The
peaceful political separation desired by the American South in early
1861 is best summarized in President Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address:
“We seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from
the States with which we were lately confederated. All we ask is to be
let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt
our subjugation by arms.”
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
The Greatest of Rights Reserved to the States:
“From Mr. [Robert] Toombs, Secretary of State, Message No. 5, Department of State, Montgomery, Alabama, May 18, 1861.
To: Hon Wm. L. Yancey, Hon. Pierre A. Rost, Hon. A. Dudley Mann, Commissioners of the Confederate States, etc.
Gentlemen: My dispatch of the 24th
ultimo contained an accurate summary of the important events which had
transpired up to that date, and informed you that the Executive of the
United States had commenced a war of aggression against the Confederate
States.
On the 20th
instant the convention of the people of North Carolina will assemble at
Raleigh, and there is no doubt that, immediately thereafter, ordinances
of secession from the United States, and union with the Confederate
States, will be adopted.
Although
ten independent and sovereign States have thus deliberately severed the
bonds which bound them in political union with the United States, and
have formed a separate and independent Government for themselves, the
President of the United States affects to consider that the Federal
Union is still legally and constitutionally unbroken….He claims to be
our ruler, and insists that he has the right to enforce our obedience.
From
the newspaper press, the rostrum, and the pulpit, the partisans of Mr.
Lincoln, while they clamorously assert their devotion to the Union and
Constitution of the United States, daily preach a relentless war between
the sections, to be prosecuted not only in violation of all
constitutional authority, but in disregard of the simplest law of
humanity.
The
authorized exponents of the sentiments of [Lincoln’s party]…avow that
it is the purpose of the war to subjugate the Confederate States,
spoliate the property of our citizens, sack and burn our cities and
villages, and exterminate our citizens…..
[The]
real motive which actuates Mr. Lincoln and those who now sustain his
acts is to accomplish by force of arms that which the masses of the
Northern people have long sought to effect – namely, the overthrow of
our domestic institutions, the devastation and destruction of our social
interests, and the reduction of the Southern States to the condition of
subject provinces.
It
is not astonishing that a people educated in that school which always
taught the maintenance of the rights of the few against the might of the
many, which ceaselessly regarded the stipulation to protect and
preserve the liberties and vested rights of every member of the
Confederacy as the condition precedent upon which each State delegated
certain powers necessary for self-protection to the General Government,
should refuse to submit dishonorably to the destruction of their
constitutional liberty, the insolent denial of their right to govern
themselves and to hold and enjoy their property in peace.
In
the exercise of that greatest of the rights reserved to the several
States by the late Federal Constitution – namely, the right for each
State to be judge for itself, as well of the infractions of the compact
of the Union, as of the mode and measure of redress – the sovereignties
composing the Confederate States resolved to sever their political
connection with the United States and form a Government of their own,
willing to effect this purpose peacefully at any sacrifice save that of
honor and liberty, but determined even at the cost of war to assert
their right to independence and self-government.”
(A
Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy 1861-1865,
James D. Richardson, Volume II, US Publishing Company, 1905, excerpt,
pp. 26-31)
