Today in History:

24 Series IV Volume I- Serial 127 - Correspondence, Orders, Reports and Returns of the Confederate Authorities, December 20, 1860 – June 30, 1862

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leaders to the execution of those atrocious designs, has acquired the ascendant in every Northern State, and hopes by success in the approaching Presidential election to seize the Government itself; and

Whereas, to permit such a seizure by those whose unmistakable aim is to pervert its whole machinery to the destruction of a portion of its members would be an act of suicidal folly and madness, almost without a parallel in history; and

Whereas, the General Assembly of Alabama, representing a people loyally devoted to the Union of the Constitution, but scorning the Union which fanaticism would erect upon its ruins, deem it their solemn duty to provide in advance the means by which they may escape such peril and dishonor, and desire new securities for perpetuating the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity: Therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened, That upon the happening of the contingency contemplated in the foregoing preamble, namely, the election of a President advocating the principles and actions of the party in the Northern States calling itself the Republican party, it shall be the duty of the Governor, and he is hereby required, forthwith to issue his proclamation calling upon the qualified voters of this State to assemble on a Monday not more than forty days after the date of said proclamation, and acts of voting in their respective counties, to elect delegates to a State convention of the State, to consider, determine, and do whatever, in the opinion of said convention, the rights, interests, and honor of the State of Alabama require to be done for their protection.

And on the 25th day of February, 1860, another resolution was adopted and passed by said body, as follows, viz:

Be it resolved, That in the absence of any preparation for a systematic co-operation of the Southern States in resisting the aggressions of their enemies, Alabama, acting for herself, has solemnly declared that under no circumstances will she submit to the foul domination of a sectional Northern party; has provided for the call of a convention in the event of the triumph of such a faction in the approaching Presidential election, and, to maintain her position thus deliberately assumed, has appropriated, &c.

Under the foregoing resolutions and the influence of subsequent political events His Excellency Andrew B. Moore, Governor of the State of Alabama, deeming it proper to consult with the slave-holding States of the Union as to what is best to be due to promote their and our interests and honor in the crisis which the action of the Black Republicans has forced the country, and believing that the conventions of South Carolina and Florida, as well as the Legislatures of some of the other States, would have assembled and acted before the meeting of the convention of Alabama, and thus the opportunity of conferring with them would be measurably lost, determined to appoint commissioners to each of the slave-holding States in time to enable them to report the result of the convention to him before the meeting of the Alabama convention (which will assemble at the city of Montgomery on the 7th of January, 1861), that the same might be laid before that body. The election of members to the Alabama convention was holden on the 24th of December, 1860. This course was pursued by Governor Moore because the Southern States could not, without violating the Constitution of the United States, make any agreement, form any alliance, nor enter into any compact for their mutual protection before separate State secession; and because all that can be done will be to consult generally as to what would be best and afterward to secede separately as emergencies might demand, and thereafter co-operate in the formation of such confederacy as might tend to the general welfare. Under this state of facts the undersigned was, by Andrew B. Moore, Governor of the State of Alabama, on the 18th of December, 1860, commissioned to the State of Missouri and with the Legislature and all other public functionaries of said States, touching the premises as to


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