CHAPTER II

PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS

THE

HE "Declaration of Causes" and its accompanying address which the South Carolina Convention put forth to justify secession, both deal in such ambiguous phrases and vague generalities that in the main they betray their own weakness and insufficiency; and the critical student finds the same defect in the whole deluge of Southern rhetoric, spoken and written to defend the rebellion. If any denial or refutation of many of the allegations they contained were needed, it is conveniently furnished by an authority whose competency the Southern people themselves cannot deny. Alexander H. Stephens, who was soon afterwards elected Vice-President of the Confederate States, made the following frank criticism which is all the more valuable that it was written in a confidential letter to his brother and remained unpublished till after the war:

I have read the address put forth by the Convention at Charleston to the Southern States. It has not impressed me favorably. In it South Carolina clearly shows that it is not her intention to be satisfied with any redress of grievances. Indeed, she hardly deigns to specify any. The slavery question is almost entirely ignored. Her greatest complaint seems to be the tariff, though there VOL. III.-2

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СНАР. ІІ.

CHAP. II. is but little intelligent or intelligible thought on that subject. Perhaps the less she said about it the better. For the present tariff from which she secedes is just what her own Senators and Members in Congress made it. There are general and vague charges about consolidation, despotism, etc., and the South having, under the operation of the general Government, been reduced to a minority incapable of protecting itself, etc. This complaint I do not think well founded. It arises more from a spirit of peevishness or restless fretfulness than from calm and deliberate judgment. The truth is, the South, almost in mass, has voted I think for every measure of general legislation that has passed both Houses and become law for the last ten years. Indeed, with but few exceptions, the South has controlled the Government in its every important action from the beginning. The protective policy was once, for a time, carried against the South; but that was subsequently completely changed. Our policy ultimately prevailed. The South put in power -or joined a united country in putting in power and sustaining the Administration of Washington for eight years. She put in and sustained Jefferson eight years, Madison eight years, Jackson eight years, Van Buren four years, Tyler four years, Polk four years, Pierce four years, and Buchanan four years. That is, they have aided in making and sustaining the administration for sixty years out of the seventy-two of the government's existence. Does this look like we were or are in an abject minority at the mercy of a despotic Northern majority, rapacious to rob and plunder us? It is true we are in a minority, and have been a long time. It is true also that a party at the North advocate principles which would lead to a Stephens to despotism, and they would rob us if they had the power Stephens, I have no doubt of that. But by the prudent and wise Jan. 1, 1861. counsels of Southern statesmen this party has been kept Browne, in the minority in the past, and by the same prudent and wise statesmanship on our part I can but hope and think it can be so for many long years to come.

A. H.

Linton

Johnston &

"Life of A. H. Stephens,"

p. 375.

On one point, however, the South Carolina "Declaration of Causes" attempted to be specific,

saying that "fourteen of the States have deliber- CHAP. II. ately refused for years past to fulfill their constitutional obligations. . . The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa have enacted laws which either nullify the acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them." These acts were popularly known as "Personal Liberty Bills"; and since Mr. Stephens in the same letter we have quoted also declares that "they constitute the only cause in my opinion which can justify secession," the subject demands a careful examination. We shall see how, under analysis, the Personal Liberty Bills also dwindle into ridiculous insignificance as a motive for disunion and war.

It was a chronic evil in the system of slavery that slaves would run away from their masters. The liberty of which a hostile tribe robbed the ancestor in Africa, the children would strive to regain to the latest generation, anywhere under the sun. The master was a perpetual jailer, but his single vigilance was not enough to hold his captive; he required the help of the entire community; even this was insufficient; he needed also the assistance of bordering States. When the Constitution of the United States was formed, the movement towards the abolition of slavery in the Northern States was already in progress. The delegates from the South considered it a great gain that, instead of being obliged to depend upon the separate action of each Northern State for the recovery of their runaways under the mere obligation of interna