The Iron Furnace; or, Slavery and Secession. Aughey John Hill

the abominable, white-livered abolitionist, is President elect of the United States; shall he be permitted to take his seat on Southern soil? No, never! I will volunteer as one of thirty thousand, to butcher the villain if ever he sets foot on slave territory. Secession or submission! What patriot would hesitate for a moment which to choose? No true son of Mississippi would brook the idea of submission to the rule of the baboon Abe Lincoln – a fifth-rate lawyer, a broken-down hack of a politician, a fanatic, an abolitionist. I, for one, would prefer an hour of virtuous liberty to a whole eternity of bondage under northern, Yankee, wooden-nutmeg rule. The halter is the only argument that should be used against the submissionists, and I predict that it will soon, very soon, be in force.

      We have glorious news from Tallahatchie. Seven tory-submissionists were hanged there in one day, and the so-called Union candidates, having the wholesome dread of hemp before their eyes, are not canvassing the county; therefore the heretical dogma of submission, under any circumstances, disgraces not their county. Compromise! let us have no such word in our vocabulary. Compromise with the Yankees, after the election of Lincoln, is treason against the South; and still its syren voice is listened to by the demagogue submissionists. We should never have made any compromise, for in every case we surrendered rights for the sake of peace. No concession of the scared Yankees will now prevent secession. They now understand that the South is in earnest, and in their alarm they are proposing to yield us much; but the die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed, and our determination shall ever be, No union with the flat-headed, nigger-stealing, fanatical Yankees.

      We are now threatened with internecine war. The Yankees are an inferior race; they are cowardly in the extreme. They are descended from the Puritan stock, who never bore rule in any nation. We, the descendants of the Cavaliers, are the Patricians, they the Plebeians. The Cavaliers have always been the rulers, the Puritans the ruled. The dastardly Yankees will never fight us; but if they, in their presumption and audacity, venture to attack us, let the war come – I repeat it – let it come! The conflagration of their burning cities, the desolation of their country, and the slaughter of their inhabitants, will strike the nations of the earth dumb with astonishment, and serve as a warning to future ages, that the slaveholding Cavaliers of the sunny South are terrible in their vengeance. I am in favour of immediate, independent, and eternal separation from the vile Union which has so long oppressed us. After separation, I am in favour of non-intercourse with the United States so long as time endures. We will raise the tariff, to the point of prohibition, on all Yankee manufactures, including wooden-nutmegs, wooden clocks, quack nostrums, &c. We will drive back to their own inhospitable clime every Yankee who dares to pollute our shores with his cloven feet. Go he must, and if necessary, with the bloodhounds on his track. The scum of Europe and the mudsills of Yankeedom shall never be permitted to advance a step south of 36° 30′. South of that latitude is ours – westward to the Pacific. With my heart of hearts I hate a Yankee, and I will make my children swear eternal hatred to the whole Yankee race. A mongrel breed – Irish, Dutch, Puritans, Jews, free niggers, &c. – they scarce deserve the notice of the descendants of the Huguenots, the old Castilians, and the Cavaliers. Cursed be the day when the South consented to this iniquitous league – the Federal Union – which has long dimmed her nascent glory.

      In battle, one southron is equivalent to ten northern hirelings; but I regard it a waste of time to speak of Yankees – they deserve not our attention. It matters not to us what they think of secession, and we would not trespass upon your time and patience, were it not for the tame, tory submissionists with which our country is cursed. A fearful retribution is in waiting for the whole crew, if the war which they predict, should come. Were they then to advocate the same views, I would not give a fourpence for their lives. We would hang them quicker than old Heath would hang a tory. Our Revolutionary fathers set us a good example in their dealings with the tories. They sent them to the shades infernal from the branches of the nearest tree. The North has sent teachers and preachers amongst us, who have insidiously infused the leaven of Abolitionism into the minds of their students and parishioners; and this submissionist policy is a lower development of the doctrine of Wendell Philips, Gerritt Smith, Horace Greely, and others of that ilk. We have a genial clime, a soil of uncommon fertility. We have free institutions, freedom for the white man, bondage for the black man, as nature and nature’s God designed. We have fair women and brave men. The lines have truly fallen to us in pleasant places. We have indeed a goodly heritage. The only evil we can complain of is our bondage to the Yankees through the Federal Union. Let us burst these shackles from our limbs, and we will be free indeed.

      Let all who desire complete and eternal emancipation from Yankee thraldom, come to the polls on the – day of December, prepared not to vote the cowardly submissionist ticket, but to vote the secession ticket; and their children, and their children’s children, will owe them a debt of gratitude which they can never repay. The day of our separation and vindication of States’ rights, will be the happiest day of our lives. Yankee domination will have ceased for ever, and the haughty southron will spurn them from all association, both governmental and social. So mote it be!

      This address was received with great eclat.

      On the next Sabbath after this meeting, I preached in the Poplar Creek Presbyterian church, in Choctaw county, from Romans xiii. 1: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be, are ordained of God.”

      Previous to the sermon a prayer was offered, of which the following is the conclusion:

      Almighty God – We would present our country, the United States of America, before thee. When our political horizon is overcast with clouds and darkness, when the strong-hearted are becoming fearful for the permanence of our free institutions, and the prosperity, yea, the very existence of our great Republic, we pray thee, O God, when flesh and heart fail, when no human arm is able to save us from the fearful vortex of disunion and revolution, that thou wouldst interpose and save us. We confess our national sins, for we have, as a nation, sinned grievously. We have been highly favoured, we have been greatly prospered, and have taken our place amongst the leading powers of the earth. A gospel-enlightened nation, our sins are therefore more heinous in thy sight. They are sins of deep ingratitude and presumption. We confess that drunkenness has abounded amongst all classes of our citizens. Rulers and ruled have been alike guilty; and because of its wide-spreading prevalence, and because our legislators have enacted no sufficient laws for its suppression, it is a national sin. Profanity abounds amongst us; Sabbath-breaking is rife; and we have elevated unworthy men to high positions of honour and trust. We are not, as a people, free from the crime of tyranny and oppression. For these great and aggravated offences, we pray thee to give us repentance and godly sorrow, and then, O God, avert the threatened and imminent judgments which impend over our beloved country. Teach our Senators wisdom. Grant them that wisdom which is able to make them wise unto salvation; and grant also that wisdom which is profitable to direct, so that they may steer the ship of State safely through the troubled waters which seem ready to engulf it on every side. Lord, hear us, and answer in mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen and Amen!

      The following is a synopsis of my sermon:

      Israel had been greatly favoured as a nation. No weapon formed against them prospered, so long as they loved and served the Lord their God. They were blessed in their basket and their store. They were set on high above all the nations of the earth. * * * * When all Israel assembled, ostensibly to make Rehoboam king, they were ripe for rebellion. Jeroboam and other wicked men had fomented and cherished the sparks of treason, till, on this occasion, it broke out into the flame of open rebellion. The severity of Solomon’s rule was the pretext, but it was only a pretext, for during his reign the nation prospered, grew rich and powerful. Jeroboam wished a disruption of the kingdom, that he might bear rule; and although God permitted it as a punishment for Israel’s idolatry, yet he frowned upon the wicked men who were instrumental in bringing this great evil upon his chosen people.

      The loyal division took the name of Judah, though composed of the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. The revolted ten tribes took the name of their leading tribe, Ephraim. Ephraim continued to wax weaker and weaker. Filled with envy against Judah, they often warred against that loyal kingdom, until they themselves were greatly reduced. At last, after various vicissitudes, the ten tribes were carried away, and scattered and lost. We often hear of the lost ten tribes. What