OPPOSITION TO SECESSION.

497

It was evident that the people of the South were, however, not all ready for the resort to arms. The refusal of eight of the States to pass the Secession Ordinance resulted from the "unqualified disapproval of the remedy for the existing difficulties," as a resolution of the Delaware legislature expressed it, because as a Southern paper said, "The vilest, most damnable, deep-laid, and treacherous conspiracy that was ever concocted in the busy brain of the most designing knave," was being formed by "meddling politicians," and "political tricksters." It was because the love of the Union was too strong, and, as the Governor of Maryland said, there was "nothing in the bare election of Mr. Lincoln, which would justify the South in taking any steps towards the separation of these States." On this subject the late Alexander H. Stephens said, November 14, 1860, in reply to the question whether the Southern States ought to secede, "I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think they ought." Again, in January, 1861, when addressing a convention in Georgia, he reviewed the relations between the government and the Southern ⚫ States, and then impressively said, that to overthrow such a government, "Is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanc

Pierce, and afterwards was active in the Secession movements. Alexander H. Stephens was born in Georgia, in 1812, and was a Whig member of Congress from 1843 to 1859. He advocated the annexation of Texas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Afterwards he joined the Democratic party, and supported Buchanan. He was sent to Congress again, after the Civil War, and in 1882, was chosen Governor of Georgia. He died at Atlanta, Sunday, March 4, 1883, and was followed to the grave by a large number of fellow-citizens, who mourned him as a true Christian.

ion nor my vote." He said at the same time that no one could name any "Governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government at Washington, of which the South has a right to complain."

It may well be doubted if war would ever have been

precipitated had it not been for several misconceptions that the Southern politicians had long impressed upon their constituents as truths, and which the people of the South now fully believed. These were (1.), that in case of actual conflict, the South would meet a divided

POLITICAL DELUSIONS.

499

North, for the Democrats, and all Southern sympathizers (among whom were counted business men having dealings with the South) would, so the Southern leaders said, surely oppose all vigorous prosecution of war. (11.) That the men of the North would prove feeble opponents; that "one Southerner was worth five Yankees." [After these words had been written, a Northern visitor returned from the South, published in a New York journal an article on "The new South," in the course of which he said: "An old officer of the Confederate army said to me, 'We were brought up to think that one Southerner could whip ten Yankees, but we found we were mistaken. That was the reason we were so easily led by our Southern leaders to engage in a war with the North.'"] (III.) That Great Britain and other European powers would take the side of the South—that propositions to that effect had actually been made in advance. This Jefferson Davis constantly affirmed, and after the battle of Bull Run, he announced the recognition of the Confederacy in the immediate future an absolute certainty.* (IV.) That the actual seat of wår would not be on Southern territory, but that the Northern cities and wealthy regions would be devastated and the Southern army would live on the enemy. This great mistake was very influential, and the Southern leaders used it to the utmost. It took away from the horrors of war, and it offered also a

*In his speech made at Stevenson, Ala., on the way to Montgomery, after his election as President of the Confederacy, Mr. Davis said, “England will recognize us, and a glorious future is before us. The grass will grow in the Northern cities where the pavement has been worn off by the tread of commerce." This hallucination always possessed Mr. Davis, and he reiterated its expression in a spirited proclamation even after the fall of Richmond.

solution to the difficulty of sustaining a large army with limited resources. It is not improbable that the leaders may have deceived themselves as well as those whom they tried to influence, until they honestly believed these statements to be true.

In January, 1861, President Buchanan secretly ordered supplies sent to Major Anderson, then in command of the troops at Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, and on the approach of the steamer bearing these supplies, it was fired upon by the Confederates, fortified on Morris Island, and obliged to return to New York without fulfilling its mission.

was begun.

Thus war