The Brothers' War - The Original Classic Edition. John Calvin

original parties to the compact, bordering the Atlantic in a narrow belt, while their separate interests were in embryo, their peculiar tendencies scarcely developed, their Revolutionary trials and triumphs still green in memory, found union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of this day may well yield somewhat in the conflict of opinion and policy, to preserve that union which has extended the sway of republican government over a vast wilderness to another ocean, and proportionally advanced their civilization and national greatness.

       Third. That in this spirit the State of Georgia has considered the action of congress, embracing a series of measures for the admission of California into the union, the organization of territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico, the establishment of a boundary between the latter and the State of Texas, the suppression of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the extradition of fugitive slaves, and (connected with them) the rejection of propositions to exclude slavery from the Mexican Territories, and to abolish it in the District of Columbia; and, whilst she does not wholly approve, will abide by it as a permanent adjustment of this sectional controversy.

       Fourth. That the State of Georgia, in the judgment of this convention, will and ought to resist, even--as a last resort--to a disruption of every tie which binds her to the union, any future act of congress abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, without

       the consent and petition of the slaveholders thereof, or any act abolishing slavery in places within the slaveholding States, purchased by the United States for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other like purposes; or any act suppressing the slave-trade between slaveholding States; or any refusal to admit as a State any Territory [Pg 10]applying, because of the existence of slavery therein; or any act prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the Territories of Utah and New Mexico; or any act repealing or materially modifying the laws now in force for the recovery of fugitive slaves.

       Fifth. That it is the deliberate opinion of this convention, that upon the faithful execution of the fugitive slave bill by the proper authorities depends the preservation of our much loved union."

       This platform was the work of statesmen who had added to the wisdom of the fathers, making the declaration of independence, articles of confederation, and the great constitution, worthy wisdom of their own from a far more varied experience and better training in government. These statesmen came indiscriminately from all parties. The people in the State, from the highest in authority through every intermediate circle down to the humblest citizen, deliberately, without excitement or passion, endorsed this platform with practical unanimity. And all parties stood upon it to the end. This was not an ignorant, debased, corrupt, unrighteous people;

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       but it was even better in everything that makes a people great and good than the former generation which had given the country

       Washington and Jefferson.

       Especially should the student meditate what this solemn declaration shows was the sentiment of the people of the State at that time towards the American union. Every one of the five planks contains its own most convincing proof of deepest devotion. Think of the child who at last resolves to fly from the home which had been inexpressibly sweet until the stepmother came; of the father whose conscience commands him to save the mother's life by killing the assailing son; of what the true Othello felt when he had

       to execute the precious Desdemona for what he believed to be her falseness--think of these examples, if you would realize the agony[Pg 11] of the better classes of the southern people when they at last discovered that the union had changed from being their best friend into their most fell enemy.

       The Georgia Platform was actually drafted, I believe, by A. H. Stephens, then a whig. It was probably moulded in its substance--especially in the fourth and fifth planks--more by Toombs, also a whig, than any other. Howell Cobb, a democrat, approved, and was elected governor upon it the next year, receiving the ardent support of Toombs and Stephens. Toombs was just forty, Stephens a year or two, and Cobb some six or seven years, less than forty. These three were the leading authors. Note how much younger they

       were than Calhoun, who had a few months before died in his sixty-ninth year. The platform indicates the new sentiment, not only of Georgia but of the entire south. When its contents are compared with the doctrine of nullification, it clearly shows as the production of a new era in the history of southern nationalization; for it marks what we may somewhat metaphorically distinguish as the close

       of the pro-union and opening of the anti-union defence of slavery. The proclivity to secession uninterruptedly increases from this

       point on.

       I would have it noted that the tactics of this fourth stage are unaggressive. The Georgia Platform was no more than most grave and serious warning against being driven to the wall. It did not bully nor hector. The threat of what must be done in case certain menaced blows to slavery were struck was so calmly, deprecatingly, and decorously made, that one wonders it was not heeded. He ceases to wonder only when history reveals to him that fate had become adverse to the good cause of this noble people.

       5. A change of tactics characterizes the fifth stage. The faster growing population of the north, furnishing[Pg 12] settlers in far greater number than that of the south, was sweeping away all chance of new slave States. The situation commanded that the defence of the south change to the aggressive, just as Stoessel was constrained the other day to take the offensive against 203 Meter Hill. In the first sortie the south got the Missouri compromise repealed. Then she tried to make a slave State of Kansas. She failed. When she

       had lost Kansas--like California in southern latitude--she could not help recognizing that the outlook for slavery in the union had become desperate. My northern countrymen, if you were as free from the surviving influence of the old intersectional quarrel as we all ought to be, you would applaud the ability and valor with which the south had fought this losing fight for the welfare and comfort of her people; and especially would you admire her supreme effort in behalf both of that people, and also of the union which she loved next to the cause of her people. Not quailing before odds incalculable, she was as brave and self-sustained as Miltiades, coming forth with his little ten thousand to fight the host of Mardonius hand-to-hand. The only thing for her now was new aggression, to make a demand never seriously urged before. That was that congress protect the master's property in every Territory until it became

       a State. If this were done, she could, perhaps, keep slavery in some of the Territories long enough for it to strike root permanently.

       If it could not be done she must choose between her own cause and the union. Her persistence in the demand mentioned--and she was obliged to persist--split the democratic party, which had until this time been her main upholder in the union. The north refused her demand by electing Lincoln. This was the end of the fifth stage. Her nationality had become fully ripe. She seceded into the

       [Pg 13]Confederate States, her only opportunity of conserving the property and occupation interests of her people. Of course she expected to get her part of the public domain, and to enforce extradition of her fugitive slaves.

       The foregoing is the barest outline of the rise and conflict between the two nationalizations. The subject has been neglected too long. There begins to be some faint understanding of the greater nationalization, but that understanding is far short of completeness. There is hardly a suspicion of the other. And yet as to our own special subject it is really the more important, for in it is the initiative of the brothers' war. There has been made by nobody any investigation at all of the main parts of that train of events which

       I designate as southern nationalization. Not Wilson's "The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in the United States," nor any book by a partisan of either side in the struggle, gives any help towards this investigation. The historical sources have never been studied at all; such as the colonial records now publishing, the records and papers of the probate court in some of the older and more important counties of the south--especially the returns of administrators, executors, and guardians, and files of newspapers advertising their citations. Here can be found the prevailing prices of slaves, their rate of multiplication, all details of their management, from the very beginning. The trial and equity courts contain records of litigation about slaves; of advice of chancellors to trustees seeking to