January 7, 1861

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First Message of Governor Isham Harris to the Tennessee Assembly

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
NASHVILLE, January 7, 1861

Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives: ...

... The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizen; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party, whose bond of union is uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern States, have produced a crisis in the affairs of the country, unparalleled in the history of the past, resulting already in the withdrawal from the Confederacy of one of the sovereignties which composed it, while others are rapidly preparing to move in the same direction ...

... The Constitution distinctly recognizes property in slaves -- makes it the duty of the States to deliver the fugitive to his owner, but contains no grant of power to the Federal Government to interfere with this species of property, except "the power coupled with the duty," common to all civil Governments, to protect the rights of property, as well as those of life and liberty, of the citizen, which clearly appears from the exposition given to that instrument by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford ...

The attempt of the Northern people, through the instrumentality of the Federal Govermuent -- their State governments, and emigrant aid societies -- to confine this species of property within the limits of the present Southern States -- to impair its value by constant agitation and refusal to deliver up the fugitive -- to appropriate the whole of the Territories, which are the common property all the people of all the States, to the Southern man who is unwilling to live under a government which, may by law recognize the free negroe as his equal; "and in fine, to put the question where the Northern mind will rest in the belief of its ultimate extinction" is justly regarded by the people of the Southern States as a gross and palpable violation of the spirit and obvious meaning of the compact of Union -- an impertinent intermeddling with their domestic affairs, destructive of fraternal feeling, ordinary comity, and well defined rights ...

http://civilwarcauses.org/harris.htm

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1. Key phrase: "species of property"

sad

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2. Richmond Daily Dispatch: January 7, 1861

Taking of the Georgia forts — capture and Surrender of the Revenue Cutter Dobbin

... The cutter Dobbin, it appears, had been taken possession of without any State authority whatever, and on application of Mr. Boston, Collector of the port, for her releases Gov. Brown promptly granted it, in the following letter:

Sir:

The Revenue Cutter J. C. Dobbin, which was seized by some unauthorized person or persons unknown to me has, under the order giver by me to Col. Lawton, now in command of Fort Pulaski, to protect Government property against injury, been recaptured, and is now aground near Fort Pulaski. You will please send a revenue boat and take her into your custody to night, and I will have her hauled off to-morrow morning and delivered to you at such place as you may designate. I much regret the lawless seizure of the vessel, and beg leave to assure you that I shall from time to time give such orders as will protect the Custom-House and other property belonging to the Federal Government till the action of this State is determined by the Convention of her people ...

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=1BCFA6A93400AC61C3A4E333CFAF1805?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2006.05.0186

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3. Fort Marion

... On January 7, 1861, at least 25 militiamen from the town of Fernandina came to capture Fort Marion, a coquina fort built by the Spanish between 1672 and 1695. The lone United States army sergeant guarding the fort gave the Southerners the keys without complaint. Many of the fort's cannons was sent to Fernandina ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine_in_the_American_Civil_War

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4. Speech of Hon. J. J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, on his resolutions

... We are a great nation, composed now of thirty-three States. Fifteen of these have this peculiar institution of slavery : the others have excluded it, each acting according to its own free choice under the Constitution. Slavery existed in these and more States when the Constitution was formed. The Constitution took things as they were, recognized them as they were, and left them as they were, to the exclusive jurisdiction of the several States ...

http://www.archive.org/stream/speechofhonjjcri00crit/speechofhonjjcri00crit_djvu.txt

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5. Edwin V. Sumner to John G. Nicolay

St Louis Mo
Jan 7 / 61.

Dear Sir ...

The political excitement is becoming so intense, that a feeling of personal hostility, and bitterness, is increasing every day.

I have heard of threats against Mr Lincoln, and of bets being offered that he would never be inaugurated. -- I know very well that he is not the man to live in fear of assassination; but when the safety of the whole country depends upon his life, I would respectfully suggest to him, whether it would not be well to give this matter some attention ...

I am very truly yours

E V Sumner
Col U S A

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6. Robert Toombs, On Resigning from the Senate

... while this Congress, this Senate, and this House of Representatives are debating the constitutionality and the expediency of seceding from the Union, and while the perfidious authors of this mischief are showering down denunciations upon a large portion of the patriotic men of this country, those brave men are coolly and calmly voting what you call revolution—aye, sir, doing better than that: arming to defend it. They appealed to the Constitution, they appealed to justice, they appealed to fraternity, until the Constitution, justice, and fraternity were no longer listened to in the legislative halls of their country, and then, sir, they prepared for the arbitrament of the sword; and now you see the glittering bayonet, and you hear the tramp of armed men from your capitol to the Rio Grande. It is a sight that gladdens the eyes and cheers the hearts of other millions ready to second them. Inasmuch, sir, as I have labored earnestly, honestly, sincerely, with these men to avert this necessity so long as I deemed it possible, and inasmuch as I heartily approve their present conduct of resistance, I deem it my duty to state their case to the Senate, to the country, and to the civilized world ...

What do the rebels demand? First, “that the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present or any future acquired Territories, with whatever property they may possess (including slaves), and be securely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such Territory may be admitted as a State into the Union, with or without slavery, as she may determine, on an equality with all existing States.” ...

The second proposition is, “that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection from the government of the United States, in all of its departments, everywhere, which the Constitution confers the power upon it to extend to any other property, provided nothing herein contained shall be construed to limit or restrain the right now belonging to every State to prohibit, abolish, or establish and protect slavery within its limits.” ...

We demand, in the next place, “that persons committing crimes against slave property in one State, and fleeing to another, shall be delivered up in the same manner as persons committing crimes against other property, and that the laws of the State from which such persons flee shall be the test of criminality.” ...

But the nonslaveholding States, treacherous to their oaths and compacts, have steadily refused, if the criminal only stole a negro and that negro was a slave, to deliver him up ...

http://www.bartleby.com/268/9/21.html5

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7. New York Times (January 7, 1861)

THE TROUBLES AT THE SOUTH; REINFORCEMENTS ON THE WAY TO CHARLESTON.

Rumors have been current for several days that some of the idle steamers now lying up in our harbor would probably soon find employment in the honorable business of reinforcing Southern forts. The first steamer intended for this service -- the Star of the West -- is, without doubt, already on her way to Charleston with an efficient body of troops for the relief of the gallant Major ANDERSON. This steamer, which belongs to M.O. ROBERTS, and has been of late engaged in the trade to Havana and New-Orleans, was chartered a few days since by the Government, and, on Friday, was coaled with unusual dispatch, and got ready for sea. On Saturday she was cleared for Havana and New-Orleans, and late in the afternoon of the same day she proceeded apparently on her voyage ...

http://www.civilwar-online.com/2011/01/january-7-1861-new-york-times-leaks.html

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8. Organization of the 12th Virginia Regiment

... The nucleus of this regiment was the 4th Battalion, Virginia Volunteers, formed in Petersburg by January 7, 1861 ...

http://www.12thvirginia.org/historg.htm

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9. Governor John Letcher's Message to the General Assembly, January 7, 1861

Unless a settlement of the controversy shall be speedily effected, every species of property must
fall to merely nominal prices, and a scene of general and ruinous bankruptcy, far exceeding, in
extent and severity, any that has preceeded it, must be the inevitable result ...

What, then, is necessary to be done? The northern states must strike from their statute books their personal liberty bills, and fulfill their constitutional obligations in regard to fugitive slaves and fugitives from justice. If our slaves escape into non-slaveholding states, they must be delivered up ...

We must have proper and effective guarantees for the protection of slavery in the district of Columbia ...

We must have guarantees that slavery shall not be interdicted in any territory now belonging to, or which may hereafter be acquired by the general government; either by the congress of the United States or a territorial legislature ...

... the transmission of slaves between the slaveholding states, either by land or water, shall not be interfered with ...

<pdf link:> http://www.virginiamemory.com/docs/letcher_message.pdf
via: http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/union_or_secession/doc/letcher_message

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10. George C. Whatley's resolution, Montgomery Secession Convention

... WHEREAS, a sectional party, known as the Black Republican Party, has, in the recent election, elected Abraham Lincoln to the office of President, and Hannibal Hamlin to the office of Vice-President of these United States, upon the avowed principle that the Constitution of the United States does not recognise property in slaves and that the Government should prevent its extension into the common Territories of the United States, and that the power of the Government should be so exercised that slavery, in time, should be exterminated;

Therefore, be it Resolved, by the people of Alabama, in solemn Convention assembled, That these acts and designs constitute such a violation of the compact, between the several States, as absolves the people of Alabama from all obligation to continue to support a Government of the United States, to be administered upon such principles, and that the people of Alabama will not submit to be parties to the inauguration and administration of Abraham Lincoln as President, and Hannibal Hamlin as Vice President of the United States of America.

http://gathkinsons.net/sesqui/?p=1779

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11. Tyler County, (now West) Virginia

... A Union meeting in Tyler County declared that "we are in favor of striking West Virginia from eastern Virginia and forming a state independent from the South and firm to the Union"⁷...

7.<Wheeling Intelligencer> January 7, 1861 ...

West Virginia: a history
By Otis K. Rice & Stephen W. Brown
p 113
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ts4gcxT0YeAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=West+Virginia:+a+history++By+Otis+K.+Rice,+Stephen+W.+Brown&hl=en&ei=TqQnTY21NMPCnAe9oqCRCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

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12. Last meeting of the Territorial Legislature, Kansas Territory

January 7, 1861
Last territorial legislature met at Lecompton, adjourned to Lawrence.

http://lecomptonkansas.com/index.php?doc=time.php