Websters March 7th Speech/Secession | Page 7

"manifest right of self-government
from considerations of expediency only".[12]
[10] Hearon, Miss. and the Compromise of 1850, p. 209.
[11] A letter to Webster, Oct. 22, 1851, Greenough MSS., shows the
strength of Calhoun's secession ideas. Hamer, p. 125, quotes part.
[12] Hamer, p. 142; Hearon, p. 220.
In Mississippi, a preliminary convention, instigated by Calhoun,
recommended the holding of a Southern convention at Nashville in

June, 1850, to "adopt some mode of resistance". The "Resolutions"
declared the Wilmot Proviso "such a breach of the federal compact
as . . . will make it the duty . . . of the slave-holding states to treat the
non-slave-holding states as enemies". The "Address" recommended "all
the assailed states to provide in the last resort for their separate welfare
by the formation of a compact and a Union". "The object of this
[Nashville Convention] is to familiarize the public mind with the idea
of dissolution", rightly judged the Richmond Whig and the Lynchburg
Virginian.
Radical resistance men controlled the legislature and "cordially
approved" the disunion resolution and address, chose delegates to the
Nashville Convention, appropriated $20,000 for their expenses and
$200,000 for "necessary measures for protecting the state . . . in the
event of the passage of the Wilmot Proviso", etc.[13] These actions of
Mississippi's legislature one day before Webster's 7th of March speech
mark approximately the peak of the secession movement.
[13] Mar. 6, 1850. Laws (Miss.), pp. 521-526.
Governor Quitman, in response to public demand, called the legislature
and proposed "to recommend the calling of a regular convention . . .
with full power to annul the federal compact". "Having no hope of an
effectual remedy . . . but in separation from the Northern States, my
views of state action will look to secession."[14] The legislature
supported Quitman's and Jefferson Davis's plans for resistance,
censured Foote's support of the Compromise, and provided for a state
convention of delegates."[15]
[14] Claiborne, Quitman, IL 37; Hearon, p. 161 n.
[15] Hearon, pp. 180-181; Claiborne, Quitman, II. 51-52.
Even the Mississippi "Unionists" adopted the six standard points
generally accepted in the South which would justify resistance. "And
this is the Union party", was the significant comment of the New York
Tribune. This Union Convention, however, believed that Quitman's
message was treasonable and that there was ample evidence of a plot to
dissolve the Union and form a Southern confederacy. Their programme
was adopted by the State Convention the following year."[16] The
radical Mississippians reiterated Calhoun's constitutional guarantees of
sectional equality and non-interference with slavery, and declared for a
Southern convention with power to recommend "secession from the

Union and the formation of a Southern confederacy".[17]
[16] Nov. 10, 1850, Hearon, pp. 178-180; 1851, pp. 209-212.
[17] Dec. 10, Southern Rights Assoc. Hearon, pp. 183-187.
"The people of Mississippi seemed . . . determined to defend their
equality in the Union, or to retire from it by peaceful secession. Had the
issue been pressed at the moment when the excitement was at its
highest point, an isolated and very serious movement might have
occurred, which South Carolina, without doubt, would have promptly
responded to."[18]
[18] Claiborne, Quitman, II. 52.
In Georgia, evidence as to "which way the wind blows" was received
by the Congressional trio, Alexander Stephens, Toombs, and Cobb,
from trusted observers at home. "The only safety of the South from
abolition universal is to be found in an early dissolution of the Union."
Only one democrat was found justifying Cobb's opposition to Calhoun
and the Southern Convention.[19]
[19] July 1, 1849. Corr., p. 170 (Amer. Hist. Assoc., Annual Report,
1911, vol. II.).
Stephens himself, anxious to "stick to the Constitutional Union" reveals
in confidential letters to Southern Unionists the rapidly growing danger
of disunion. "The feeling among the Southern members for a
dissolution of the Union . . . is becoming much more general." "Men
are now [December, 1849] beginning to talk of it seriously who twelve
months ago hardly permitted themselves to think of it." "Civil war in
this country better be prevented if it can be." After a month's "farther
and broader view", he concluded, "the crisis is not far ahead . . . a
dismemberment of this Republic I now consider inevitable."[20]
[20] Johnston, Stephens, pp. 238-239, 244; Smith, Political History of
Slavery, 1. 121.
On February 8, 1850, the Georgia legislature appropriated $30,000 for
a state convention to consider measures of redress, and gave warning
that anti-slavery aggressions would "induce us to contemplate the
possibility of a dissolution".[21] "I see no prospect of a continuance of
this Union long", wrote Stephens two days later.[22]
[21] Laws (Ga.), 1850, pp. 122, 405-410.
[22] Johnston, Stephens, p. 247.
Speaker Cobb's advisers warned him that "the predominant feeling of

Georgia" was "equality or disunion", and that "the destructives" were
trying to drive