Southern Convention at Vicksburg, Part 2 [pp. 205-220]

216 SOUTHERN CONVENTION AT VICKSBURG.
gia, Maryland, and other-States, as operating as a serious preventive to the
proper measure of resistance, and says that democracy is in the way. Oh!
Democracy, how your glory is passed away! Sic transit gloria mundi!
(Laughter.) A gentleman from the great State of South Carolina,
fresh from that victorous field where he has fought so gallantly and so
nobly in behalf of the importation of Africans for slavery, and in defence of
those individuals charged with piracy under the law of the land, comes here
and proposes to you armed resistance to the laws of your government. He
says that Virginia, Marylard and other States are operating as serious preventives, and complains that democracy is in the way of this famous measure.
Then "down with democracy!" says he, of course. Put down democracy
* * * But the gentleman from South Carolina went on a little further,
and spoke about a snake in the grass-anguis in herba. It is not a snake in the
grass. It is an anguis super urbem. It is a serpent open to the view of every
one. My fiiend, De Bow, says that certain people are always talking about disunion and treason. I do not know what he alluded to. I never undertook to
say that Mr. Calhoun was a traitor. Never And I shall not undertake to say
that any man h,ho declares his free opinion and thoughts on any question, is a
traitor. But I do say that under the constitution of the United States, armed
(pposition. or the levying of war against the government of the Union for the
purpose of overthrowing the laws, by two men or many, is made high treason;
and I say that you were invited yesterday to do that very thing. I say that
that is treasonable doctrine all over the United States. God forbid that the
South should produce traitors. God forbid especially that I should charge Mr.
Calhoun with having been a traitor. The gentleman (Mr. De Bow) called Mr.
Calhoun the Palinurus of the South. I am sorry that he thus cognomenized
him. He and I both recollect, from the pages of Virgil, that Palinurus tumbled in the middle of the night from his position, fell into mid-ocean and was
drowned. lie met with a most unworthy and discreditable iate. I heard a man
once charge Mr. Calhoun in the Senate of the United States with being a Palinurus, but never did I expect to hear a native born South Carolinian, in an
assembly like this, repeat the affront. I stand here now for the purpose of vindicating Calhoun against that epithet, and I hope this is is the last time it will
be ever applied to him. Was Mr. Calhoun a traitor No. Did Mr. Calhoun
urge on opposition to the laws. Never. He was a grand, a great modern
giant-a champion of the principles which he honestly espoused. * * *
The gentleman advanced to the grand conclusion that some expedient was now
necessary to be resorted to, on the part of the people of the South, to give an
aggressive attitude. These are the words. The gentleman assents to it. Seward
and that band of conspirators said, years ago, that the slaveocracy was
aggressive. Mr. Calhoun in some of his noble strains of oratory vindicated his
native land by asserting that slavery was the least aggressive of all the institutions of the country. He said that all they wanted was to be let alone alnd the
South would take care of itself. Mr. Seward commonly says-and the Tribune
and other papers repeat the assertion-that the South is aggressive. That
charge has done more to sow the seeds of unkindness in the minds of the patriotic men of the North than anything else. I deny that the South has been
ever aggressive. I acknowledge that some propositions have beefi urged once or
twice-which the South generally misunderstood-but I deny here, as I have
denied everywhere, that the slaveholders are aggressive. They are a peaceable
class, a patriotic class; a high minded, chivalrous body of men; and when
demagogues among them dare to put them on the aggressive track, these demagogues never fail to be rebuked. The gentleman invites us to aggression. I am
not prepared for aggression. I do not know whether you are. He says that it
is necessary to precipitate the issue with the North. What is the issue? An
issue of blood, of violence! Is there a man here, democrat or not, slavehmlder
or not, who does not feel that this is true l Does anybody, then, blame me for
denouncing this attempt to sow among us treasonable seeds which hereafter
would spring up in baneful fruit, unless the cursed seeds are trampled into the
earth at once, thusJ (and the speaker suited the action to the words). He