"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing a sectional
man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, breathing destruction
and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the
time will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable
and decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and he who
doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I
think I may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia--that
when that event happens, they, in my judgment, will consider it an overt
act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, to take
into consideration the mode and measure of redress. That is my position;
and if that be treason to the Government, make the most of it."--_Mr.
Gartell, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives_.
"I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital of my
State, on my way here, if such an event did occur," [_i.e._, the
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.
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