We have abated not one jot or tittle of our attachment to the “Constitution, the Union and the Enforcement of the Laws”—the proud and unexceptionable motto of the party for which we battled during the long and exciting contest so recently closed.  We occupy the same ground we have ever occupied.  We have not changed in the slightest particular.  Let the Constitution be enforced in all its integrity; let the laws of Congress, enacted in pursuance of its authority, be scrupulously and faithfully carried out; let the decisions of the supreme judicial tribunal of the land be respected and vindicated in all portions of the Confederacy; let a true and loyal obedience to the laws and the courts prevail everywhere in the North, South, East and West—and the Union will be in no danger of disruption from any cause, but will stand for ages an indestructible monument of the surpassing wisdom of our ancestors and the unvarying fidelity and patriotism of their descendants.

But, we cannot say, and we have never said, that we were in favor of a Union to be maintained at the sacrifice of a violated Constitution, by a persistent refusal to obey the mandates of the Supreme Court, and by a general nullification of the laws of Congress, by the majority section, to oppress and outrage the minority portion of the confederacy.  We have never been in favor of such a Union, and never shall be.  The fathers of the Republic would have spurned such a confederation with as much loathing as they did the treason of Benedict Arnold.  The Declaration of Independance itself says: “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” Higher authority than the above is not to be found in the history of the United States.  The principle it enunciates constitutes the very corner stone of the temple of American liberty—of liberty everywhere.  Wherever the principle is unrecognized, sheer and unadulterated despotism prevails.  There is no such thing as civil and religious freedom where it is ignored.  The right to change a government, or to utterly abolish it, and to establish a new goverment, is the inherent right of a free people; and when they are deprived of that right they are no longer free—not a whit more so than the serfs of Russia or the down-trodden millions of Austria.

The history of the Abolition or Black Republican party of the North is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of absolute tyranny over the slaveholding States. And all without the smallest warrant, excuse or justification. We have appealed to their generosity, justice and patriotism, but all without avail. From the beginning, we have only asked to be let alone in the enjoyment of our plain, inalienable rights, as explicitly guaranteed in our common organic law. We have never aggressed upon the North, nor sought to aggress upon then North. Yet every appeal and expostulation has only brought upon us renewed insults and augmented injuries. They have robbed us of our property, they have murdered our citizens while endeavoring to reclaim that property by lawful means, they have set at naught the decrees of the Supreme Court, they have invaded our States and killed our citizens, they have declared the unalterable determination to exclude us altogether from the Territories, they have nullified the laws of Congress, and finally they have capped the mighty pyramid of unfraternal enormities by electing Abraham Lincoln to the Chief Magistracy, on a platform and by a system which indicates nothing but the subjugation of the South and the complete ruin of her social, political and industrial institutions.