February 20, 1861; The Charleston Mercury
MONTGOMERY, February 14, 1861.
Upon one point there appears to be a fixed determination and straight forward action here. Reconstruction is dead. A Southern Confederation is established, and the Southern Confederacy is a fixed thing. But what sort of a Confederacy? Here the Convention is at sea; and vague dreads of the future, and terrors of the people, and in some degree a want of statesmanship, paralyze all useful and essential reform, and weaken men into inaction. Let your people prepare their minds for a failure in the future Permanent Southern Constitution. For South Carolina is about to be saddled with almost every grievance except Abolition, for which she has long struggled, and just withdrawn from the late United States Government. Surely McDUFFIE lived in vain, and CALHOUN taught for nought, if we are again to be plundered, and our commerce crippled, destroyed by tariffs – even discriminating tariffs. Yet this is the almost inevitable prospect. The fruit of the labors of thirty odd long years, in strife and bitterness, is about to slip through our fingers.
But is this all we are about to be called on to enact and bear? It is only the beginning.
The three fifths rule of representation for slaves was one of the many Yankee swindles put upon us in the formation of the old Constitution. It is a radical wrong. It most unfairly dwarfs the power of some of the States in any federal representation. The proportion of her black to the white population is very much larger than that of any other slave State. By the old swindle, her fair proportion of representation was cut down upon all her slaves in proportion, as 3 is to 5. The black population, being in a majority in our State, two fifths of more than one half of the people of the State are entirely unrepresented. And in just the degree that the proportion of the black population in South Carolina predominates over the proportion of the blacks to the whites in any other State, is the swindle augmented and aggravated. South Carolina is small enough without again flinging away what legitimate power she possesses. That power is in her slaves – socially, politically, economically. The proposition of the three-fifths rule calls upon her not only to stultify herself, but to dwarf her powers.
Is this all? It is not. She is probably to be called upon to brand herself and her institutions.
The old Constitution of the United States merely grants to the Congress the power to prohibit by law the further introduction of slaves from Africa or elsewhere outside of the United States. Terrorism here is about to make its perpetual prohibition a fundamental provision of the Constitution itself. A stigma is thus broadly stamped upon the whole institution before the whole world, and sealed by ourselves. That Congress should have power to prohibit the trade is a legitimate provision. I should not object to such a provision. It is a matter of trade, business and general economy. There may, or there may not, be a sufficient supply of African labor now in America. Of this it is for the peoples of the several States to decide, through their representative in the general Congress. But to brand it by a fundamental article of the Constitution itself, is to cast an infamous slur upon the whole institution – the lives and the properties of every slaveholder in the land.
For what have we cast off the North as rotten incubus, if we are thus to re- enact all of their swindles, outrages, and insolences upon ourselves? To be plundered and manacled with discriminating tariffs – to stultify ourselves with a half way representation – and to endorse all the outrages and insolence of the Northern States?
All this is not encouraging to our hopes. But there remains two methods of retrieving ourselves. The first is, in our Convention. We may have to follow the example of 1788. The second is, by providing in the Constitution, for the present, an easy way of amendment; and South Carolina may insist upon amendments upon these points being made. Doubtless public spirit will advance. Many men here want information. They are ignorant and unpracticed in this matter. There is still room for much hope in the end – with the exercise on our part of much firmness.
It is greatly to be regretted that the debates upon the Constitution will probably not be public. It seems to me that they will be very important as guides in the future, whereby we may be enabled to comprehend its meaning – the proper interpretation of its language.
To change the subject – a nice pickle South Carolina has placed in with regard to Fort Sumter. Three weeks ago it was feared by many that any assault upon that fort was to be postponed to the 4th of February, and then to be turned over to the action of the Southern Congress. Such has proved the fact. What has been gained? President DAVIS will not be inaugurated until Saturday evening, the 16th February. This is the earliest period possible. Circumstances may still further delay it. The Monday two weeks following LINCOLN is to be inaugurated at Washington. What opportunity is there between these two dates form Mr. DAVIS to make preparations for attack – to make his demand upon Mr. BUCHANAN for its surrender, and to receive an answer before the 4th of March? None whatever. We will have to fight, and we will have to fight LINCOLN instead of BUCHANAN. And who are to do the fighting? South Carolinians, and none but South Carolinians. The fort will, of course be reinforced if it is in the power of man to do it. Will anybody tell me now lives have been saved by this policy? The attitude of our State has been in a large measure demoralized – I will not say disgraced – by the course pursued; the political attitude of the whole Southern Confederation has been embarrassed and complicated; and what is gained? Nothing that I can see, but the spilling of much more valuable blood than was at all necessary.
However, people look upon matters in very different ways. My views may be all quiet incorrect.
REVIEWER.