election of a Republican President, upon a Republican platform], "while
it would be their duty to determine the course which the State would
pursue, it would be my privilege to counsel with them as to what I
believed to be the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now,
and what I will always say in such an event, that my counsel would be to
take independence out of the Union in preference to the loss of
constitutional rights, and consequent degradation and dishonor, in it.
That is my position, and it is the position which I know the Democratic
party of the State of Mississippi will maintain."--_Gov. McRae, of
Mississippi._

"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the present
temper of the Southern people, it" [_i.e._, the election of a Republican
President] "cannot be, and will not be, submitted to. The 'irrepressible
conflict' doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most
distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of
war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; and I would
be disloyal to Virginia and the South, if I did not declare that the
election of such a man, entertaining such sentiment, and advocating such
doctrines, _ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States_. The idea
of permitting such a man to have the control and direction of the army
and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high judicial and
executive officers, POSTMASTERS INCLUDED, _cannot_ be entertained by the
South for a moment."--_Gov. Letcher, of Virginia_.

"Slavery _must_ be maintained--in the Union, if possible; out of it, if
necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if we must."--_Senator Iverson,
of Georgia_.

"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected in
November next, and the South will then decide the great question whether
they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule--the
fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised,
and declared war upon our social institutions. I believe that the honor
and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt
secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then to
obtain from the free States additional and higher guaranties for the
protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should
proceed to establish a new government. But while I think such would be
the imperative duty of the South, I should emphat