to be contersigned as above, upon the deposit of an equal amount of coin or bullion with the same depository, pledged for the redemption of such additional issue.

11. That a free competition for the use of money is the proper means for placing at their just value the rates of interest and exchange; that to this end the restrictions now imposed upon the rates of discount and interest charged by the banks should be removed from all actual speciepaying banks, saving that each bank be required to advertise its rates and to charge them uniformly upon all dealers; and also that no bank shall divide more than seven per cent. per annum among its stockholders, reserving besides, if it see fit, a fund not exceeding ten per cent. upon its capital to pay losses and to provide for regular dividends.

These resolutions were subsequently embodied by Mr. Memminger in a "Bill to regulate the issue of bank-bills "; which became a law of the State at this session of the Legislature.

The conservative course pursued by the Convention of 1852 did not in the least check the aggressive spirit of the abolitionists of New England and some other of the Northern States. On the contrary, if it had any perceptible effect, judging from their proceedings, it was but to increase the energy with which they assailed the institution of slavery. The "Free-Soil" Party had not only been formed as a political organization, but year after year it continued to grow with surprising strength, absorbing the old "Liberty Party," and, in fact, uniting in its energetic organization all other political factions having the abolition of slavery as their chief end and determined purpose. The "American AntiSlavery Society," at Philadelphia, and the "American Abolition Society," at Boston, were used as powerful auxiliaries. Extensive publishing houses, under the auspices of these societies, were sending out an immense number of antislavery documents containing the most sensational, and, in the majority of instances, the most exaggerated accounts of the cruelty to which the slaves were subjected, and appealing to the religious sentiment of the people in the most inflam

matory terms of fanaticism. Under the influence of emissaries sent in various guises from these societies insurrections were encouraged, and a great number of slaves induced to leave their owners and homes to risk the hospitality and benevolent sympathies of their alleged friends amid the snows of New England and Canada. It is estimated that up to 1860 more than thirty thousand slaves had in this way found an asylum in Canada. If pursued, the master was not only maltreated and baffled by the officers of the law, but in more than one instance lost his life, while his slave became the hero of some romantic novelist. Resolutions condemning the institution of slavery as a relic of barbarism, insulting in the extreme to the owners of slaves and to the States who recognized the legal or moral right to hold persons in slavery, were passed by the legislatures of Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and by others of the free States. These resolutions, with an audacity which none but a New England fanatic could evince, were sent to the governors and legislatures of the slave States, and scattered broadcast throughout the country. Petitions, by the scores, were sent to Congress from almost every town, village and hamlet in the Northern States bewailing the sinfulness of slavery, and praying Congress to interpose by legislation. for its suppression. Governor Adams, in his message to the Legislature of 1855, referring to the resolutions sent to him, says:

I herewith transmit resolutions from the States of Rhode Island and Connecticut. I received certain resolutions from the State of Massachusetts, which I returned to the Governor of that State. Had Massachusetts confined herself to resolutions expressive of her feelings and purposes in relation to slavery, impertinent as I may have regarded them, I would have received them with indifference and transmitted them without comment; but I consider the acts of her late Legislature as an insult and an outrage upon every member of the confederacy, who has a right to demand the enforcement of the fugitive slave act. A State whose Legislature deliberately, unblushingly, impiously violates

her constitutional obligations, and whose people resist the execution of law, even to the shedding of blood, is not entitled to comity from us, and I feel that I would have betrayed the dignity of my trust had I hesitated to affix on such conduct the seal of official condemnation. The interchange of civilities with a people who feel it to be no dishonor to prevent the recovery of stolen property, will hardly reclaim the faithless, and is incompatible with the respect which honesty owes to itself.

The agitation in relation to slavery continues to increase and is rapidly tending to its bloody termination. Measures which it was hoped by some would give quiet to the country, and dignity to its deliberations, have served but to redouble the efforts and augment the power of abolition. Civil war is a direful calamity, but its scourges are to be endured in preference to degradation and ruin. The people of South Carolina are alive to the issue and are mindful of their obligations. They are calm because they are prepared and self-reliant. They have not forgotten their history and they will not fail to vindicate its teachings. The right "to provide new guards for their future security" has been sealed by the blood of their ancestors and it will never be surrendered. Come what may, "they will do their duty and leave the consequences to God."

Again, in his message to the Legislature of 1856, he says:

I have received "resolutions of the Legislature of New Hampshire in relation to the late acts of violence and bloodshed perpetrated by the slave power in the Territory of Kansas and at the National Capital." In the exercise of a discretion which I think rightfully appertains to the Executive department, I decline to lay these resolutions before your honorable bodies. I care not what may be the theory of State intercommunication, I will not submit to be made the medium of transmitting from any quarter an insult to my own State. The Constitution imposes no such duty on the Executive. The usage of the better days of the republic commands my respect, but it cannot reconcile me to acts of courtesy to those who would gloat in seeing the torch applied to our dwellings and the knife to our throats.

Later on, in the year 1859, referring to the resolutions sent to him, Governor Alston uses the following language:

Herewith I transmit resolutions from the Legislatures of certain States of the Confederacy. Those from New York and New Jersey relate to the Lighthouse Board and to certain provisions for the relief of persons and property shipwrecked on the coast; those from Texas, expressing sentiments of common interest to our citizens, will command your attention; those from New England denounce, as usual, our sys

tem of domestic slavery, together with the late decision of the Supreme Court. This species of agitation, sectional and disorganizing, proceeds from persons who seem to be incapable of entertaining just sentiments towards their neighbors, the people of the Southern States. True liberty consists in the will and the power to perform our duty to God and to our neighbor. His service is only perfect freedom. The members of a Legislature who can thus resolve to desecrate the name of freedom and pervert its meaning, by harboring such feelings towards their neighbors who sanction and cherish African slavery as a domestic institution, inherited from their fathers, expose themselves to the imputation of being faithless to the Constitution from the preamble of which they quote. The resolutions do not merit a response on your part. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence in their particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts."

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In the meantime the celebrated case of Dred Scott versus Sanford was before the Supreme Court of the United States on appeal from the Circuit Court of Missouri. Dred Scott, who was held as a slave in Missouri, brought suit to recover his freedom, claiming this freedom on the ground that he had been brought into territory made free by the act of Congress, commonly known as the "Missouri Compromise." No case that had been brought before the Supreme Court created more comment at the time, or produced more excitement, when the decision of the court was announced. ChiefJustice Taney, in an elaborate opinion, reviewed the whole question raised by this case. He held that for more than a century previous to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence negroes, whether slaves or free, had been regarded as being of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The court also, in this case, considered the question as to whether Congress had the right to exclude slavery from the territories of the Union, and denied the power. This decision exasperated the abolitionists and excited them to greater extremes than

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ever before in their fanatical zeal. The fugitive slave law was made practically a nullity. No court at the North would enforce it, and no man's life was safe from mob violence who would attempt by force to recover his fugitive slave.

Thus, as the years passed by, the estrangement between the sections, North and South, grew more and more decided. The discussions in the Senate on the Kansas-Topeka Constitution served only to increase the bitterness of feeling between the sections, while the partisan collisions in the Territories greatly inflamed the passions of the people at the North and in the South. Following the desperate attempt of John Brown, a zealous abolitionist, to incite the negroes to insurrection at Harper's Ferry, in Virginia, came the conventions of the several political parties to nominate candidates for the Presidency of the United States. Thus had the aggressive spirit of the abolitionists aroused the spirit of the Southern people, and thus had they been stimulated to resist the encroachments made upon their rights of property by an open and declared foe when the season arrived for the assembling of their legislatures.

Referring to the Federal relations of the State of South Carolina, Governor Gist, in his message to the Legislature of 1859, thus presents the state of affairs:

Admonished by the action of the Legislature in relation to certain resolutions which were returned without comment to the State from whence they came by one of my predecessors, I herewith transmit certain resolutions from the State of Vermont, affirming the right of Congress to exclude slavery from the territories of the United States, and expressing the opinion that it is the duty of Congress to exercise this right; and that Vermont will continue to resist the admission of new slave states into this Union, and will seek the abolition of slavery at the National Capital. Also asserting that the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, has no warrant in the Constitution, and is not binding upon Vermont or the people of the United States. These resolutions not only embody the opinions of Vermont, but of all the non-slave-holding States; and the signs of the times clearly indicate an approaching crisis in the destinies of the South. The war so relent