Annihilation to Disgrace!

By Ryan Reed

Rolla Express

12-10-1860

Vol. 1, No. 21

 

From the South

 

“We have but little that is new to say of Southern matters.  The secession movement still continues.  Both the disunionists and the conservatives continue to hold meetings in different parts of the South.  The expected message of Governor Gist, of South Carolina has appeared.  It is a strong secession document.”

 

This article refers to William Henry Gist’s, Governor of South Carolina, message to the state legislature on November 27^th.  Gist was strongly opposed to the election of Abraham Lincoln.  Prior to the election, Gist contacted other Southern governors and discussed what course of action to take if Lincoln was elected.  In the end, Gist believed that because the United States was created through a compact among sovereign states, the states could leave the Union if the federal government failed to protect their rights.  Therefore, Gist wanted secession if Lincoln was elected.

 

His November 27, 1860 message confirms and explains his position of secession.  In his long address he details how the state would secede and the hopes that other Southern states will follow suit.  He concluded his message by stating;

 

“I cannot permit myself to believe that in the madness of passion an attempt will be made by the present or the next Federal Administration to coerce South Carolina after her secession by refusing to surrender the harbor defenses or interfering with imports or exports; but if mistaken, we must accept the issue, and meet it as becomes men and freemen, who infinitely prefer annihilation to disgrace!”

 

Caricature of James Buchanan-Currier & Ives, 1860

The Rolla Express also published a synopsis on President James Buchanan’s fourth and final State of the Union Address read before Congress on December 4^th 1860.  Strife between the North and South was at a fever pitch and South Carolina was on the verge of becoming the first state to secede from the Union.  In his message, Buchanan understood that it was the responsibility of the President to ensure that the laws of the United States be faithfully executed.  However, he shied from this duty saying that the existing conditions rendered the government helpless to intervene.  He believed that secession was not “an inherent constitutional right” but saw no constitutional provision that empowered the president “to coerce a state into submission.”

 

Buchanan, whose pro-Southern partisanship that was the hallmark of this administration, continued in his message to blame the North solely for the crisis.  He stated:

 

“The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects.  The different sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of this Country, when hostile geographic parties have been formed.” 

 

Buchanan continued:

 

“The immediate peril arises not so much from these causes as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has a length produced its malign influence on the slaves and inspired them with vague notions of freedom.  Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar… Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable.”

 

After admonishing the North, Buchanan lays into the South.

 

“The election of any one of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the Union.  This is more especially true if his election has been effected by a mere plurality and not a majority of the people and has resulted from transient and temporary causes which may probably never again occur.”

 

Finally addressing the secession crisis, Buchanan acted as a cranky grandfather admonishing his grandchildren to behave.  He basically told the North, you caused the problem and you in the South don’t have a problem.  He continued that the problem could be resolved and peace restored if the North minded their own business and permitted the South to manage themselves and continue the practice of slavery.  He called upon the states to pass a set of constitutional amendments that would affirm the legal existence of slavery, a solution he believed would put the entire secession matter to rest.

 

The President’s State of the Union fell flat in both the North and the South.  The North didn’t like being told that saying slavery is wrong was wrong and the South didn’t like being told that secession was wrong.  Buchanan’s administration was well known for being ineffective and his inadequate speech added to his lame legacy. 

 

The only impression garnered about the opinion of the President’s speech by the Rolla Express is a brief paragraph alerting readers of the synopsis.

 

"In another part of the paper we give a brief synopsis of the Presidents Message.  We deem it a very important document breathes a conservative and patriotic spirit.  In no age of our national existence have we had more need of wise and prudent counsels."