OUTRAGES ON NORTHERN MEN.

seizure, gave the different States arms enough to equip several divisions each for immediate service. Had it not been for these sales by Northern men, during December, January, February and March, and the filling up of the Southern arsenals, during the summer of 1860, the rebellion would have been almost powerless for want of arms.

Sad Condition of
Monetary Affairs.

The

333

Outrages perpetrated on Northern Men.

The excitement against Northern men became so great, that, when the secession movement took the shape of certainty in its accomplishment, persecutions were so generally inflicted as to cause a perfect hegira of Northern mechanics and agents, as well as of those entertaining Union sentiments. Almost every steamer from Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, during the months of February, March, April, and May, brought numbers of persons of Northern birth, fleeing from the South for their lives. In some instances great amounts of property were left behind-the "Committee of Safety" allowing no time for a man to close his affairs prior to leaving. The summons to leave generally stipulated twenty-four hours as the required time in which to escape from threatened "consequences." The history of some of these cases is peculiarly revolting, and excites in the mind a feeling of incredulity that

conspiracy was said to have been discovered just previous to the holidays, which caused apprehension for a while, and only ended by the hanging of several negroes, by a self-constituted court, and the most terrible punishment of flogging administered to others of the blacks supposed to be implicated. The various communities in the Cotton States The condition of mone- were qui vive in regard to the negroes; and tary affairs throughout all the extraordinary precautions taken by plantthe Seceded States grewers, by committees of safety, and by the daily more oppressive, as the winter advanced. minute-men organizations, prove that, pracMoney became of extreme scarcity. tically, the Southern people regarded their general suspension of specie payment by human "property" in any other light than as Southern banks had not given any percepti- cattle and horses.* ble relief to the community. Property so rapidly depreciated as to have no longer any fixed value. Real estate in Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, &c., commanded no sale, at any price; while the inexorable tax levies daily aggregated in their demands until the prospect of oppression as well as of ruin stared property-holders in the face. The two hundred millions due to the North was, by the acts of secession and the general suspension of Federal Courts, as well as by "stay laws" passed by most of the "original seven," placed upon the retired list "to be paid when amicable relations with the North should be restored." Yet, this enormous virtual repudiation scarcely affected the masses -it only gave immunity from pressure to the commercial class; but, even merchants, with stores stuffed by Northern goods, for which only Southern promises-to-pay were given, could find no sale for their stocks except by extending credits, which, in turn, filled their hands with promises-to-pay, liable to be assessed as so much taxable property, upon which assessments must be paid in coin. Slaves, in common with other property, depreciated; and, in all districts they were regarded as a source of weakness rather than of strength in event of a state of war. Several millions of bondmen, ignorant to a degree almost bordering on barbarism, but with native instincts which rendered them a shrewd and persevering race, were not calculated to inspire their masters with a feeling of security; hence, we find alarms of insurrections greatly exciting the States of Alabama and Georgia, during the winter. In the former State a

*It is denied, in some quarters, that the negroes are a source of weakness. Under military and civil pressure they may be regarded as docile and tractable; but, the presence of an overawing power is considered, by the Southerners themselves, as their only safety. The history of the Denmark Vesey insurrection in South Carolina-of the Nat. Turner in-. surrection in Southampton County, Virginia-prove

that in the black breasts of the negroes there is a slumbering fire which no power on earth may quench.

The Charleston papers said their slaves would do the

food-raising, the intrenching, &c., while the young men of the South would do the fighting; but, it is to be doubted if any community in the South, during 1861, was left without its available guard against uprisings.

such wrongs could have been perpetrated in | several instances, when the victim was hangany civilized community. The case stated on ed, the papers recorded the event in a humorpage 134 was almost daily confirmed, during ous strain. We shall recur to this feature of the months named, by the story of the wrongs the revolution in a future chapter, giving. of some wretched sufferer, at the hands of a such accredited statements as will place the self-constituted "committee" in the revolu- fact and nature of these outrages beyond all tionary sections. Southern papers occasion- controversy. They will cast a shadow across ally would chronicle these outrages, and even the darkness of the dark record of the would not fail, in all cases, to affix the stigma revolution, and will serve to give both the of "abolitionist" to the persecuted party as a Christian philanthropist and the politician full and only justification for the violence suggestive mile-stones by which to direct perpetrated "by a body of our citizens." In their future steps.

CHAPTER XXIII

CONGRESS OF THE SECEDED STATES. NAMES
NORTH CAROLINA COMMISSIONERS.

FROM THE CHAIR.

HOWELL

OF DELEGATES.

COBB'S SPEECH

CONSTITUTION ADOPTED. ITS SPECIAL CLAUSES. ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT. MR.

STEPHENS' SPEECHES. PROCEEDINGS UP то FEBRUARY 16TH.

Extraordinary Character of the Congress.

Extraordinary Char acter of the Congress.

THE Montgomery Con- | towards them by their revention of Delegates as- spective Conventions. This sembled Monday, February Montgomery Convention 4th. The plans and policy of the Conven- was composed of delegates elected by the sev tion appear to have been quite generally eral State Conventions. How they were comunderstood by the people to be a recon- posed the reader has already been informed, struction of the Union of Slave States upon [see p. 203-4.] It thus represented an organthe basis of the Federal Constitution.* This ized revolution, solely-one which, in all cases, understanding, indeed, made the people tol- refused to allow the people to decide for erant of the open-handed usurpation practiced themselves, [see Yancey's speech, page 205,

*Thus, the Memphis (Tenn.) Inquirer used the following language, to induce the Tennessee people to join in the movement for a Southern Confed

eracy:

"It is well known beforehand that the Constitution, as it is, will be readopted, and such explana tions of contested sections of that instrument added as amendments, as to leave not the shadow of a doubt concerning their effect on the Southern social system. That is, it will be the same as though the Constitution of the United States were taken up and amended, at the discretion of Southern statesmen, so far as it affects Southern rights, all without the opposition or interruption of Northern members. It

will not be touched at present, any further than to be rendered perfectly unambiguous as to the domes tic institutions of the South. Has anybody in the South any objection to this? The very crisis that now weighs like lead on every man's mind has arisen from a diversity in the interpretation of certain clauses in the Constitution; or, which is the same thing, the fanaticism of the North has been wheedled into the idea that its sectional character is, at least, not adverse to the Constitution itself. It will now at once be seen that the Constitution of the United States, thus explained and amended, would still" authorize the reception of States, just as it has always done; and should Tennessee secede, she

PROCEEDINGS

Extraordinary Character of the Congress.

Proceedings of the
Congress.

Alabama-R. W. Walker, R.
H. Smith, J. L. M. Curry, W.
P. Chilton, S. F. Hale, Colon
J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, David P. Lewis, Thomas
Fearn.

Florida-James B. Owens, J. Patton Anderson.

(Jackson Morton was not present.)

for the justification of this tyrannical usurpation.] Convening to organize a Government, these forty-two delegates proceeded to their work with all the authority of umpires from whom there was no appeal. They were to adopt Articles of Confederation, a Constitution, organize Departments, elect a President and Vice-President, confirm Cabinet and Ministerial appointments-in fact, to place a fully-developed and powerful Government in operation over the people. There is no parallel for such usurpation, under the guise of freedom, on the whole page of history. Mississippi-W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, N. S. The people had nothing to do in the organ-Wilson, A. M. Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison. ization of the Government-no voice in the

election of its officers-no option or judgment to exercise in the matter. They were as thoroughly ignored as if no power rested in them. A self-elected assembly gave them the law, gave them rulers, gave them inter-State obligations, voted war for them, imposed taxes, appropriated their property, impressed them to serve in the ranks; and, so cleverly was the entire scheme managed,that, notwithstanding all this glaring outrage of the first principles of a Republican Government, the people were led as obediently into the movement as their own slaves would have been led into

the shambles.

The Convention was organized February 4th, when the following delegates presented their credentials and signed the roll:

would of course have no objection to the acknowledgment of the Constitution, made secure against any misunderstanding, which is held by some to jus tify, if it does not originate, the divisions now rife in the country. Any other State or States which might be willing to accept the Constitution thus amended in a Southern Convention, could of course be fairly received. It may be recollected that Mississippi refused, by a vote of sixty-seven to twentythree, to say that she would never receive any Free States into a Southern Confederacy. The Southern Rights advocates have no objection to secure exact equality under their Constitution. And to a reconstruction, on this basis, they are not opposed, so far as we know. Many a man, it is true, may doubt whether this can ever be done; but certainly no one has any objection to it if it can be done. And the way to test whether it is practicable, is to make the trial, as the Montgomery Convention will proceed directly to give an opportunity."

Georgia-Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, F. S. BarWright, Thomas R. R. Cobb, A. H. Kenan, A. H. tow, M. J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Stephens.

Louisiana-John Perkins, Jr., A. Declonet, Charles M. Conrad, D. F. Kenner, G. E. Sparrow, Henry Marshall.

South Carolina-R. B. Rhett, Sr., R. W. Barnwell,

L. M. Keitt, James Chesnut, Jr., C. G. Memminger,
Porcher Miles, Thomas J. Withers, W. W. Boyce.*

Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, then suggest-
ed the election of a President of the Conven-
tion, saying:-"On the part of the deputies
from South Carolina, I present the name of a
gentleman for that office who has been illus-
trious on the arena of the General Govern-
ment-whose name is coextensive with the
length and breadth of this whole country-- I
nominate the Hon. Howell Cobb, of Georgia,
for President of this Convention. [Applause.]
I am sure that his election will be unanimous.
I therefore propose that he be declared Pres-
ident by acclamation." And the motion
prevailed. Mr. Cobb assumed the chair, to.
pronounce from it the following address:

44

Accept, gentlemen of the Convention, my sincere thanks for the honor which you have conferred on me. I shall endeavor, by a faithful and impartial discharge of the duties of the Chair, to merit, in some degree, at least, the confidence which you have reposed in me. The occasion which assembles us together is one of no ordinary character. We meet as the representatives of sovereign and independent States, who by their solemn judgment have dissolved all the political associations which connected them with the Government of the United States. Of the causes which have led to this decision it is unneces. sary now to speak: it is enough to announce that,

*Texas seceded February 1st, and appointed delegates to the Montgomery Convention February 11th, notwithstanding her Ordinance of Secession was not to be considered as binding until February 23d, when the people were to be permitted to vote on it! This is only another instance in the category of usur. pations.

Resolved, That all propositions in reference to a Provisional Government be referred to this Com-ery, Alabama, for the purpose above indicated." mittee."

Stephens, of Georgia, moved to substitute the word "Congress" for "Convention" - to which Mr. M. agreed. A substitute for the resolutions was offered by Bartow, of Georgia, namely:

THE MONTGOMERY CONGRESS.

February 7th, a resolu- | drawal from them; these States tion was received from the hereby declaring it to be their Alabama Legislature, plac- wish and earnest desire to ading the sum of five hundred thousand dollars just everything pertaining to the common property, common liabilities, and common obligations of that at the disposition of the "Provisional GovernUnion upon principles of right, justice, equity, and ment of the Confederacy of the Seceded good faith." States," as a loan, with which to set the new Government in motion.

"Article second-Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of this Confederacy. "Article fourth of the third clause of the second appointment of a committee to prepare and