“
[
173]
coerce any seceding State.”
After discussing various resolutions, it was finally resolved, by unanimous vote, that the people of
Alabama would not submit to a Republican administration.
On the 10th an ordinance of secession was reported by the majority of a Committee of Thirteen, appointed to draft it, of whom seven were “Secessionists” and six “Co-operationists.”
It was longer than any of its predecessors, but similar to them in tenor.
With that groundless sophistry and reckless disregard of the plainest historic truths which characterized the speeches and writings of the men of the State Supremacy school, they assumed that their commonwealth, which was created by the National Government, first a Territory
and then a State,
had “delegated sovereign powers” to that Government, which were now 1819. “resumed and vested in the people of the
State of Alabama.”
This was an act as sensible as if Man should say to his Maker, “I will resume the life I have delegated to you, vest it in myself, and henceforth there shall be no union between us!”
The ordinance favored the formation of a confederacy of Slave-labor States, and formally invited the others to send delegates to meet those of
Alabama in convention, on the 4th of February, in the city of
Montgomery, for consultation on the subject.
The Alabama Convention was not harmonious.
Some seriously discordant notes were heard.
The Union element was not inclined to yield every thing without a struggle.
There was a minority report on secession; and many men were favorable to postponing action altogether, until the 4th of March, with the hope of preserving the Union.
So doubtful was the final result, that, so late as the 17th,
a dispatch was sent by telegraph to the
Alabama delegation in Congress, to retain their seats until further advised.
This opposition exasperated the ultra-secessionists, and they became very violent.
When, in the debate that followed the presentation of the two reports,
Nicholas Davis, of
Huntsville, in northern Alabama, declared his belief that the people of that section would not submit to any disunion schemes of the
Convention,
William L. Yancey, whose business for many months had been to “fire the
Southern heart and precipitate the
Cotton States into revolution,” sprang to his feet, denounced the people of
northern Alabama as “Tories, traitors, and rebels,” and said they ought to be coerced into submission.
This high criminal, who had talked so defiantly about the sin of “coercion” on the part of the
National Government, when its authority was resisted, was now ready to use brute force to coerce Union-loving and loyal men into submission to the treasonable schemes of a few politicians assembled in convention!
Mr. Davis was not intimidated by
Yancey's bluster, but calmly assured the conspirators that the people of his section would be ready to meet their enemies on the line, and decide the issue at the point of the bayonet.
The final vote on the Ordinance of Secession was taken at about two o'clock on the 11th,
and resulted in sixty-one ayes to thirty-nine noes.
This result created great joy. An immense mass meeting was held in front of the
State House in
Montgomery, during the afternoon; and weak-kneed “Co-operationists,” carried away by the popular enthusiasm, pledged their constituents to a support of the ordinance.
A secession flag, which the women of
Montgomery had presented
