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Journal of the Convention of the people of South Carolina By South Carolina. Convention, David Flavel Jameson, Confederate States of America, South Carolina
Mr. Rhett offered the following amendment:
"But this Convention deems it due to the Confederate States, expressly to declare, that in ratifying and adopting the above Constitution, they suppose that it establishes a Confederacy of Slaveholding States; and this State does not consider herself as bound to enter or continue in confederation with any State not tolerating the institution of slavery within its limits by its fundamental law."
On motion of Mr. Adams, leave of absence was granted to Mr. Hopkins, on account of indisposition."
On motion of Mr. Inglis, business was suspended at forty-five minutes past three o'clock, P. M., until seven o'clock, P. M.
RECESS. The President resumed the effair.
Mr. Reed moved that the amendment be ordered to lie on the table. -'Ir. Inglis rose to a question of order.
The President decided the motion to lay the amendment on the table
in order.
Mr. Cheves appealed from the decision of the chair; and the question being put, will the Convention sustain the decision of the chair? it passed in the negative:
Yeas, 41; nays, 89.
The yeas and nays were demanded, and are as follows:
Those who voted in the affirmative, are
Hon. D. F. JAMISON, President; and Messrs. Brown, C. P. Messrs. Glover,
Burnet, Gourdin, R. N.
Cain, Gregg, Maxcy,
Campbell, Hanckel,
Carroll, Henderson,
Caughman, Jenkins, John
Da van t, Kershaw,
DeSaussure, Kinsler,
DuPre, Mazyck,
Evans, Middleton, J. Izard
Flud, . Middleton, W.
Gist, Miles,
Messrs. Nowell,"
O'Hear,
Palmer,
Perrin,
Rhett,
Rhodes,
Rutledge,
Smith, J. J.
Messrs. Snowden,
Spratt;
Stokes,
'Wagner,
Wardlaw, F. H.
Williams,
Wilson, J. H.
Withers.
Those who voted in the negative, are
Messrs. Adams, Allison,
Atkinson,
Barnwell,
Barron,
Barton,
Bellinger,
Bethea,
Bobo,
Caldwell,
Calhoun,
Carlisle,
Carn,
Cauthen,
Charles,
Chesnut,
Cheves,
Conner,
Crawford,
Darby,
Davis,
DeTreville,
Duncan,
Dunovant, R. G. M.
Ellis,
English,
Forster,
Foster,
Frampton,
Messrs. Garlington,
Geiger,
Goodwin,
Green,
Gregg, William
Grisham,
Hammond,
Harrison,
Hunter,
Hutson,
Inglis,
Jackson,
Jefferies,
Jenkins, J. E.
Johnson,
Kilgore,
Kinard,
Landrum,
Lewis,
Logan,
Lyles,
McCrady,
Mclver,
McKee,
McLeod,
Magrath,
Mauigault,
Mauldin,
Maxwell,
So the decision of the President was not sustained.
On motion of Sir. Mazyck, it was ordered that when the Convention adjourns, it shall be adjourned to meet to-morrow, at eleven o'clock, A. M.
On motion of Mr. Spain, the Convention was adjourned at thirty minutes past 8 o'clock, P. M.
B. F. ARTHUR,
Clerk of the Convention
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Hon. B. H. Hill, at Atlanta, Georgia April 4, 1861.
But what should be our policy towards the States of the old Union? It should be that of kindness and the most friendly relations. Kindness is the law of Heaven, and we cannot ignore it, or get along without it. If they will fight us, we must fight them, otherwise we should have no fighting. We should not fight a yielding foe, nor yield to a fighting one. I want, too, the other slaveholding States to come with us. I want them. I will talk lovingly and wooingly with them, to get them to do so. There may be some good reason in their not coming now, and perhaps some good may grow out of it. Who knows? We must have them; and we must not taunt them for being slow. Old Virginia will be true. She hesitates now, but she will come. She is trying to bring her children with her; but if she fails, as fail she will, then she will come. If Virginia, the Old Mother of States, does come, then North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennesse must come. It is said that she will decrease in her slave population, and eventually become a Free State. This is not so. Her slaves have largely increased in the last ten years, and they will continue to do so to the end.
I want the Border States for another reason: We will have to be more nearly balanced against the North if we get along well. Seven States to twenty-seven, as we now stand, is too great a disparity. The Border States will equalize our power with the North. When we have all the Slave States with us, the North will go to pieces with a redundant population. Nothing but the conservatism of the South has heretofore saved them from anarchy.
I am sorry that the question of admitting none of the non-Slave States has been raised. It is premature, and no good can come of it. No application for admission, by a non-slave State has been made, and is not likely to be made. The PRESENT is enough to fill our hands and bring into exercise all our spare power. Leave the future to determine its own questions. I am perfectly willing to trust this question to the future and to posterity. Its agitation is unnecessary, and no good ever came of discussing an unnecessary question. We are getting along too fast in this respect -- not only counting our chickens before they are hatched, but before the eggs are laid. Our business in this line is with the Border States. We have interests with them; and to be debating question as to the admission or non-admission of them, or any other States, will be deleterious to those interests, and do no good any way. It becomes us, while we are seeking and needing power, not to discuss questions which, not only can do no possible good, but which will cause our enemies to make false issues against us to our damage. There are many reasons showing it to be hurtful to discuss this question, and I hope it will not be done.
One thing I will say: I will never agree, while I live, to let a State come into our Confederacy that does not recognize and protect Slavery as property, never -- NEVER -- NEVER! My opinion is, that the two-thirds requirement for the admission of new States, which our Constitution contains, will always be ample protection to our people. We should not lay down a rule by which we would prevent Texas from forming a stock raising State out of her present limits -- or that would exclude such State if formed. It may be that cotton will not grow in a large portion of Texas, and that slave labor in that section would be unprofitable.
The people in that section are true to us, and it would be folly to cut them off by an arbitrary and unwise rule.
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New York Times.... April 1861
...The Charleston Mercury is nervously apprehensive lest all the fruits of secession may be lost by the admission of the poor unfortunate Free States, into the Southern Alliance. The silly conceit seems to be really entertained that first the States of the Northwest, and then New-York and Pennsylvania, will soon be knocking at the doors of the Confederate State Government for admission. A large preponderance of the people of those States really desire reannexation, but, with characteristic egotism, they put this flattering- disguise upon their secret longings, by supposing that the Free States will follow them. The Mercury and the South Carolinians, on the contrary, are for secession per se, finally and forever, and it is with gloomy forebodings that they hear the idea of "reconstruction" suggested. It seems, according to the revelations recently given in the Mercury, that quite a struggle was made in the Montgomery Congress, or Convention, on this question, and that the reconstructionists, who insisted upon leaving the door open for the admission of Free States, carried the day! Never was there a more fruitless and bootless controversy. An ounce of common sense would have dispelled this illusion of the Slavery propagandists that the Free States, or any one of them, would ever think of quitting the Union formed by WASHINGTON, FRANKLIN, JEFFERSON, HAMILTON, ADAMS and MADISON, on the noble and generous basis of liberty, for the sake of joining the vile conspiracy of JEFF. DAVIS, TOOMBS, KEITT and SLIDELL against freedom and civilization. Nothing but the infatuation of ignorance, pride and malice could ever have generated the peurile conceit....
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When a Revolution is based, as Lincoln alluded to, on a lie, a "red herring" there will be problems, and it shows in the process to ratify the Confederate Constitution. You can feel an uneasyness with the realization by early April 1861, that maybe they had made a mistake and listened to the wrong people. President Lincoln would, in a few days, refocus their cause and finally take away the power of the fire-eaters and hand it to those fighting for the state rights, self determination and independence.
David Upton