ROBERT TOOMBS' ADDRESS,

TO THE PEOPLE OF GEORGIA,

TELEGRAPHED FROM WASHINGTON, DEC. 23, 1860.

I CAME here to secure your constitutional rights, and to demonstrate to you that you can get no guarantee for those rights from your Northern confederates. The whole subject was referred to a Committee of Thirteen in the Senate. I was appointed on the Committee, and accepted the trust. I submitted propositions, which, so far from receiving decided support from a single member of the Republican party of the Committee, were all treated with derision or contempt. A vote was then taken in the Committee on amendments to the Constitution proposed by Hon. J. J. Crittenden, and each and all of them were voted against unanimously by the Black Republican members of the Committee. In addition to these facts, a majority of the Black Republican members of the Committee declared distinctly that they had no guarantees to offer, which

was silently acquiesced in by the other members. The Black Republican members of this Committee of Thirteen are representative men of the party and section, and, to the extent of my information, truly represent them.

The Committee of Thirty-three on Friday adjourned for a week, without coming to any vote, after solemnly pledging themselves to vote on all the propositions then before them on that day. It is controlled by the Black Republicans, your enemies, who only seek to amuse you with delusive hope until your election, that you may defeat the friends of secession. If you are deceived by them, it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly. It is decisive against you now. I tell you, upon the faith of a true man, that all further looking to the North for security for your constitutional rights in the Union ought to be instantly abandoned. It is fraught with nothing but ruin to yourselves and your posterity. Secession by the 4th day of March next should be thundered from the ballot box by the unanimous vote of Georgia on the 2d day of January next. Such a voice will be your best guarantee for liberty, security, tranquillity, and glory.

R. TOOMBS.

THE CONSTITUTION

OF THE

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

WE, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent Federal Government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

ARTICLE I.

§ 1. All Legislative powers herein delegated shall be vested in a Congress of the Confederate States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

§ 2. The House of Representatives shall be chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall be citi

zens of the Confederate States, and have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature; but no person of foreign birth, not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall be allowed to vote for any officer, civil or political, State or Federal.

2d. No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, and be a Citizen of the Confederate States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

3d. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Confederacy, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all slaves. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of Congress of the Confederate States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every fifty thousand, but each State shall have at least one representative, and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of South Carolina shall be entitled to choose six, the State of

Georgia ten, the State of Alabama nine, the State of Florida two, the State of Mississippi seven, the State of Louisiana six, and the State of Texas six.

4th. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

5th. The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment, except that any judicial or other federal officer, resident and acting solely within the limits of any State, may be impeached by a vote of two-thirds of both branches of the legislature thereof.

§ 3. The Senate of the Confederate States shall be composed of two senators from each State, chosen for six years by the legislature thereof at the regular session next immediately preceding the commencement of the term of service, and each senator shall have one vote.

2d. Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the second class, at the expiration of the fourth year; and of the third class, at the expiration of the sixth year-so that one third may be chosen every second