candidate, adjourned to the city of Baltimore, where, on the 18th day of June, they selected Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois as their standard-bearer. The southern wing of the Democracy met in the same city a few days later and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The KnowNothing party having dissolved had no candidate, but conservative men of all parties joined to organize the Constitutional Union party, which also met in Baltimore, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee. Closely following the disruption of the Democratic party at Charleston, the Republican party met in national convention in the city of Chicago, and after an exciting contest nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The campaign was, perhaps, the most memorable in the history of the republic. Though it began with the usual hurrah and enthusiasm, the canvass had not proceeded far when there suddenly fell upon the people a profound seriousness. Arguments were made in sober vein by party speakers, and listened to in sober mood by thousands of voters who had heretofore been wont to applaud the eloquence and rhetoric of campaign orators. A deep conviction laid hold upon the people that the republic had come upon dangerous times, and was fast approaching the greatest crisis in its history. The southern leaders, sullen and angry, denounced both Douglas and Lincoln, and openly threatened that if Lincoln were elected the south would apply the doctrine of Calhoun and signify its disapproval by seceding from the union. Douglas, in a personal campaign, took the field, and ere the canvass had proceeded far, came out boldly and patriotically for the maintenance and preservation of the union. Lincoln, standing firmly on the constitution, and advocating that slavery be confined to the states which it then occupied, patiently and anxiously awaited the result at Springfield, his audience now multiplied into the tens of thousands, reading by their firesides his speeches and debates. No matter how many questions were discussed, there was but one question uppermost in

the public mind, the extension of slavery in the territories.

Election day came and passed quietly by, in keeping with the orderly manner in which the campaign had been conducted. The returns showed that Lincoln and Hamlin had received one hundred eighty electoral votes; Douglas twelve, Breckinridge seventy-two, and Bell thirty-nine. "On the day of the election," writes the historian Rhodes, "the poet Longfellow wrote in his journal, 'Voted early,' and the day after, 'Lincoln is elected. Overwhelming majorities in New York and Pennsylvania. This is a great victory; one can hardly overrate its importance. It is the redemption of the country. Freedom is triumphant.'

"The meaning of the election was that the great and powerful north declared slavery an evil and insisted that it should not be extended; that while the institution would be sacredly respected where it existed, the conduct of the national government must revert to the policy of the fathers, and confine slavery within bounds; hoping that if it were restricted the time might come when the southern people would themselves acknowledge that they were out of tune with an enlightened world and take steps gradually to abolish the system.

"The north had spoken. In every man's mind rose unbidden the question, What would be the answer of the south?"

474. Secession.-The north had not long to wait; the answer of the south was secession. The presidential election was held on the 8th of November, 1860; on the 17th of the following December, the legislature of South Carolina met at Charleston, and at the end of a three days' session passed an act of secession dissolving the union hitherto existing between South Carolina and the United States of America. The seed sown by Calhoun had at last borne fruit in an open act of disunion. This sentiment now rapidly spread throughout the southern states, Within six weeks Georgia

and every state bordering on the Gulf of Mexico,-Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas,—had followed South Carolina's example. Nearly all the senators and representatives from those states at once resigned their seats in congress, hastened to the south, and lent their influence to spreading the doctrine of disunion.

On the 4th of February delegates from all the seceded states, excepting Texas, met at Montgomery, Alabama, set up a government in opposition to the authority of the United States, and four days later elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi president and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia vicepresident of the Confederate States of America.

475. Buchanan's Policy.-While these events were taking place in the south, thoughtful men in every section of the country viewed with alarm the rapid spread of the disunion sentiment. The policy of the president and his chief advisers was to conciliate the south and "beg them to return to the union." In a message to congress, Buchanan informed that body that "the long-continued interference of the northern people with the question of slavery in the southern states has at last produced its natural effect." He begged the northern states to repeal their personal liberty laws. He insisted that the southern states had a "right to demand this simple act of justice from the states of the north." Buchanan, however, was not a disunionist,-he denied the right of any state to secede from the union, but he nevertheless arrived at the conclusion that "no power has been delegated to congress, or to any other department of the federal government to coerce a state into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn from the union." This policy paralyzed the national government and spread consternation throughout the loyal states. The cry went up from union people all over the land as they recalled how nullification had been suppressed by Andrew Jackson in 1832, "O for an hour of Old Hickory!" Buchanan's cabinet soon went to pieces, the disunionist members