n taken out of the Union; how? By the voice of the
people? No; it is demagogism to talk of the people. By the voice of
the freemen of the country? No. By whom has it been done? Have the
people of South Carolina passed upon the ordinance adopted by their
Convention? No; but a system of usurpation was instituted, and a reign
of terror inaugurated. How was it in Georgia? Have the people there
passed upon the ordinance of secession? No. We know that there was a
powerful party there, of passive, conservative men, who have been
overslaughed, borne down; and tyranny and usurpation have triumphed. A
convention passed an ordinance to take the State out of the
Confederacy; and the very same convention appointed delegates to go to
a congress to make a constitution, without consulting the people. So
with Louisiana; so with Mississippi; so with all the six States which
have undertaken to form a new Confederacy. Have the people been
consulted? Not in a single instance. We are in the habit of saying
that man is capable of self-government; that he has the right, the
unquestioned right, to govern himself; but here, a government has been
assumed over him; it has been taken out of his hands, and at
Montgomery a set of usurpers are enthroned, legislating, and making
constitutions and adopting them, without consulting the freemen of the
country. Do we not know it to be so? Have the people of Alabama, of
Georgia, of any of those States, passed upon it? No; but a
Constitution is adopted by those men, with a provision that it may be
changed by a vote of two-thirds. Four votes in a convention of six,
can change the whole organic law of a people constituting six States.
Is not this a _coup d'etat_ equal to any of Napoleon? Is it not a
usurpation of the people's rights? In some of those States, even our
Stars and our Stripes have been changed. One State has a palmetto,
another has a pelican, and the last that I can enumerate on this
occasion, is one State that has the rattlesnake run up as an emblem.
On a former occasion I spoke of the origin of secession; and I traced
its early history to the garden of Eden, when the serpent's wile and
the serpent's wickedness beguiled and betrayed our first mother. After
that occurred, and they knew light and knowledge, when their Lord and
Master turned to them, they seceded, and hid themselves from his
presence. The serpent's wile, and the serpent's wickedness, first
started secession; and now, secession brings