Immediately after Abraham Lincoln’s election, several southern states began to discuss secession. Georgia called a special convention to debate the issue on November 13–14, 1860. Two of the principal speakers were Robert Toombs and Alexander Stephens, close friends who had met in Washington, D.C., as U.S. congressmen from Georgia. In the following selections from their speeches, Toombs argues in favor of secession, and Stephens urges a more cautious approach. In January 1861, Georgia became the fifth state to secede, two months before Lincoln took office. In February, Stephens was elected vice president of the Confederacy.
| 13.1 | Robert Toombs | For Secession, 1860 |
The stern, steady march of events has brought us in conflict with our non-slaveholding confederates upon the fundamental principles of our compact of Union. We have not sought this conflict; we have sought too long to avoid it. . . . The door of conciliation and compromise is finally closed by our adversaries, and it remains only to us to meet the conflict with the dignity and firmness of men worthy of freedom. . . .
. . . The South at all times demanded nothing but equality in the common territories, equal enjoyment of them with their property, to that extended to Northern citizens and their property—nothing more. . . . In 1790 we had less than eight hundred thousand slaves. Under our mild and humane administration of the system they have increased above four millions. The country has expanded to meet this growing want, and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri have received this increasing tide of African labor; before the end of this century, at precisely the same rate of increase, the Africans among us in a subordinate condition will amount to eleven millions of persons. What shall be done with them? We must expand or perish. . . . The North understand it better—they have told us for twenty years that their object was to pen up slavery within its present limits—surround it with a border of free States, and like the scorpion surrounded with fire, they will make it sting itself to death.
Source: Frank Moore, ed., The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events (New York: G. P. Putnam and Henry Holt, 1864), 1:362–63, 365.
| 13.2 | Alexander Stephens | Against Secession, 1860 |
The first question that presents itself is, Shall the people of the South secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think they ought. . . . To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere election of a man to the Presidency, and that too in accordance with the prescribed forms of the Constitution, make a point of resistance to the Government, without becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves by withdrawing ourselves from it? Would we not be in the wrong? . . .
The Northern States, on entering into the Federal compact, pledged themselves [under the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law] to surrender such fugitives; and it is in disregard of their constitutional obligations that they have passed laws which even tend to hinder or inhibit the fulfillment of that obligation. . . . What ought we to do in view of this? . . . By the law of nations, you would have a right to demand the carrying out of this article of agreement, and I do not see that it should be otherwise with respect to the States of this Union; and in case it be not done, we would, by these principles, have the right to commit acts of reprisal on these faithless governments, and seize upon their property, or that of their citizens, wherever found. The States of this Union stand upon the same footing with foreign nations in this respect. But by the law of nations we are equally bound, before proceeding to violent measures, to set forth our grievances before the offending government, to give them an opportunity to redress the wrong. Has our State yet done this? I think not.
Source: Richard Malcolm Johnston and William Hand Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1878), 565–66, 575.
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