublime sway 
 is the nexus of the universe. Institu- 
 tions grow ; they are not made. Deso- 
 lated empires are never restored ; all his- 
 tory furnishes no such example. If we 
 desire to perish, all we have to do is to 
 leap into this vortex of disunion. If we 
 have any just conception of the solemnity 
 of this day, let us beseech God that our 
 country shall not be torn to pieces ; and 
 under the power of these solemnities let 
 us quit ourselves like men, in order to 
 avert that most horrible of all national 
 calamities. 
 
 Let us consider, in the next place, 
 those rights, as they are called, by means 
 of which, and in their extreme exercise, 
 all the calamities that threaten us are to 
 
 be brought upon us at any moment ; nay, 
 are to be so brought upon us, that our 
 destruction shall be perfectly re^-ular 
 perfectly legal, perfectly cons'tituttonal! 
 In which case a system like ours, a sys- 
 tem the most enduring of all others 
 whether we consider the history of the 
 past, or the laws which enter into its 
 composition ; a system the hardest of all 
 others to be deranged, and the easiest of 
 all to be readjusted when deranged ; such. 
 a system is alleged to have a secret in it, 
 designed expressly to kill it, at the op- 
 tion of the smallest fragment of it. I 
 allude to the claim of the right of nulli- 
 fication, and the claim of the right of 
 secession, as being Constitutional rights; 
 and I desire to explain myself briefly in 
 regard to them. 
 
 According to my apprehension, there 
 is a thorough and fundamental diiferenee 
 between the two. The power of nullifi- 
 cation, supposing it to exist, would be an 
 extreme right within the Union, and is 
 necessarily temporary in its efi"ects, and 
 promptly tends to the termination of the 
 difficulty upon which it arises. And this 
 settlement may occur by the action of 
 our complex system of government, in 
 various ways. It may be in the way of 
 some compromise of existing difficulties; 
 or in the way of repeal, by one party or 
 the other, or the modification of the ob- 
 noxious laws; or in the way of some ju- 
 dicial decision settling the difficulty or 
 
 which is the true remedy — instead of nuli- 
 fication by an appeal to the people at the 
 polls, who are the source of all power in 
 free governments, and by obedience to 
 their decision when rendered by voting 
 instead of by fighting; or, at the worst, 
 by an appeal to arms; but even in that 
 case the result necessarily secures the 
 continuance of the pre-existing system of 
 government on the restoration of peace, 
 let that peace be by victory on which 
 side you please. The doctrine of nulli- 
 fication stands related to the doctrine of 
 State Rights, precisely as the doctrine of 
 consolidation stands related to the old 
 Federal doctrine of a strong Central Gov- 
 
trnment. In both cases thejtheory of a 
 great party has been pushed to a logical 
 absurdity, which subverted our political 
 Bystem. That the will of the greater part 
 should prevail, and that the smaller parts 
 should have the power of appeal to this 
 will, at the polls, and in judgment upon 
 every principal of civil and political liberty 
 — was the ultimate form in which this great 
 doctrine entered into the political creed of 
 that old llepublican party which came into 
 power with Mr. Jefierson in 1801, and was 
 expounded as they held it in those famous 
 resolutions of Kentucky and Virginia in 
 the latter part of the last century. Its 
 eonnection with the whole theory of every 
 mixed political system is not only abso- 
 lute but is vital. More especially is it so 
 with our complex system. It has been 
 carried — as it stands connected with the 
 constitutional, and much more with the 
 reserved rights of the States, to an ex- 
 treme on that side — opposite to the ex- 
 treme of consolidation. But even in its 
 extremest form, it bears no proportion in 
 mischief to the doctrine of secession. — 
 Considered in its true and original form, 
 I judge it to be indispensable to the 
 preservation of our political system ; and 
 that the opposite mode of interpreting 
 our political duties, and rights, and reme- 
 dies, terminates in subjugating the States 
 to theGeneral Government, and in subju- 
 gating both the General Government and 
 the exposi'ion of every political principle, 
 to the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 The former system is natural and perma- 
 nent, the latter is absurd, and invites 
 rebellion. This great phenomenon has 
 occurred in this country, that, by reason 
 of the extraordinary ability of some of 
 the advocates of the system which passed 
 away in 1801, it has assumed a new form 
 and a new life in general opinion; and 
 seconded by the peculiar constitution of 
 the Supremo Court of the United States, 
 the old llepublican or Democratic notions 
 upon this great subject, though constantly 
 triumphant in the country ,have been con- 
 stantly disallowed in the interpretations 
 of that Court. I judge that the doctrine 
 
 of secession is an extreme reaction against 
 this Federal interpretation of the rela- 
 tions of the States to each other and to 
 the nation. For when you arrive at an 
 interpretation which is final, and hateful 
 to immense parties and interests; and 
 there is no remedy but aims, secession, or 
 absolute submission ; the expression of 
 the popular will against the interpreta- 
 tion you have made, brings society to a 
 condition, that in an excitable race and 
 amongst a free people, can hardly be ex- 
 pected to be safe or easy to be managed. 
 You have, therefore, this perilous and 
 extraordinary claim of the right of se- 
 cession under this extreme reaction, dif- 
 fering absolutely from the idea of the old 
 State Rights party, and differing abso- 
 lutely even from nullification itself. 
 
 Secession is a proceeding which begins 
 by tearing to pieces the whole fabric of 
 Government, both social and political. — 
 It begins by rendering all redress of all 
 possible evils utterly impossible under 
 the system that exists, for its very object 
 is to destroy that existence. It begins 
 by provoking war, and rendering its oc- 
 currence apparently inevitable, and its 
 termination well nigh impossible. Its 
 very design is not to reform the adminis- 
 tration of existing laws, not to obtain 
 their repeal or modification ; but to anni- 
 hilate the institutions of the country, 
 and to make many nations out of one. — 
 If it is the Constitutional right of any 
 State to do this, then wo have no national 
 Government and never had any. Then, 
 also, it is perfectly idle to speak of new 
 Constitutions, since the new Constitu- 
 tions can have no more force than the 
 Constitution already despised and dis- 
 obeyed. Then, also, the possibility is 
 ended — ended in the very theory of the 
 case, and illustrated in the utter failure 
 of its practice — of uniting llepublican 
 freedom with national strength, in any 
 country or under any form of govern- 
 ment. But according to my belief, and 
 according to the universal belief of the 
 American people but a little while ago, 
 no such right, legal or Constitutional, as 
 
that of secession, does or can exist under 
 any form of government, and least of all 
 under such institutions as ours. 
 
 And, first of all, no State in this Union 
 ever had any sovereignty at all, inde- 
 pendent of, and except as they were, 
 United States. When they speak of re- 
 covering their sovereignty — when they 
 Bpeak of returning to their condition as 
 sovereigns in whirh they were before 
 they were members of the Confederacy 
 called at first the United Colonies and 
 then the United States; they speak of a 
 thing that has no existence — they speak 
 of a thing that is historically without 
 foundation. They were not States ; they 
 were colonies of the British, the Span- 
 ish, the French, th*- Dutch Governments; 
 they were colonies granted by Koyal 
 charter to parficular individuals or par- 
 ticular companies. Pennsylvania was 
 the estate, th« property of William Penn ; 
 Georgia, the larger part, perhaps the 
 whole of it, Mf fien. Oglethorpe. They 
 were settled under charters to individu- 
 als and to companies — settled as colonies 
 of foreign kings and States by their sub- 
 jects. As such they revolted ; as such, 
 before their revolt, they united in a 
 Continental Government more or less 
 complete. As such United Colonies, 
 they pronounced that famous Declara- 
 tion of Independence which, after a 
 heroic struggle ol' ^even 'years, still as 
 United Colonies, thoy made good. That 
 great Washington, who led that great 
 war, was (he Commander-in-Chief for 
 and in behalf of these United Colo- 
 nies. As such they were born States.— 
 The treaty of peace, that made them in- 
 dependent States, was concluded with 
 them all together as the United States. 
 What sovereignty did Kentucky ever 
 have except the sovereignty that she has 
 as a State of these United States, born at 
 the same moment a State of the Ameri- 
 can Union and a separate sovereign 
 State? Wo were a district of Virginia. 
 We became a Sfute, and we became one 
 of the United ^-'ates at the same mo- 
 ment, for the same purpose, and for good 
 
 and all. What I mean by this is to 
 point out the fact, that the complex sys- 
 tem of government which we have in thin 
 country, did always, does now, and in the 
 nature of the case, must contemplate 
 these States as united into a common 
 Government, and that common Govern- 
 ment as really a part of our political 
 system, as the particular institutions of 
 the separate sovereignties are a oart of 
 our political system. And while, as you 
 will observe, I have attempte'd, while re- 
 pudiating the doctrine of nullification, 
 to vindicate that doctrine of State rio-hts, 
 which, as I firmly believe, is an integral 
 and indispensable part of our political 
 .system ; yet on the other hand, that the 
 doctrine that we are a nation, and that 
 we have a national government, is, and 
 always was, just as truly a part of our 
 system as the other. And our political 
 system always stood as much upon the 
 basis that we are a nation, as it stood 
 upon the basis that that nation is com- 
 posed of sovereign States. They were 
 born into both relations; so born that 
 each State is equally and forever, by 
 force of its very existence and the man- 
 ner thereof, both a part of this Ameri- 
 can nation and also a sovereign State of 
 itself. The people, therefore, can no 
 more legally throw off their national al- 
 legiance, than they can legally throw oflF 
 their State allegiance. Nor can any 
 State any more legally absolve the alle- 
 giance of its people to the nation, than 
 the nation can legally absolve the alle- 
 giance due by the people to the State 
 they live in. Either attempt, considered 
 in any legal, in any Coudtitutional, in 
 any historical light, is pure madness. 
 
 Now the pretext of founding the right 
 of secession upon the right to change or 
 abolish the government, which is Con- 
 stitutionally secured to the people of the 
 nation and the States, seems to me — and 
 I say it with all the respect due to others — 
 to be both immoral and absurd. Ab- 
 surd, since they who claim to exercise it 
 are, according to the very statement of 
 the case, but an insignificant minority of 
 
those in whom the real right resides. It 
 is a right vested by God, and recognized 
 by our Constitutions as residing in the 
 greater part of those who are citizens 
 under the Constitution which they change 
 or abolisli. But, what in the name of 
 God, and all the possible and all the im- 
 aginable arrogance of South Carolina, 
 could lead her to believe that she is the 
 major part of all the people that profess 
 allegiance it the Constitution of the 
 United States? And it is immoral, be- 
 cause it is trifling with the sacred rights 
 of others, with the most solemn obliga- 
 tions on our own part, and the most vital 
 interests of all concerned. And it is 
 both immoral and absurb in one, because 
 as a political pretext, its use in this 
 manner invalidates and renders perilous 
 and odious, the grandest contribution of 
 modern times to the science of govern- 
 ment, and therein to the peace of so- 
 ciety, the security of liberty and the 
 progress of civilization ; namely, the 
 giving Constitutional validity to this an- 
 tural right of man to change or to abol- 
 ish the government under which they 
 live, by voting, when the major part see 
 fit to do so. It is trifling with this great 
 natural right, legalized in all our Ame- 
 rican Constitutions, fatally caricaturing 
 and recklessly converting it into the most 
 terrible engine of organized legal de- 
 struction. More than that ; it is impos- 
 sible, in the very nature of the case and 
 in the very nature of government, that 
 any such legal power or any such Con- 
 stitutional right could exist ; because its 
 existence presupposes law to have changed 
 its nature and to have become mere ad- 
 vice; and presupposes government to have 
 changed its nature and ceasing to be a 
 permanent ordinance of God, to become 
 a temporary instrument of evil in the 
 hands of factions as they successively 
 arise. Above all places under heaven, 
 no such right of destruction can exist 
 under our American Constitutions, since 
 it is they that have devised this very 
 remedy of voting instead of fighting; 
 they that have made this natural right a 
 
 Constitutional right ; they that have done 
 it for the preservation and not for the 
 ruin of society. And it has preserved 
 for more than seventy years the noblest 
 form of human society, in constant se- 
 curity; and it could, if justly exercised, 
 preserve it forever. 
 
 But let us go a little deeper still. It 
 can not be denied that the right of self- 
 preservation, both in men and States, is 
 a supreme right. In private persons, it 
 is a right regulated by law in all commu- 
 nities that have laws. Amongst nations, 
 there is no common supreme authority, 
 and it must be regulated in their inter- 
 course with each other, by the discretion 
 of each ; and arms are the final appeal. 
 In our system of government, there 
 is ample provision made. In Jail dis- 
 putes between any State and a foreign 
 nation, the General Government will 
 protect and redress the State. In 
 disputes between two States, the Supreme 
 Court is the Constitutional arbiter. It 
 is only in disputes that may arise ^be- 
 tween the General Government and a par- 
 ticular State, that any serious difference 
 of opinion as to tbe remedy, has mani- 
 fested itself in this country ; and on that 
 subject it is the less necessary that I add 
 anything to what has been said when 
 speaking of nullification, as the grounds 
 of our existing difliculties are not between 
 the disaffected States and the General Gov- 
 ernment chiefly, if at all; but they are 
 difiieulties, rather founded on opposite 
 States of public opinion touching the in- 
 stitution of negro slavery, in the North- 
 ern and in the Southern States. It may 
 confidently be asserted that if the power 
 of nullification, or the power of secession, 
 or both of them, were perfectly Consti- 
 tutional rights, neither of them should 
 be, under any circumstances, wantonly 
 exercised. Nor should either of them, 
 most especially the right of secession, 
 ever be exercised except under extreme 
 necessity. But if these powers, or either 
 of them, is a mere usurpation founded 
 upon no right whatever, then no State 
 may resort to rebellion or revolution 
 
without, in the first place, such a just and 
 necessary cause as may not be otherwise 
 maintained ; or, in the second place, with- 
 out such a prospect of success as justifies 
 the evil of rebellion or revolution ; or 
 else such intolerable evils as justify the 
 most desperate attempts. Now it is my 
 profound conviction that nothing has oc- 
 curred, that nothing exists, which justifies 
 that revolution which has occurred in 
 South Carolina, and which seems to be 
 impending in other Southern States. — 
 Beyond all doubt, nothing has occurred 
 of this description, connected with any 
 other interest or topic, except that of ne- 
 gro slavery ; and connected with that, my 
 deep assurance is, that the just and nec- 
 essary cause of the slave States, may be 
 otherwise maintained than by secession, 
 revolution or rebellion ; nay, that it may 
 be incomparably better maintained oth- 
 erwise; nay, that it cannot be maintained 
 itt that way at all, and that the attempt to 
 do so will be fatal as regards the avowed 
 object, and pregnant with incalculable 
 evils besides. 
 
 In such discussions as these, the na- 
 ture of the institution of slavery is per- 
 feotly immaterial. So long as the Union 
 of the States survives, the constitutional 
 guaranty and the Federal power, which 
 have proved adequate for more than sev- 
 enty years, are that much added to what- 
 ever other force States or sections may 
 possess to protect their rights. Nor is 
 there, in the nature of the case, any rea- 
 son why States with slaves, and States 
 without slaves should not abide together 
 in peace, as portions of the same great 
 nation, as they have done from the be- 
 ginning. The unhallowed passions of 
 men, the fanaticism of the times, the mu- 
 tual injuries and insults which portions 
 of the people have inflicted on each other, 
 the cruel use which political parties have 
 made of unnatural and transient popu- 
 lar excitements, and, I must add, the un- 
 just, offensive and unconstitutional enact- 
 ments by various State Legislatures at 
 the North ; the repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise by Congress; the attempt 
 
 of the Supreme Court to settle political 
 principles, deemed to be of vast impor- 
 tance by all parties, in the Dred Scott 
 case, which principles were not in the 
 case at all ; the subsequent conduct of 
 the Federal Government, and of the peo- 
 ple in Kansas ; the total overthrow of 
 the Whig and American parties, the di- 
 vision and defeat of the Democratio 
 party, and the triumph of the Republi- 
 can party ; the ordinance of secession of 
 South Carolina ; the agitation pervading 
 the whole nation, especially the greater 
 part of the Southern States; and to 
 crown all and if possible, to make all 
 desperate, the amazing conduct of the 
 President of the United States amidst 
 these great disorders : this is the sad 
 outline of this slavery agitation, the pos- 
 ture of which for a moment is thus exhi- 
 bited, no one knowing how soon new and 
 fatal steps may hurry us still farther. — 
 What I assert in the face of so much 
 that is painful and full of peril, and whafe 
 I confidently rely will be the verdict of 
 posterity, is that all this, terrible as it is, 
 affords no justification for the secession 
 of any single State of the Union — none 
 for the disruption of the American Union, 
 They who make the attempt will find in 
 it no remedy for the evils from which 
 they flee. They who goad otrliers to this 
 fatal step, will find that they have them- 
 selves erred exceedingly. They who 
 have had the lead in both acts of mad- 
 ness, have no hope for good from coming 
 ages, half so great as that they may be 
 utterly forgotten. Posterity will receive 
 with scorn every plea that can be made 
 for thirty millions of free people, profess- 
 ing to be christian, in extenuation of the 
 unparalleled folly of their self-destruc- 
 tion, by reason that they could not deal 
 successfully with three or four millions 
 of African slaves, scattered amongst 
 them. Oh ! everlasting infamy, that the 
 children of Washington did not know 
 how to be free. Oh ! degradation still 
 deeper, that the children of God did not 
 not know how to be just and to forbear 
 with one another. 
 
8 
 
 It is said, however, it is now too late. 
 The evil is already done. South Caro- 
 lina has already gone; Florida, it is 
 most likely went yesterday, or will go to- 
 day, even while we are i^leading with 
 one another, and with God to put a bet- 
 ter mind in her. Soon, it may be possi- 
 ble within the present month, all the cot- 
 ton States will go. We, it is added, by 
 reason of being a slave State, must also 
 go. Our destiny, they say, our interest, 
 our duty, our all, ii bound up with theirs, 
 and we must go together. If this be 
 your mind, distinctly made up, then the 
 whole services of this day are a national 
 mockery of God ; a national attempt to 
 make our passionate impulses assume the 
 dignity of divine suggestions, and thus 
 seduce the Ruler of the universe into com- 
 plicity with our sins and follies, through 
 which all our miseries are inflicted upon 
 as. Let it be admitted that a certain 
 number of States, and that considerable, 
 will attempt to form a Southern Confed- 
 eracy, or to form as many new sovereign- 
 ties as there are seceding States. Let it 
 be assumed that either of those results 
 is achieved, and that either by way of 
 peace or by war. Let all be admitted. 
 What then? Thirteen States by their 
 delegates formed the present Constitution 
 more than- seventy years ago. By the 
 terms of the Constitution itself, it was to 
 be enforced when any nine of those thir- 
 teen States adopted it, whether by con- 
 vention of their people or otherwise, is 
 immaterial to the present matter. Thir- 
 teen States made the Constitution by 
 their delegates ; a clause is inserted in it 
 that it shall go into effect when any nine 
 of the thirteen States adopt it, let any 
 four refuse as they might. If they had 
 refused what would have happened,w^uld 
 have been, that these four States, born 
 States, and born United States, by the 
 Declaration of Independence, by the war 
 of the revolution, by the peace with 
 Great Britain, and by the articles of con- 
 federation, would by a common agree- 
 ment among the whole thirteen have re- 
 fused to go further, or to make any 
 
 stronger national government, while the 
 other nine would have gone further, and 
 made that stronger national govern- 
 ment. But suoh was the desire of all 
 parties that there should be no separation 
 of the States at all, that the whole thir- 
 teen unanimously adopted the new Con- 
 stitution, putting a clause into it that it 
 should not go into effect unless a majori- 
 ty so great as nine to four would sign it. 
 I say if a minority of States had not 
 adopted the new Constitution, it would 
 have occurred that they would have 
 passed, by common consent, into a new 
 condition, and, for the first time, have 
 become separate sovereign States. As 
 you well know, none of them refused per- 
 manently. What I make this statement 
 for, is to show that, taking: that principle 
 as just and permanent, as clearly laid 
 down in the Constitution, it requires at 
 least.eleven States of the existing thirty- 
 three States, to destroy, or affect in the 
 slightest degree, the question as to wheth- 
 er or not the remaining States are the 
 United States of America under the same 
 Constitution. Twenty-two States, ac- 
 cording to that principle, left after the 
 eleven had seceded, would be as really 
 the United States of America under that 
 Federal Constitution, as they were be- 
 fore, according to the fundamental prin- 
 ciple involved in the original mode of 
 giving validity to the Constitution. Ken- 
 tucky would still be as really one of these 
 United States of America as she was at 
 first, when, as a district of Virginia,which 
 was one of the nine adopting States, she 
 became, as such district, a part thereof; 
 and, by consequence, a secession of less 
 than eleven States, can, in no event and, 
 upon no hypothesis, even so much as em- 
 barrass Kentucky in determining for her- 
 self what her duty, her safety and her 
 honor require her to do. 
 
 This fact is so perfectly obvious that, I 
 presume, if the New England States, in- 
 stead of the cotton States, were to revolt 
 and establish a separate confederacy, 
 there is not a man in the State of Ken- 
 tucky who would be led thereby to sup- 
 
'9 
 
 pose that our relations with the Union 
 and the Constitution were in the slightest 
 degree affected ; or that they we on 
 that account under the slightest obliga- 
 tion to revolt also. It may sound harsh, 
 but I am very much inclined to think 
 that there are many thousands of men in 
 Kentucky, who might be apt to suppose 
 that the secession of the New England 
 States, would be a capital reason why no- 
 body else should secede. It is the prin- 
 ciple, however, which I am attempting 
 to explain. 
 
 The answer to this view, I am aware 
 is, that we are a slave State, and that our 
 relations are, therefore, necessarily dif- 
 ferent with respect to other slave States, 
 as compared with the free States, or 
 with the nation at large. The reply to 
 which is various : First. The institu- 
 tion of slavery as it exists in this country 
 presents a threefold and very distinct as- 
 pect. First, the aspect of it in those 
 States whose great staples are rice, sugar 
 and cotton, commonly, and well enough 
 expressed by calling them the cotton 
 States. Then the aspect of it presented 
 by those States in portions of which 
 those staples are raised, and in other por- 
 tions of which they are not, which we 
 may well enough call the mixed portion 
 of the slave States. And then its aspect 
 in those slave States which are not pro- 
 ducers of those great staples, in the 
 midst of which, and out of which these 
 great commotions come. What I assert 
 is, that the relation of slavery to the 
 community, and the relation of the com- 
 munity by reason of .slavery to the Gen- 
 eral Government and the world, is wide- 
 ly different in all three of these classes 
 of States. The relation of slavery to 
 the community, to the government and 
 to our future, in Kentucky, in Virginia, 
 in Maryland, in Delaware, is widely dif- 
 ferent from the relation of slavery in all 
 these respects, in Louisiana, in South 
 Carolina, and in all the other cotton 
 States. In the meantime, also, the rela- 
 tion is different from both of those, where- 
 in it exists in what I have called the 
 
 mixed States; in Arkansas, part of which 
 is a farming conntry, and a part of which 
 thoroughly planting ; in Tennessee, part 
 cotton, and the eastern part a mountain- 
 ous and farming country ; in Texas and 
 North Carolina, where similar facts ex- 
 ist, and, perhaps, in some other States. 
 What I desire is that you get the idea 
 I have of the matter ; that while it is 
 true all the slave States have certain ties 
 and sympathies between them which are 
 real, and ought not to be broken, yet, on 
 the other hand, it is extremely easy to 
 carry this idea to a fatal and a false ex- 
 tent, and to ruin ourselves forever under 
 the illusion begotten thereby. In Ken- 
 tucky the institution of slavery exists 
 about in the proportion of one slave to 
 four white people, and the gap between 
 the two races is widening at every cen- 
 sus. In South Carolina there are about 
 five slaves to three white persons, and the 
 increment is on the slave side. In the 
 cotton States I know of no way in which 
 the institution of slavery can be dealt 
 with at all, except by keeping the rela- 
 tion as it stands, as an integral portion 
 of the body politic, unmanageable except 
 in the present relation of the negro to the 
 white man; and in this posture it is the 
 duty of the nation to protect and defend 
 the cotton States. In regard to Ken- 
 tucky, the institution of slavery is in 
 such a position that the people of Ken- 
 tucky can do with it whatever they may 
 see fit, both now and at any future peri- 
 od, without being obliged, by reason of 
 it, to resort to any desperate expedient,in 
 any direction. 
 
 The state of things I have sketched, 
 necessarily produces a general resem- 
 blance indeed, because slavery h gene- 
 ral ; but, at the same time, innumerable 
 diversities, responsive to the varying con- 
 dition of slavery, of its products, and of 
 its relative influence in the body politic 
 in the different slave States. And you 
 never committed a greater folly than you 
 will commit, if, disregarding these things, 
 you allow this single consideration — that 
 you are a slave State — to swallow up 
 
10 
 
 every other consideration, and control 
 your whole action in this great crisis. — 
 We, in Kentucky are tolerant of opinion. 
 Inform yourselves of what is passing of 
 an opposite character throughout South 
 Carolina, and reflect on the change that 
 roust pass on you, before you would be 
 prepared to tear down the most venera- 
 ble institutions, to insult the proudest 
 emblems of your country's glory, and to 
 treat consfir.utions and laws as if they 
 were playthings for children; before you 
 are prepared to descend from your pres- 
 ent noble posture, and surrender yourself 
 to the guidance and dictation of such 
 counsels and such statesmen, as. rule this 
 disunicn movement. Nothing seems to 
 rae more obvious, and nothing is more 
 important to be pressed upon your arten- 
 tion at this moment, than that the non- 
 cotton States stand in a position radi- 
 cally different, in all respects, from the 
 position in which the cotton States stand, 
 both with regard to the institution of 
 slavery, and with regard to the balance 
 of the nation. The result is that all 
 these States, the cotton States, and the 
 mixed States, and the non-cotton slave 
 States, and the free States, may enjoy 
 peace, and may enjoy prosperity under a 
 common government, and in a common 
 Union, as they have done from the be- 
 ginning ; where the rights of all and the 
 interests of all may be respected and pro- 
 tected, and yet where the interests of ev- 
 ery portion must be regulated by some 
 general consideration of the interests 
 which are common to everybody. On 
 the other hand, in a confederacy where 
 cotton is the great idea and end, it is ut- 
 terly impossible for the mixed, much 
 more for the non-cotton States, to pro- 
 tect adequately any of their rights, ex- 
 cept the right of slavery, to carry out 
 any of their purposes except purposes 
 connected with slavery, to inaugurate 
 any system of policy, or even to be free, 
 otherwise than as they servilely follow 
 the lead, and bow to the rule of the cot- 
 ton States. The very instant you enter a 
 confederacy in which all is regulated and 
 
 created by the supreme interest of cot- 
 ton, everything precious and distinctive 
 of you is jeoparded. Do you want the 
 slave trade re-opened ? Do you want 
 free trade and direct taxation ? Do you 
 want some millions more of African can- 
 nibals thrown amongst you, broadcast 
 throughout the whole slave States? Do 
 you want to begin a war which shall end 
 when you have taken possession of the 
 whole Southern part of this continent, 
 down to the Isthmus 'of Darien ? If 
 your design is to accept the principles, 
 purposes and policy which are open- 
 ly avowed in the interest of secession, 
 and which you see exhibited on a small 
 scale, but in their essence, in South Caro- 
 lina — if that is your notion of regulated 
 freedom and the perfect security of life 
 and property; if that is your understand- 
 ing of high national prosperity, where 
 the great idea is more negroes, more cot- 
 ton, direct taxes, free imports from all 
 nations, and the conquest of all outlay- 
 ing land that will bring cotton ; then, 
 undoubtedly, Kentucky is no longer what 
 she has been, and her new career, begin- 
 ning with secession, leads her far away 
 from her strength and her renown. 
 
 The second suggestion I have to make 
 to you is, that if the slave line is made 
 the line of division, all the slave States 
 seceding from the Union, and all the free 
 States standing unitedly by the Union : 
 what I assert in that ease is, that the pos- 
 sibility of the perpetuity of negro slavery 
 in any border State terminates at once. 
 In our affected zeal for slavery, we will 
 have taken the most effectual means of 
 extinguishing it; and that in the most 
 disastrous of all possible ways. On the 
 contrary, if this Union is to be saved, it 
 is by the cordial sympathy of the border 
 States on the one side and on the other 
 side of the slave line that it must be sav- 
 ed. We have nothing to hope for from 
 the extreme States on either side — noth- 
 ing from the passionate violence of the 
 extreme Soutb — nothing from the turbu- 
 lent fanaticism of the extreme North. It 
 is along that slave line and in the spirit 
 
11 
 
 of mutual confidence, and the sense of 
 common interest of the people on the 
 North and on the South of that line, that 
 the nation must seek the instruments of 
 its safety. It is Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, on the one 
 side ; and Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, 
 Kentucky, Missouri — God send that I 
 might add, with confidence, Tennessee 
 and North Carolina, on the other side : 
 these are the States that are competent to 
 eavo this Union. Nothing, therefore, 
 can be more suicidal than for the border 
 slave States to adopt any line of conduct 
 which can justly deprive them of the 
 sympathy and confidence of the border 
 free States — now largely possessed by 
 them. And nothing is more certain than 
 that a patriotic devotion to the Union, and 
 a willingness to do all that honorable men 
 should do, or moderate men ask in order 
 to preserve it, is as strongly prevalent at 
 this moment amongst the people of the 
 border free States, as among those of the 
 border slave States. The great central 
 States I have enumerated, must neces- 
 sarily control the fate both of the nation 
 and of the continent, whenever they act 
 in concert ; and the fate, both of the na- 
 tion and of the continent, is utterly in- 
 scrutable after the division of them on 
 the slave line — except tbat we know when 
 Samson is shorn of his strength, the 
 enemies of Israel and of God will make 
 the land desolate. Fronting on the At- 
 lantic Ocean through many degrees of 
 latitude, running back across the conti- 
 nent so as to include an area larger than 
 all western Europe, and finer than any 
 of equal extent upon the globe, embrac- 
 ing a population inferior to none on earth, 
 and sufficiently numerous at present to 
 constitute a great nation ; it is this im- 
 mense power, free, to a great extent, from 
 the opposite and intractable fanaticisms 
 of the extreme States on both sides of it, 
 that is charged with the preservation of 
 of our national institutions, and with 
 them our national power and glory. — 
 There are two aspects of the case thus 
 put, in either of which success by peace 
 
 ful means, is impossible. First, if these 
 great central States fail to apprehend this 
 part of the great mission committed to 
 them; secondly, if the cotton States, fol- 
 lowing the example of South Carolina — 
 or the Northern States adhering to ex- 
 treme purposes in the opposite direction 
 — by either means render all peaceful ad- 
 justment impossible. 
 
 But even in that case, the mission of 
 these great States is not ended. If under 
 the curse of God, and the madness of the 
 extreme Northern and Southern States, 
 the preservation of the Union should be 
 impossible, then it belongs to this im- 
 mense central power to reconstruct the na- 
 tion upon the slave line as its central idea, 
 and thus perpetuate our institutions, our 
 principles and our hopes, with an un- 
 changed nationality. For even they who 
 act in the mere interests of slavery, ought 
 to see, that after the secession of the cot- 
 ton States, the border slave States are 
 obliged, even for the sake of slavery, to 
 be destroyed, or to adhere to the Union 
 as long as any Union exists ; and that if 
 the Union were utterly destroyed, its re- 
 construction upon the slave line is the 
 solitary condition, on which slavery can 
 exist in security anywliere, or can exist at 
 all in any border State. 
 
 I have considered three possible solu- 
 tions of the existing state of things. The 
 preservation of the Union as it is ; the 
 probable secession of the cotton slave 
 States, and the effect thereof upon the 
 Union, and upon the course Kentucky 
 ought to take ; the total destruction of 
 the Union, and its reconstruction upon 
 the slave line. I have considered the 
 whole matter, from the point of view un- 
 derstood to be taken by the President of 
 the United States, namely : that he judges 
 there is no power in the General Govern- 
 ment to prevent, by force, its own disso- 
 lution by means of the secession of the 
 States ; and I have done this, because 
 however ruinous or absurd any one may 
 suppose the views of the President to be, 
 it is nevertheless under their sway that 
 the first acts of our impending revolu- 
 
12 
 
 tions are progres!?ing. Under the same 
 helpless aspect of the General Govern- 
 luent, there remain two more possible 
 solutions of the posture and duty of 
 Kentucky, and other States similarly sit- 
 uated. The first of these i^, that in the 
 progress of events, it may well become 
 the border slave States to unite them- 
 selves into a separate confederacy ; the 
 second is, that it may well become Ken- 
 tucky, under various contingencies, to 
 assume a separate sovereign position, and 
 act by herself. Having clearly stated my 
 own conclusions, I will only say that the 
 first of these two results is not one to be 
 sought as desirable itself, but only as ^m 
 alternative to be preferred to more dan- 
 gerous arrangements. For my unaltera- 
 ble conviction is, that the slave line is the 
 only permanent and secure basis of a 
 confederacy for the slave States, and es- 
 pecially for the border slaee States; and 
 that the Union of free and slave States, 
 in the same confederacy, is the indispen- 
 sable condition of the peaceful and secure 
 existence of slavery. As to the possible 
 isolation of Kentucky, this also, it seems 
 to me, is not a result to be sought. If it 
 should occur as the alternative to evils 
 still greater, Kentucky ought to embrace 
 it with calmness and dignity, and await- 
 ing the progress of events, show by her 
 wisdom, her courage, her moderation, her 
 invincible rectitude, both to this age and 
 to all that are to come, how fully shb under- 
 stood, in the midst of a gainsaying and 
 backsliding generation, that no people 
 ever performed anything glorious who 
 did not trust in God, who did not love 
 their country, and who were not faithful 
 to their oaths. 
 
 It seems to me, therefore, that the im- 
 mediate duty of Kentucky may clearly 
 be stated in very few words : 
 
 1. To stand by the Constitution and 
 the Union of the country to the last ex- 
 tremity. 2. To prevent, as for the mo- 
 ment, the impending and immediate dan- 
 ger, all attempts to seduce her, all attempts 
 to terrify her into the taking of any stejy, 
 inconsistent with her own Constitution 
 
 and laws; any step disregardful of the 
 Constitution and laws of the United 
 States; any step which can possibly com- 
 promise her position or draw her on. oth- 
 erwise than by her own free choice, delib- 
 erately expressed at the polls, according 
 to her existing laws and Constitution, 
 whereby she will choose her own destiny. 
 3. To settle in her heart that the rending 
 of this Union on the slave line is, for her, 
 whatever it may be for others, the most 
 fatal issue that the times can have ; and 
 the doing thi.> in such away as to subject 
 her to the dominion of the cotton States 
 for all time to come, is the very worst 
 form of that fatal issue. 
 
 After all, iny friendft — after all, we have 
 the great promise of God that all things 
 shall work together for good to them that 
 love him. I do not know but that it may 
 be the mind of God, and his divine pur- 
 pose, to break this Union up, and to make 
 of it other nations, that shall at last be 
 mora powerful than it, unitedly, would 
 have been. I do not know, I do not pre- 
 tend to say, how the Lord will use the 
 passions of men to glorify his name. He 
 restrains the remainder of wrath, and will 
 cause the wrath of man to praise Him. 
 We have His divine assurance that all 
 nations that have gone before us, and all 
 that will foilo 7 us, and we ourselves, by 
 our rise, by our progress, and, alas ! by 
 our decay and ruin, are but instruments 
 of His infinite purpose, and means in His 
 adorable providence, whereby the ever- 
 lasting reign of Messiah, the Christ of 
 God, is to be made absolute and universal. 
 
 Great, then, is our consolation, as we 
 tremble for our country, to be confident 
 in our Lord ! Great is our comfort as we 
 bewail the miseries which have befallen 
 our glorious inheritance, to know that the 
 Lord God Omnipotent reigneth ! Infin- 
 itely precious is the assurance, amidst the 
 trials now impending, and the woes which 
 threaten us, that the heroic self-devotion 
 with which our personal duty is dis- 
 charged, is one part of our fitness to be- 
 come partakers of the inheritance of the 
 saints in light! 
 
 54 W 
 

 

 
 
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