act, the people had selected their best men to represent their spirit and to execute their deliberate judgment. The following list embraces the names of the delegates chosen to this Convention. Among them are many who had become distinguished for their virtues of manhood, and in the service of the State:

D. F. JAMISON, Delegate from Barnwell, and President Convention.

Elias B. Scott,
Joseph E. Jenkins,
Langdon Cheves,
George Rhode,
A. G. Magrath,
Wm. Porcher Miles,
John Townsend,
Robert N. Gourdin,
H. W. Conner,
Theodore D. Wagner,
R. Barnwell Rhett,
C. G. Memminger,
Gabriel Manigalt,
John J. Pringle Smith,
Isaac W. Hayne,
John H. Honour,
Richard De Treville,
Thomas M. Hanckel,
A. W. Burnett.
Thomas Y. Simons,
L. W. Spratt,
Williams Middleton,
F. D. Richardson,
B. H. Rutledge,
Edward McCrady,
Francis J. Porcher,
James Chesnut, Jr.,
Joseph B. Kershaw,
Thomas W. Beaty,
William J. Ellis,

John J. Ingram,
Edgar W. Charles,

R. L. Crawford,

Julius A, Dargan,
Isaac D. Wilson,
John M. Timmons,
Francis H. Wardlaw,
R. G. M. Dunovant,
James P. Carroll,
Wm. Gregg,
Andrew J. Hammond,
James Tompkins,
James C. Smyly,
John Hugh Means,
William S. Lyles,
Henry C. Davis,
John Buchanan,
James C. Furman,
P. E. Duncan,

W. K. Easley,

James Harrison,

W. H. Campbell,

W. C. Cauthen,
D. P. Robinson,
H. C. Young,
H. W. Garlington,
John D. Williams,
W. D. Watts,
Thomas Wier,
H. I. Caughman,
John C. Geiger,
Paul Quattlebaum,
W. B. Rowell,
Chesley D. Evans,
Wm. W. Harlee,
A. W. Bethea,
E. W. Goodwin,
William D. Johnson,
Alex. McLeod,
John P. Kinard,
Robert Moorman,
Joseph Caldwell,

T. J. Withers..

Wm. Hunter,

Andrew F. Lewis,

Robert A. Thompson,
William S. Grisham,
John Maxwell,
John E. Frampton,
W. Ferguson Hutson,
W. F. De Sassassure,
William Hopkins,
James H. Adams,
Maxey Gregg,
John H. Kinsler,
Ephraim M. Clarke,
Alex. H. Brown,
E. S. P. Bellinger,
Merrick E. Carn,
E. R. Henderson,
Peter Stokes,
Daniel Flud,
David C. Appleby,
R. W. Barnwell,

Attest: BENJ. F. ARTHUR, Clerk of the Convention.

It is not my purpose to give in detail the proceedings of this Convention, ever memorable in the history of South Carolina and of the United States. This has already been done to a great extent by others; and in this work I desire to avoid, as much as possible, the repetition of a history that can be readily obtained in another form.

Conspicuous among these representative men of his State in this Convention was Mr. Memminger. If there had ever been a doubt of his extraordinary abilities, his integrity of manhood or of his statesmanship, this had been set at rest by his course of procedure and his masterly address before the Legislature of Virginia. When the great emergency at last came and his people were called upon to select their representatives in a convention that was to resume for their State a position of sovereignty among the nations, they called to their service the man who, under every or

deal of trial, had for more than three decades proven his fidelity and evidenced his devoted patriotism. Upon the organization of the Convention Hon. David F. Jamison was chosen president-a citizen, who, in the graces of an accomplished gentleman, and in his chivalric spirit, was a type of the men who had made the history and who illustrated the civilization of his State.

Without unnecessary delay such committees were appointed by him as were necessary to formulate the work of the Convention. Most important among these was the committee to which was entrusted the duty of preparing an address setting forth the causes which induced and justified the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union and of preparing an Ordinance of Secession.

The committee to draft a statement of the causes which justified the secession of South Carolina was composed of the following delegates: C. G. Memminger, F. H. Wardlaw, R. W. Barnwell, J. P. Richardson, B. H. Rutledge, J. E. Jenkins, P. E. Duncan.

To draft an Ordinance of Secession: John A. Inglis, R. B. Rhett, James Chestnut, Jr., James L. Orr, Maxey Gregg, B. F. Dunkin, W. H. Hutson.

In anticipation of the action of the Convention, and as a part of the preliminary proceedings of that body, Mr. Memminger prepared the following "Suggestions for the Declaration and Ordinance of Secession to be proposed to the Convention," which were printed for the use of that body:

The State of South Carolina, having determined to secede from the Union of the United States of America and to resume her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the United States, and to the other nations of the world, that she should declare the reasons which have led to this result.

In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire which embraced Great Britain undertook to make laws for the government of that portion which embraced America. A struggle for the right of self-govern

ment ensued, which resulted, on the fourth July, 1776, in a declaration, by the thirteen American 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 which they were then subject, 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."

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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 3d of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definitive treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms:

“ARTICLE I.—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 people to govern itself, and the right to abolish a government which becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these prin ciples was the fact that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother country as a free, sovereign and independent State.

In 1787 deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on the 17th of September, 1787, these deputies recommended, for the adoption of the States, new 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 agreed, the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the general government, as the common agent, was then to be invested with their authority.

Duties were charged on the several States by this Constitution, and the exercise of certain powers 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 23d of May, 1788, and the 20th of January, 1790, South Carolina, by conventions of her people, passed ordinances assenting to this Constitution and its amendments, and, shortly afterwards, altered her own Constitution to conform herself to the new obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established by compact between the States, a government with defined objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant, and to so much more only as was necessary to execute the power granted. That government, like every other, was subject to the two great principles asserted by the Declaration of Independence, but the mode of its formation subjected it to another fundamental principle. Like every other compact or agreement between two or more parties, the obligations of this Constitution were mutual, and the failure of one party to perform a material undertaking, entirely releases the obligation of the other. In cases of admitted failure, the right of the other party to set aside the compact is perfect; and where the fact of failure is disputed, unless an arbiter is provided, each party is rémitted to his own judgment, to determine the fact with all its consequences.

The state of facts upon which South Carolina is now called to act, is disembarrassed of this uncertainty, and makes perfect her right to secede from the Union. The Constitution of that Union expressly provides that fugitives from justice and fugitives from labor, shall be delivered up by the State into which they may escape, the former to the public authorities, and the latter to the private owner. These stipulations were such material elements to the compact that it could not have been made without them; and, so important was that in relation to labor, that it had previously been made a condition, by the State of Virginia, for the surrender of that territory which now composes the States north of the Ohio river.

The general government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws