The Great Conspiracy, Volume 3Logan, John Alexander
History
The Great Conspiracy, Volume 3
Logan, John Alexander
Slavery -- United States; United States -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865
"There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern towards the
Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear towards Great
Britain. Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes
collected from them were expended amongst them. Had they submitted to
the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from
them, would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire.
They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing
the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who
receive the benefit of their expenditure.
"To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which
drove them on to Revolution, yet this British policy has been fully
realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States. The
people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the
Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of
them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with
the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the
South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of
Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the
basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities
do not carry it on. Our foreign trade is almost annihilated. * * *
"No man can for a moment believe, that our ancestors intended to
establish over their posterity, exactly the same sort of Government they
had overthrown. * * * Yet by gradual and steady encroachments on the
part of the people of the North, and acquiescence on the part of the
South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away; and the
Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of
limitless powers in its operations. * * *
"A majority in Congress, according to their interested and perverted
views, is omnipotent. * * * Numbers with them, is the great element of
free Government. A majority is infallible and omnipotent. 'The right
divine to rule in Kings,' is only transferred to their majority. The
very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to
restrain the majority. Constitutions, therefore, according to their
theory, must be most unrighteous inventions, restricting liberty. None
ought to exist; but the body politic ought simply to have a political
organization, to bring out and enforce the will of the majority. This
theory is a remorseless despotism. In resisting it, as applicable to
ourselves, we are vindicating the great cause of free Government, more
important, perhaps, to the World, than the existence of all the United
States."
In his Special Message to the Confederate Congress at Montgomery, April
29, 1861, Mr. Jefferson Davis said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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