Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the
Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled,
on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent
violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal
Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the
States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the
Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the
other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this
right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to
increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and
equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining
United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she
should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great
Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion
composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right
of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776,
in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right
ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and
independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude
peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other
acts and things which independent States may of right do."
They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government
becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is
the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a
new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have
become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies
"are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all
political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is,
and ought to be, totally dissolved."
In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the
thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty;
adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the
administration of government in all its departments-- Legislative,
Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their
arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League
known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to
entrust the administration of their external relations to a common
agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly
declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its
sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction
and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated
to the United States in Congress assembled."
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on,
and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite
Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the
independence of the Colonies in the following terms: C"ARTICLE 1--
His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New
Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he
treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors,
relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial
rights of the same and every part thereof."
Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the
Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the
right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes
destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent
with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each
Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE,
SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the
Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these
Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of
Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.
The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the
several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when
nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those
concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was
then invested with their authority.
If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four
would have remained as they then were-- separate, sovereign States,
independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact,
two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long
after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during
that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent
nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several
States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained,
which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign
States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which
declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to
the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788,
South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance
assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own
Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had
undertaken.
Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government
with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of
the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power
subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people,
and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.
We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two
great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we
hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third
fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that
in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is
mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to
perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the
obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each
party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of
failure, with all its consequences.
In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We
assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for
years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we
refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article,
provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one
State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the
party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it
that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the
contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced
their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a
condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded
by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition
by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other
States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry
into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these
laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the
non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a
disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General
Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois,
Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which
either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to
execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged
from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State
Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.
The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity
with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery
feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render
inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of
Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a
slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and
Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with
murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of
Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken
and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence
follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by
itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in
which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate
control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves
was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights,
by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with
direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the
importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the
rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted
have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made
destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States.
Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of
our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property
established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the
Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of
slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of
societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign
the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged
and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those
who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to
servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing,
until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common
Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the
Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article
establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the
Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the
Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the
election of a man to the high office of President of the United
States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to
be entrusted with the administration of the common Government,
because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure
permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must
rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate
extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution,
has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship,
persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of
becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a
new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and
safety.
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the
Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from
the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made
sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it
shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the
equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States
will no longer have the power of self-government, or
self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their
enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all
hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at
the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of
more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in
Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the
Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of
North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina
has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a
separate and independent State; with full power to levy war,
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do
all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.
Adopted December 24, 1860