TESTIMONY OF ALEX. H. STEPHENS.

and all the material 'resources of national Even so late as the autumn of 1860, and power and greatness, as the Southern States after the presidential election that announced have under the General Government, notthe defeat of the slave-power which had so withstanding all its defects ?" long ruled the country, the leading men of Mr. Stephens then, with philosophic skill, the South who had not been in the plot bat-showed that the institutions of a people contled manfully against it. On the 14th of stitute the matrix from which spring all their November last, Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, characteristics of development and greatness. now the Vice-President of the rebel Confed-"Look," he said, "at Greece. There is the eracy, delivered a long and able speech in same fertile soil, the same blue sky, the same the Georgia House of Representatives, in inlets and harbors, the same Ægean, the same which, in answer to the question whether Olympus; there is the same land where Hothe Southern States should secede in conse- mer sang, where Pericles spoke; it is the quence of Mr. Lincoln's election, he said :- same old Greece-but it is living Greece no My countrymen, I tell you frankly, can- more." He pictured its ruin of art and civdidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that ilization, and traced that ruin to the downthey ought." fall of their institutions. He drew the same lesson from Italy and Rome, once mistress of the world, and solemnly warned them that where liberty is once destroyed, it may never return again.

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Reminding them of the sacred obligation resting on them to be true to their national engagements, he exclaimed,—

"If the Republic is to go down, let us be found to the last moment standing on the deck, with the Constitution of the United States waving over our heads." And this sentiment was greeted with applause.

He expressed his belief that Mr. Lincoln would do nothing to jeopard their safety or security, and showed them the wisdom of our system with its checks and guards. He reminded them that the President was powerless unless backed by Congress-that the House of Representatives was largely against him, and that there would be a majority of four against him in the Senate, and referring to a remark that no Georgian, who was true to his state, could consistently hold office under Mr. Lincoln, reminded them that such office could be honorably held, for it would be conferred by the approval of a Democratic Senate and this exposition was received with "prolonged applause."

Mr. Stephens frankly avowed that he would never submit to any Republican aggression on their constitutional rights to preserve the Union, but insisted that all their rights could be secured in the Union, and emphatically declared, "That this Government of our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer the objects of all good Governments than any other on the face of the earth, is my settled conviction." . . . "Have we not at the South, as well as at the North, grown great, prosperous, and happy under its operation ? Has any part of the world ever shown such rapid progress in the development of wealth,

Coming back to the State of Georgia, he referred to the anxiety of many there in 1850 to secede from the Union-and showed that since 1850 the material wealth of Georgia, as a member of the Union, had nearly, if not quite doubled.

He spoke of the prosperity in agriculture, commerce, art, science, and every department of education, physical and mental, and warned them against listening to the like temptation as that offered to our progenitors in the Garden of Eden-when they were led to believe that they would become as gods, and yielding in an evil hour saw only their own nakedness.

"I look," he said, "upon this country, with its institutions, as the Eden of the world, the paradise of the universe. It may be that out of it we may become greater and more prosperous; but I am candid and sincere in telling you, that I fear if we rashly evince passion and without sufficient cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous, and happyinstead of becoming gods, we will become demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's throats."

There, my countrymen, we have the testimony of the Vice-President of the rebel Confederacy, and the fact that Mr. Stephens, like our progenitors of whom he spoke, yielded to temptation and became a chief abettor of the scheme of ruin which he so strongly deprecated, detracts nothing from

the value of this remarkable speech. His treachery proves only his own weakness; it impeaches neither the truth of his facts, the aptness of his illustrations, nor the conclusions to which he was led by his historic experience and irresistible logic.

garded the fugitive-slave law as unconstitutional, and that Mr. Webster and Mr. Keitt had expressed the same opinion.

You have seen, too, from Mr. Stephens, that all the constitutional rights of the South were protected within the Union-and that the South was indebted to the Union for her safety, prosperity, and happiness.

What then is the real ground on which the

states is to be justified, if it can be justified at all? on what ground is it recommended to the prejudices of the South and to the impartial judgment of the world?

Already in South Carolina, first and chiefest of the seceding states, have men professing to be respectable, men whose names connect them, in past generations, with Eng- breach of faith committed by the seceding lishmen of gentle blood and Huguenots of heroic fame, men who for years have borne in foreign climes the proud title of American citizens, and who know the simple dignity of the American republic among the nations of the earth, already are these men, since they discarded the protection of the Federal Government, so lost to self-respect that they are not only ready to submit to a foreign yoke, but, according to their eulogist, Mr. Russell, in a paragraph I will presently quote, they actually whimper like children for the privilege of becoming the vassals of a European princelet.

After secession was an accomplished fact so far as their conventions could manage it by usurped authority and fictitious majorities, and Mr. Stephens had become not only a member but a prominent leader of the conspiracy, he said at Atlanta: —

"The foundations of our new Government are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.

THE CORNER-STONE OF THE SOUTHERN This our new Government is the first in the

CONFEDERACY.

We have glanced at the secret history of the conspiracy. Now, let me ask, on what ground does this usurping Confederacy ask to be recognized as independent, and admitted to the family of nations ?

In the convention of South Carolina, in reply to an objection that the declaration reported by the committee dwelt too much on the fugitive-slave law and personal-liberty bills, as giving it the appearance of special pleading, Mr. Memminger said: "Allow me to say to the honorable gentleman, that when you take the position that you have a right to break your faith, to destroy an agreement that you have made, to tear off your seal from the document to which it is affixed, you are bound to justify yourself fully to all the nations of the world, for there is nothing that casts such a stain upon the escutcheon of a nation as a breach of faith.”

In this Mr. Memminger was clearly right, and the alleged breach of faith by the North, touching the execution of the fugitive-slave law, was resorted to as affording a plausible pretext for seceding from the Union. But the debates show that this pretext was a sham, and Mr. Rhett frankly declared that he re

history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

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Mr. Stephens enlarged upon this distinguishing characteristic of the Government, to establish which the Union was to be dissolved, snecred at the principle that all men are equal, enunciated by our fathers in the Declaration of Independence, as the pestilent heresy of fancy politicians "—declared that " African inequality and the equality of white men were the chief corner-stone of the Southern Republic," and claimed that with a government so founded "the world would recognize in theirs the model nation of history."

Here we have their only apology for this rebellion, stripped of all shams and disguises, and thus at length in the latter half of the nineteenth century, stand face to face in deadly conflict the antagonist systems of the New World.

"All men," said the founders of the American republic, "are created free and equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," "Let it ever be remembered," said the Continental Congress," that the rights for which we have contended were

the rights of human nature," and on that William Pinckney, the great orator of Maryfoundation arose the fair fabric of our lib- land, which occurs in a speech made in the erties. Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789; and The dark shadow arises of another confed-remember as you listen to it the proof I have eracy which Davis and Keitt and Floyd already given you that the so-called Southand Toombs are striving to establish on the ern Confederacy is a military despotism, exruins of the republic erected by Washington temporized, and precipitated on the people and Franklin and Hamilton and Jefferson, of the South, who have never been allowed and the one great plea with which this new to express their will in regard to the subpower seeks to recommend itself to the stitution of the Montgomery Constitution for Christian world, is the assumption that the the ancient Constitution and Government white man was born to be the master, and which the confederates are striving to desthe black man was created to be his slave. troy.

THE REBELS of '76 and THOSE OF '61. The attempt of the slavery insurrectionists to bring into contempt the great principle of the Declaration of Independence, and their characterizing the men who uttered it and the men who believe in it as "fancy politicians," shows how absolutely antagonist in their principles were those who rebelled in '76 against unconstitutional acts of Parliament, and those who in '61 are rebelling against the Constitution of the United States. Even in the august year which we are met to celebrate, the principles and reasonings of our fathers commanded the admiration of Europe, and called forth in the House of Lords that magnificent eulogy of Chatham, when he said that for himself he must declare that he had studied and admired the free states of antiquity, the master states of the world; but that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men could stand in preference to the Congress of Philadelphia. Whatever may be the future of America, the past is safe.

Said Mr. Pinckney :

"That the dangerous consequences of the system of bondage have not as yet been felt, does not prove that they never will be. . . . To me, sir, nothing for which I have not the evidence of my senses is more clear than that it will one day destroy that reverence for liberty which is the vital principle of a Republic.

"While a majority of your citizens are accustomed to rule with the authority of despots within particular limits, while your youth are reared in the habit of thinking that the great rights of human nature are not so sacred but they may with innocence be trampled on, can it be expected that the public mind should glow with that generous ardor in the cause of freedom which can alone save a government like ours from the lurking demon of usurpation! Do you not dread contamination of principle? Have you ro alarms for the continuance of that spirit, which once conducted us to victory and independence when the talons of power were unclasped for our destruction? Have you no apprehension that when the votaries of freedom sacThe confederates of the slave republic, rifice also at the gloomy altars of slavery, unrivalled as may be their skill in robbing they will at length become apostates from us of material wealth and power, cannot rob the former? For my own part, I have no the founders of our Union of their glory-hope that the stream of general liberty will cannot filch from us the treasures we possess flow forever unpolluted through the foul mire in their great principles, connot lessen by of partial bondage, or that they who have the tithe of a hair the truth of and force of their example.

On the contrary, the formation of the Southern Confederacy adds new proof to their far-sighted and prophetic sagacity. Look at the rebel states, plunged into anarchy and war by Jefferson Davis, with a fettered press, free speech silenced, forced loans, and an army enlarged by conscription and then listen to a single passage from

been habituated to lord it over others, will not in time be base enough to let others lord it over them. If they resist, it will be the struggle of pride and selfishness, not of principle."

The hour so philosophically predicted seventy-two years ago has come. The usurping hand is lifted against the most benignant Government the world has ever seen. The usurpation is unresisted, the country is pre

cipitated into war, and popular government tion that there is some danger of an early overthrown, and a military rule established, act of rashness preliminary to secession; viz., the people, it would seem, have cast to the the seizure of some or all of the following world the historic memories we this day meet posts: Forts Jackson and Philip in the Misto celebrate. Mr. Russell, the correspondent sissippi, below New Orleans, both without of the London Times, now travelling at the garrisons; Fort Morgan, below Mobile, withSouth, treated with every attention, charmed out a garrison; Forts Pickens and McRae, with their courtesy, and evidently inclined Pensacola harbor, with an insufficient garto regard their rebel movement with a favor- rison for one; Fort Pulaski, below Savanable eye, writes from South Carolina on the nah, without a garrison; Forts Moultrie and 30th April, and makes this sad disclosure: Sumter, Charleston harbor, the former with "From all quarters have come to my ears an insufficient garrison, and the latter withthe echoes of the same voice; it may be out any ; and Fort Monroe, Hampton Roads, feigned, but there is no discord in the note, without a sufficient garrison. In my opinion and it sounds in wonderful strength and all these works should immediately be so monotony all over the country. Shades of garrisoned as to make any attempt to take George III., of North, of Johnson, of all who any one of them, by surprise or coup de main, contended against the great rebellion which ridiculous. tore these colonies from England, can you hear the chorus which rings through the state of Marion, Sumpter, and Pinckney, and not clash your ghostly hands in triumph? That voice says, 'If we could only get one of the royal race of England to rule over us, we should be content.'"

HOW THE REBELS ACQUIRED THEIR

STRENGTH.

Let me say next a word of the means by which a conspiracy so contemptible in its origin, so destitute of moral weight and of popular support, has attained to its present dimensions, ousting the Federal Government of its jurisdiction in more than half of our national territory to the east of the Rocky Mountains, and obtaining possession of arsenals and navy-yards and fortresses, seventeen in number, which had cost the American people more than seven millions of dollars.

On the 29th October, 1860, before the presidential election, Lieut.-General Scott wrote a letter to President Buchanan in which he referred to the secession excitement which the leaders of the conspiracy were actively fanning at the South, and remarked, that if this glorious Union were broken by whatever line political madness might contrive, there would be no hope of re-uniting the fragments, except by the laceration and despotism of the sword; pointing out the danger, he proceeded to point out the prevention::

"With an army faithful to its allegiance and the navy probably equally so, and with a Federal executive for the next twelve months of firmness and moderation, which the country has a right to expect-moderation being an element of power not less than firmness-there is good reason to hope that the danger of secession may be made to pass away without one conflict of arms, one execution, or one arrest for treason."

Gentlemen, Lieut.-General Scott knew well, we all know, that what he recommended Mr. Buchanan to do, an honest Executive might have done. Again and again in the history of our country have attempts been made to resist the execution of the laws, and again and again has the Federal Government triumphantly vindicated its supremacy.

The first armed rebellion was that headed by Shay in Massachusetts, in the winter of 1787. The rebels attempted to seize the arsenal, and were met with cannon, that killed three and wounded another of their number, and the state militia, under the command of General Lincoln, routed their forces, taking many prisoners, and peace was restored, not by any compromise, but by the enforcement of the laws.

As a Lincoln suppressed the first insurrection, so will a Lincoln suppress the last.

You will readily call to mind other similar occasions where the Federal Government, by prompt action, maintained its supremacy unimpaired.

First came the whiskey rebellion in Penn"From a knowledge of our Southern pop-sylvania during the administration of Washulation," he said, "it is my solemn convic-ington, to suppress which the President

called out fifteen thousand men from three | leaders, skilful as they may have been, who different states, led by their governors and had neither arms nor armies to overpower General Morgan, whom Washington at first the Government, but they were due to the proposed himself to accompany across the Federal Executive and his advisers of the Alleghanies. Cabinet. This fact is so interesting as a Next President Jefferson crushed in the matter of history, it is so important to a bud the opening conspiracy of Aaron Burr. right understanding of the whole subject, President Madison, during the war of 1816, and bears so clearly upon the question, what when doubts were entertained of the loyalty is our duty as citizens, and what the policy of the Hartford conventionists, who were of our Government, as regards the tolerance falsely reported to be in correspondence with or suppression of this rebellion? that you the enemy, stationed Major Jessup of Ken- will allow me to quote one authority upon tucky at Hartford, with a regiment to sup- the point from among the rebels themselves. press any sudden outbreak. Gen. Jackson, The Baltimore Examiner, in an elaborate about the same time in New Orleans, pro- eulogy of Floyd, who in the extent and inclaimed martial law in consequence of at-famy of his treachery certainly excelled his tempts by the civil authorities to embarrass fellow-traitors in the Cabinet, makes this the necessary measures of defence.

President Jackson, in 1832, repressed by the arm of General Scott, and amid the hearty applause of the nation, the defiant nullification of South Carolina; and President Tyler, in 1843, with the approval of his Secretary, Mr. John C. Calhoun, sent United States troops to Rhode Island to suppress the state revolution organized by a majority of the people of the state, but in violation of the existing state constitution, under the leadership of Governor Thomas W. Dorr.

plain avowal: "All who have attended to the developments of the last three months and knew aught of the movements of the Buchanan administration up to the time of Floyd's resignation, will justify the assertion that the Southern Confederacy would not and could not be in existence at this hour, but for the action of the late Secretary of War.

"The plan invented by General Scott to stop secession was like all campaigns devised by him, very able in its details and When, in 1860, General Scott, in advance nearly certain of general success. The of any outbreak, recommended President Southern States are full of arsenals and Buchanan to reinforce the forts instead of forts, commanding their rivers and strategic recommending active measures of interfer-points: General Scott desired to transfer ence such as his predecessors whom I have the army of the United States to these forts named did not hesitate to take, he simply as speedily and as quietly as possible. The asked of the President to do what any intel- Southern States could not cut off communiligent schoolboy could see was absolutely cation between the Government and the forproper and essential-and what he could actresses without a great fleet, which they cancomplish by a single word. Mr. Buchanan, not build for years; or take them by land guided by his Secretary of War, the traitor and thief, John B. Floyd, refused to order the reinforcement of the fortresses; all the forts named by General Scott, excepting Fort Pickens, were seized by the Confederates; and on the fact of their quiet possession, and the aid and comfort thus given to the rebels by the Federal Cabinet, was based the secession of the traitorous states and the formation of the new Confederacy.

The fact thus becomes clear as day, that not simply all the strength the rebel Confederacy originally possessed, but its very organization and existence, were due not to the people of the South, on whom without their sanction it was precipitated, nor to the

without one hundred thousand men, many hundred millions of dollars, several campaigns, and many a bloody siege. Had Scott been able to have got these forts in the condition he desired them to be, the Southern Confederacy would not now exist."

THE TRAITORS WHO HAVE BETRAYED US.

Such is the truth fairly stated by the Baltimore Examiner, in the interest of the rebels. The Union has been severed, not by violence from without, but by treachery within.

It has been convulsed from its centre to its circumference, not from any internal weakness in our Federal system,