Chap. II. Harrison and Taylor, slavery would at this moment have been as firmly established, and slave-industry at least as profitable, as they were ten years ago.

The orators and agitators of the South, however, reasoned otherwise. They insisted that the election of a President by a "sectional" vote-that is, by the votes of a majority composed of persons living north of a given geographical line-was an injury and a defiance to those who lived south of it; and they prophesied that the rights and institutions of the Southern States would soon be at the mercy of this majority. But the more ardent and plain-spoken among them frankly avowed that Mr. Lincoln's election was, in their eyes, only a favourable opportunity for the execution of a longcherished design. The interests of North and South, they affirmed, had become palpably divergent, and it was for the advantage of the South to cut herself adrift and form an independent Confederacy of her own. Independent, she would be safer, stronger, richer, than in union-richer when she had no longer to share the profits of her industry with Northern merchants and manufacturers, safer and more powerful when her institutions and her policy should be under her own exclusive control.

That arguments so frail and calculations so unstable as these should have been thought to warrant so tremendous a conclusion, may well appear unaccountable. But behind them lay the true moving causes-an increasing sense of insecurity, a profound estrangement of feeling, a temperament suspicious of insult and quick to take fire, and the irritation engendered by a long and obstinate struggle. No election could be more strictly constitutional than Mr. Lincoln's, or more irreproachably fair. But it had in reality pitted against each other not parties merely but portions of the Union, animated by conflicting interests and passions, and had brought them into the sharpest antagonism. This was the conjuncture

of circumstances which Jefferson had foreboded forty Chap. II. years before, consoling himself with the thought that he should not live to see his fears realized. The mastery fell into the hands of the more eager and restless spirits -a mastery hard to resist in a country where popular feeling runs with so strong a current as in the United States. Prudent and cautious men yielded to the stream, or were swept away by it; and the mass of the people prepared, with a sanguine audacity which afterwards rose into obstinate courage, to defy the terrible risk of a civil war.2

1 "Although I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write, talk, or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs, and therefore had ceased to read newspapers, yet this Missouri question aroused and filled me with alarm. The old schism of Federal and Republican threatened nothing, because it existed in every State, and united them together by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion, and renewing irritations until it would kindle such mutual and mortal hatred as to render separation preferable to eternal discord. I have ever been amongst the sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question, not by the line which has been so confidently counted on, the laws of nature control this, but by the Potomac, Ohio, and Missouri, or more probably the Mississippi upwards to our northern boundary. My only comfort and confidence is that I shall not live to see this."Memoirs and Correspondence, vol. iv, p. 331.

2 The Albany Evening Journal, a Republican paper, on the 30th of November, 1860, after speaking of the effect which Mr. Calhoun's influence had produced in South Carolina, described the feeling of the South in the following terms :

"The contagion extended to other Southern States; and, by diligence, activity, discipline, and organization, the whole people of the Gulf States have come to sympathize with their leaders. The masses are, in their readiness for civil war, in advance of their leaders. They have been educated to believe us their enemies. This has been effected by systematic misrepresentations of the sentiments and feelings of the North. The result of all this is, that, while the Southern people, with a unanimity not generally understood, are impatient for disunion, more than one half of them are acting in utter ignorance of the intentions, views, and feelings of the North. Nor will the leaders permit them to be disabused.

Chap. II.

Those leaders know that Mr. Lincoln will administer the Government in strict and impartial obedience to the Constitution and laws, seeking only the safety and welfare of the whole people, through the prosperity and glory of the Union. For this reason, they precipitate the conflict; fearing that, if they wait for a provocation, none will be furnished, and that, without fuel, their fires must be extinguished.

The Disunion sentiment is paramount in at least seven States; while it divides and distracts as many more. Nor is it wise to deceive ourselves with the impression that the South is not in earnest. It is in earnest; and the sentiment has taken hold of all classes with such blind vehemence as to crush out' the Union sentiment."

66 "

Disaffection lurked,' wrote Mr. Seward in 1861, if it did not openly avow itself in every department and in every bureau, in every regiment, and in every ship of war; in the Post-office and in the Customhouse, and in every Legation and Consulate from London to Calcutta. Of 4,470 officers in the public service, civil and military, 2,154 were representatives of States where the revolutionary movement was openly advocated and urged, even if not actually organized.' "—Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, 10th April, 1861.

CHAPTER III.

Revolt of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Gulf States.-Organization of the Southern Confederacy.-Attitude of President Buchanan and of the Federal Congress.-Anxiety to avert a Conflict.-Fruitless endeavours to devise a Plan of Compromise.

LONG before the election of 1860 the chances of Secession, and the arguments for it, had been canvassed throughout the South without any attempt at concealment; it had been openly threatened within the walls of Congress, and the 6th November found the plans of the leading Secessionists, if not complete, sufficiently matured for immediate action.

The foremost part in this rash enterprise was accepted, or assumed, by South Carolina. The South Carolinian is reputed hasty and impetuous by nature; the institutions of the State have retained a tincture of aristocracy, and nowhere else in America has so commanding an influence been commonly exercised by a few opulent families. It has been her pride, as a State, to be prompt in decision and fearless in action. The response of the Colony, in 1765, to the Massachusetts Circular was among the earliest and boldest steps towards American independence. "South Carolina," in the somewhat overcoloured language of Mr. Bancroft, "founded American Union." Her fiery impatience in 1832 hurried her alone

1 "As the united American people spread through the vast expanse over which their jurisdiction now extends, be it remembered that the blessing of union is due to the warmheartedness of South Carolina. She was all alive and felt at every pore.'"- History of the American Revolution," vol. ii, p. 335.

E

Chap. III. to the very verge of revolt from that Union; and she was the first in 1860 to raise her hand against it.

The South Carolina Legislature had assembled on the 4th November. On the 7th, with hardly the formality of a discussion, an Act was passed summoning a Convention of delegates to be elected by the inhabitants of the State, and to meet at Columbia on the 17th December following. The Convention met, adjourned to Charleston, and immediately appointed a Committee to prepare an Ordinance of Secession. So rapid were its proceedings, that on the 20th the Ordinance was presented, and adopted by a unanimous vote; and South Carolina was on the same day solemnly proclaimed an independent commonwealth.1 Her example was followed in quick succession by Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In all of these States Conventions were held, on the summons either of the Legislature or of the Governor, and Ordinances of Secession passed; and each, one by one, declared itself free, sovereign, and independent. The dates of these proceedings are shown in the subjoined Table:

1 This Ordinance, on the model of which those of other seceding States were afterwards framed, was in the following terms :—

"An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.'

"We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention on the 23rd day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of