of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic.

thoroughly, and what is the result? Why it would be difficult to find now a Southern man who feels the system to be the slightest burden on his conscience; who Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in does not, in fact, regard it as an equal advantage to the which we have a great and vital interest; it is that of master and the slave elevating both, as wealth, strength, revenue, or means of supporting Government. From and power, and as one of the main pillars and controlofficial documents, we learn that a fraction over three-ling influences of modern civilization, and who is not now fourths of the revenue collected for the support of Gov- prepared to maintain it at every hazard. Such have been ernment has uniformly been raised from the North. for us the happy results of this abolition discussion. Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate So far our gain has been immense from this contest, carefully and candidly these important items. Look at savage and malignant as it has been. Nay, we have another necessary branch of Government, and learn from solved already the question of emancipation by this re-exstern statistical facts how matters stand in that depart- amination and exposition of the false theories of religion, ment. I mean the mail and Post-Office privileges that philanthropy, and political economy which embarrassed we now enjoy under the General Government as it has our fathers in their day. been for years past. The expense for the transportation of the mail in the Free States was, by the report of the Postmaster-General for the year 1860, a little over $13,000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the Slave States the transportation of the mail was $14,716,000, while the revenue from the same was $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,704,974, to be supplied by the North for our accommodation, and without it we must have been entirely cut off from this most essential branch of Government.

Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition-and for what, we ask again? Is it for the overthrow of the American Government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of Right, Justice and Humanity? And, as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest Government-the most equal in its rights. the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a Government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century-in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed-is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.

In strong contrast with the doleful narrative of the South Carolina Secessionists, are the following extracts touching the point of the security and prosperity of the Slave system:

From the speech of Hon. JAMES H. HAMMOND, U. S. Senator from South Carolina. delivered at Barnwell Court House, October 27, 1858.

From the time that the wise and good Las Casas first introduced into America the institution of African slavery -I say institution, because it is the oldest that exists, and will, I believe, survive all others that now flourishit has had its enemies. For a long while they were chiefly men of peculiar and eccentric religious notions. Their first practical and political success arose from the convulsions of the French revolution, which lost to that empire its best colony. Next came the prohibition of the slave-trade, the excitement of the Missouri compromise in this country, and then the deliberate emancipation of the slaves in their colonies by the British Government in 1833-34. About the time of the passage of that act the abolition agitation was revived again in this country, and Abolition societies were formed. I remember the time well, and some of you do also.

With our convictions and our strength, emancipation here is simply an impossibility to man, whether by persuasion, purchase, or coercion. The rock of Gibraltar does not stand so firm on its basis as our slave system. For a quarter of a century it has borne the brunt of a hurricane as fierce and pitiless as ever raged. At the North and in Europe they cried havoc," and let loose upon us all the dogs of war. And how stands it now? Why, in this very quarter of a century our slaves have doubled in numbers and each slave has more than doubled in value. The very negro who as a prime laborer would have brought $400 in 1828, would now, with thirty more years upon him, sell for $500. What does all this mean? Why, that we ourselves have settled this question of emancipatoin against all the world, in theory and in practice, and the world must accept our solution.

From the carefully-prepared speech of Hon. ALEX. H. STEPHENS of Georgia, in July, 1859, after his retirement from Congress, and in review of his political course :

Nor am I of the number of those who believe that we have sustained any injury by those agitations. It is true, we were not responsible for them. We were not the sault, calumny, and aspersion, by argument, by reason aggressors. We acted on the defensive. We repelled asand truth. But so far from the institution of African slavery in our section being weakened or rendered less secure by the discussion, my deliberate judgment is, that it has been greatly strengthened and fortified-strengthened and fortified not only to the opinions, convictions, and consciences of men, but by the action of the Government.

From the Charlottesville (Va.) speech of Hon. ROBERT M. T. HUNTER, U. S. Senator from Virginia, at the Breckinridge Democratic State Convention, 1860:

When I first entered the Federal councils, which was at the commencement of Mr. Van Buren's administration, the moral and political status of the slavery question was men themselves, with but few exceptions, admitted slavery different from what it now is. Then the Southern very to be a moral evil, and palliated and excused it upon the plea of necessity. Then there were few men of any party to be found in the non-slaveholding States who did not maintain both the constitutionality and expediency of the anti-slavery resolution, now generally known as the Wilmot Proviso. Had any man at that day ventured the prediction that the Missouri restriction would ever be repealed, he would have been deemed a visionary and theorist of the wildest sort. What a revolution have we not witnessed in all this! The discussion and the contest on the slavery question have gone on ever since, so as to absorb almost entirely the American mind. In many respects the results of that discussion have not been adverse to us. Southern men no longer occupy a deprecatory attitude upon the question of negro slavery in this country. While they by no means pretend that slavery is a good condition of things, under any circumstances and in all countries, they do maintain that, under the relations that And what then was the state of opinion in the South? the two races stand to each other here, it is best for both Washington had emancipated his slaves. Jefferson had that the inferior should be subjected to the superior. The bitterly denounced the system, and had done all that he same opinion is extending even to the North, where it is could to destroy it. Our Clays, Marshalls, Crawfords, entertained by many, although not generally accepted. and many other prominent Southern men, had led off in As evidence, too, of the growing change on this subject the colonization scheme. The inevitable effect in the of the public sentiment of the world, I may refer to the South was that she believed slavery to be an evil-weak-course of France and Great Britain in regard to the coolie ness-disgraceful-nay, a sin. She shrunk from the and the African apprenticeship system introduced into discussion of it. She cowered under every threat. She their colonies. That they are thus running the slaveattempted to apologize, to excuse herself under the plea- trade in another form is rarely denied. It is not to be which was true-that England had forced upon her: and supposed that these Governments are blind to the real nain fear and trembling she awaited a doom that she deemed ture of this coolie-trade; and the arguments by which inevitable. But a few bold spirits took the question they defend it already afford an evidence of a growing up: they compelled the South to investigate it anew and change in their opinions upon slavery in general.

December 31st. JOSEPH HOLT, Postmaster-General, was entrusted with the temporary charge of the War Department, and January 8th, 1861. Forts Johnson and January 18th, 1861, was appointed SecreCaswell seized by the State militia. Gov-tary of War.

ernor Ellis ordered them to be surrendered to January 8th, 1861. JACOB THOMPSON rethe United States authorities, with an inti- signed as Secretary of the Interior, because mation to the President that if any attempt" additional troops, he had heard, have been should be made to reinforce them, they ordered to Charleston" in the Star of the would be again seized and held by the State. West.

Correspondence between President Buchanan and the "Commissioners" of South Carolina.

The "Commissioners" to the President.

Washington, Dec. 28th, 1860.

And, in conclusion, we would urge upon you the immediate withdrawal of the troops from the harbor of Charleston. Under present circumstances they are a standing menace which renders negotiation impossible, and, as our recent experience shows, threatens speedily to bring to a bloody issue questions which ought to be settled with temperance and judgment.

SIR: We have the honor to transmit to you a copy of the full powers from the Convention of the people of South Carolina, under which we are "authorized and empowered to treat with the Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, lighthouses, and other real estate, with their appurtenances, in the limits of South Carolina; and also for an apportionment of the public debt, and for a To the President of the United States.

We have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servants,

division of all other property held by the Government of the United States as agent of the Confederated States of which South Carolina was recently a member, and generally to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing relation of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and amity between this Commonwealth and the Government at Washington."

In the execution of this trust, it is our duty to furnish you, as we now do, with an official copy of the Ordinance of Secession by which the State of South Carolina has resumed the powers she delegated to the Government of the United States, and has declared her perfect sovereignty and independence.

It would also have been our duty to have informed you that we were ready to negotiate with you upon all such questions as are necessarily raised by the adoption of this ordinance, and that we were prepared to enter upon this negotiation with the earnest desire to avoid all unnecessary and hostile collision, and so to inaugurate our new relations as to secure mutual respect, general advantage, and a future of good-will and harmony beneficial to all the parties concerned. But the events of the last twenty-four hours render such an assurance impossible.

We came here the representatives of an authority which could, at any time within the past sixty days, have taken possession of the forts in Charleston harbor, but which, upon pledges given in a manner that we cannot doubt, determined to trust to your honor rather than to its own power. Since our arrival here, an officer of the United States, acting, as we are assured, not only without, but against your orders, has dismantled one fort and occupied another; thus altering, to a most important extent, the condition of affairs under which we came. Until the circumstances are explained in a manner which relieves us of all doubt as to the spirit in which these negotiations shall be conducted, we are forced to suspend all discussion as to any arrangements by which our mutual interests might be amicably adjusted.

R. W. BARNWELL,
J. H. ADAMS,
JAMES L. ORR,

Commissioners.

The President to the "Commissioners."

Washington, December 30th, 1860. GENTLEMEN: I have had the honor to receive your communication of the 28th inst., together with a copy of "your full powers from the Convention of the people of South Carolina," authorizing you to treat with the Government of the United States on various important subjects therein mentioned, and also a copy of the Ordinance, bearing date on the 20th inst., declaring that "the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."

In answer to this communication, I have to say that my position as President of the United States was clearly defined in the message to Congress on the 3d inst. In that I stated that "apart from the execution of the laws, so far as this may be practicable, the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal Government and South Carolina. He has been invested with no such discretion. He possesses no power to change the relations heretofore existing between them, much less to acknowledge the independence of that State. This would be to invest a mere executive officer with the power of recognizing the dissolution of the Confederacy among our thirty-three sovereign States. It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign de facto Government, involving no such responsibility. Any attempt to do this would, on his part, be a naked act of usurpation. It is, therefore, my duty to submit to Congress the whole question in all its bearings."

Such is my opinion still. I could, there fore, meet you only as private gentlemen of the highest character, and was entirely willing to communicate to Congress any proposition you might have to make to that body upon the subject. Of this you were well aware. It was my earnest desire that such a disposition might be made of the whole subject by Congress, who alone possess the power, as to prevent the inauguration of a civil war between the parties in regard to the possession of the Federal forts in the harbor of Charleston, and I therefore deeply

regret that, in your opinion, "the events of the last twenty-four hours render this impossible."

In conclusion, you urge upon me the "immediate withdrawal of the troops from the harbor of Charleston," stating that "under present circumstances they are a standing menace which renders negotiation impossible, and, as our recent experience shows, threatens speedily to bring to a bloody issue questions which ought to be settled with temperance and judgment."

The reason for this change in your position is, that since your arrival in Washington, "an officer of the United States, acting, as we, (you) are assured, not only without, but against your (my) orders, has dismantled one fort and occupied another thus altering to a most important extent the condition of affairs under which we (you) came." You also allege that you came here "the representatives of an authority which could, at any time within the past sixty days, have taken possession of the forts in Charleston harbor, but which, upon pledges given in a manner that we (you) cannot doubt, determined to trust to your (my) honor rather than to its power." This brings me to a consideration of the nature of those alleged pledges, and in what manner they have been observed.

Washington, December 9th, 1860. "To His Excellency James Buchanan, President of the United States:

"In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authorities, nor any body of the people of the State of South Carolina, will either attack or molest the United States forts in the harbor of Charleston, previously to the action of the Convention, and we hope and believe not until an offer has been made through an accredited representative to negotiate for an amicable arrangement of al matters between the State and the Federal Government; provided that no reinforcements shall be sent into those forts and their relative military status shall remain as at present. JOHN MCQUEEN,

M. L. BONHAM,
W. W. BOYCE,

LAWRENCE M. KEITT." And here I must, in justice to myself, remark that at the time the paper was presented to me I objected to the word "provided," as it might be construed into an agreement on my part, which I never would make. They said that nothing was farther from their intention; they did not so understand it, and I should not so consider it. It is evident they could enter into no reIn my message of the 3d of December ciprocal agreement with me on the subject. last, I stated, in regard to the property of They did not profess to have the authority the United States in South Carolina, that it to do this, and were acting in their individ"has been purchased for a fair equivalent, ual character. I considered it as nothing by the consent of the Legislature of the more, in effect, than the promise of highly State," for the erection of forts, magazines, honorable gentlemen to exert their influence arsenals, &c., and over these the authority for the purpose expressed. The event has "to exercise exclusive legislation" has been proven that they have faithfully kept this expressly granted by the Constitution to promise, although I have never since reCongress. It is not believed that any at-ceived a line from any one of them nor from tempt will be made to expel the United States from this property by force; but if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive. In such a contingency, the responsibility for consequences would rightfully rest upon the heads of the assailants.

This being the condition of the parties, on Saturday, 8th December, four of the Representatives from South Carolina called upon me and requested an interview. We had an earnest conversation on the subject of these forts, and the best means of preventing a collision between the parties, for the purpose of sparing the effusion of blood. I suggested, for prudential reasons, that it would be best to put in writing what they said to me verbally. They did so accordingly, and on Monday morning, the 10th instant, three of them presented to me a paper signed by all the Representatives from South Carolina, with a single exception, of which the following is a copy:

any member of the Convention on the subject. It is well known that it was my determination, and this I freely expressed, not to reinforce the forts in the harbor, and thus produce a collision, until they had been actually attacked or until I had certain evidence that they were about to be attacked. This paper I received most cordially, and considered it as a happy omen that peace might be still preserved, and that time might be thus given for reflection. This is the whole foundation for the alleged pledge.

But I acted in the same manner as I would have done had I entered into a positive and formal agreement with parties capable of contracting, although such an agreement would have been on my part, from the nature of my official duties, impossible. The world knows that I have never sent any reinforcements to the forts in Charleston harbor, and I have certainly never authorized any change to be made "in their relative military status." Bearing upon this subject, I refer you to an order issued by the Secretary of War, on the 11th instant, to Major Anderson, but not brought