ally extended. A
continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted for the
purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in slaves.

* * * * *

"With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperilled, the
people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the
North to the adoption of some course of action to avoid the
danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view, the
Legislatures of the several States invited the people to select
delegates to conventions to be held for the purpose of
determining for themselves what measures were best adapted to
meet so alarming a crisis in their history."[72]

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President, as he was called, said, in a
speech delivered at Savannah, Georgia, 21st of March, 1861:

"The new Constitution has put at rest _forever_ all the agitating
questions relating to our peculiar institution,--African slavery
as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our
form of civilization. _This was the immediate cause of the late
rupture and present revolution._ JEFFERSON, in his forecast, had
anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would
split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him is now a
realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth
upon which that great rock _stood_ and _stands_, may be doubted.
_The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading
statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution,
were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the
laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially,
morally, and politically._ It was an evil they knew not well how
to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was,
that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the
institution would be evanescent, and pass away. This idea, though
not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at
the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential
guarantee to the institution while it should last; and hence no
argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees
thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. _Those
ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the
assumption of the