Declaration
of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of
(from http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/scarsec.htm)
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
In the year 1765, that portion of the British
Empire embracing
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: "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
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
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,
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 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
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