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Republican party led by Lincoln, showed a really aggressive spirit born of absolute convictions. The Southern portion of the former had resolved to nationalize slavery or destroy the Union; the latter declared that there was "an irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery," and that the Republic could not exist "half slave and half free." This was the real issue; and after one of the most exciting political campaigns ever witnessed in our country, from June until November, Mr. Lincoln was elected Chief Magistrate of the United States by a large majority over the other candidates, with Mr. Hamlin as Vice-President. An analysis of the popular vote showed that three-fourths of the whole number were given to men opposed to the extension of slavery. This significant fact notified the friends of the slave-system that the days of their political domination in the councils of the nation had ended, perhaps forever, and they acted accordingly.

Such is a brief outline history of the conspiracy of Southern politicians to divide the Democratic party; give victory to the Republican party; cause the election of a "sectional President," and so afford a plausible pretext for a premeditated attempt to dissolve the Union and destroy the Republic. Thus far their schemes had worked to their satisfaction; it now remained for them to "fire the Southern heart" and produce a "solid South" in favor of emancipation from what they were pleased to call the tyranny of a "sectional party" led by a "a sectional President." This accomplished, they would be ready to raise the arm to give the fatal blow to the existence of the Republic.

The leading men who brought upon the Southern people and those of the whole country the horrors of a four-years Civil War, with all its terrible devastation of life, property and national prosperity, were few in number, but wonderfully productive of their kind. They were then, or had been, connected with the National Government, some as legislators and others as cabinet ministers. They were not so numerous at first, said Horace Maynard, a loyal Tennesseean, in a speech in Congress," as the figures on a chess-board. There are those within reach of my voice," he said, "who also knew them, and can testify to their utter perfidy; who have been the victims of their want of principle, and whose self-respect has suffered from their insolent and overbearing demeanor. No Northern man was ever admitted to their confidence, and no Southern man unless it became necessary to keep up their numbers; and then not till he was thoroughly known by them, and known to be thoroughly corrupt. They, like a certain school of ancient philosophers, had two sets of principles or doctrines-one for outsiders and one for themselves; the one was 'Democratic principles' for the Democratic party, the other was for their own and without a name. Some

CHAP. II.

PREPARING FOR A REVOLUTION.

1417 Northern men and some Southern men were, after a fashion, petted and patronized by them, as a gentleman throws from his table a bone, or a choice bit, to a favorite dog; and they imagined they were conferring a great favor thereby, which would be requited only by the abject servility of the dog. To hesitate, to doubt, to hold back, to stop, was to call down a storm of wrath that few men had the nerve to encounter, and still fewer the strength to withstand. Not only in political circles, but in social life, their rule was inexorable, their tyranny absolute. God be thanked for the brave men who had the courage to meet them and bid them defiance, first at Charleston in April, 1860, and then at Baltimore, in June! To them is due the credit of declaring war against this intolerable despotism."

During the canvass in the summer and autumn of 1860, pro-slavery politicians traversed the free-labor States and disseminated their views without hindrance. Among the most daring and outspoken of these was William L. Yancey of Alabama, who was a fair type of politicians in other Southern States who, by vehemence of manner and sophistry in argument, misled the people. He was listened to with patience by the people of the North, and was treated kindly everywhere; and when he returned to the South, he labored incessantly with tongue and pen to stir up the people to rebellion, saying in substance, as he had written two years before: "Organize committees all over the Cotton States; fire the Southern heart; instruct the Southern mind; give courage to each other; and at the proper moment, by one organized, concerted action, precipitate the Cotton States into revolution."

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The "proper moment was near at hand. Mr. Lincoln was elected by a large majority over each candidate, and was chosen in accordance with the letter and spirit of the National Constitution; yet, because he received nearly a million of votes less than did all of his opponents combined, the cry was raised by the Southern politicians, that he would be a usurper when in office because he had not received a majority of the aggregate votes of the people; that his antecedents, the principles of the Republican platform, the fanaticism of his party and his own utterances, all pledged him to wage an unrelenting warfare upon the system of slavery and rights of the slavelabor States, with all the powers of the National Government at his command. They said, in effect, to the people, through public oratory, the pulpit, and the press, "Your rights and liberties are in imminent danger'to your tents, O Israel!'"

While these alarming assertions were fearfully stirring the inhabitants of the Southern States, the politicians were rejoicing because their plans were working so admirably, and they immediately set about the execution of

their long-cherished scheme for the dissolution of the Union. All active loyalty to the Government was speedily suppressed by an organized system; and the promise of a North Carolina Senator (Clingman), that Union men should be hushed by "the swift attention of Vigilance Committees," was speedily fulfilled. In this work the Press and the Pulpit were powerful auxiliaries; and by these accepted oracles of wisdom and truth, thousands of men and women were led into an attitude of rebellion against their government. To quiet their scruples the doctrine of "State Supremacy" had been, for a long time, vehemently preached by the politicians and their allies, and the people were made to believe that their allegiance was primarily due to their respective States, and not to the National Government. "Perhaps there never was a people," wrote a resident of a slavelabor State in the third year of the Civil War that ensued, " more bewitched, beguiled and befooled, than we were when we drifted into this rebellion."

CHAPTER III.

THE

PRETEXT FOR DISUNION-TRUE REASONS-STATE-RIGHTS

ASSOCIATIONS-DESIRES FOR ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND ARISTOCRATIC PRIVILEGES-EARLY PREPARATIONS FOR DISUNIONSECRET CONFERENCES

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SENTIMENTS OF VIRGINIANS CONGRATULATORY DESPATCHES ON LINCOLN'S ELECTION-EXCITEMENT IN CHARLESTON-PUBLIC OFFICES ABDICATED-A STATE CONVENTION AUTHORIZED-SECRET DOINGS OF SECESSIONISTS-MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH CAROLINA-STATE SUPREMACY AND ITS EFFECTS-EVENTS IN GEORGIA-TOOMBS AND STEPHENSMOVEMENTS TOWARD SECESSION IN VARIOUS STATES-SOUTHERN METHODISTS-INITIAL STEPS FOR DISUNION IN SOUTH CAROLINA-DISHONORABLE PROPOSITIONS-VIGILANCE COMMITTEESSECESSION ASSURED.

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HERE is direct evidence to prove that the politicians of South Carolina and elsewhere had been making preparations for revolt many years, and that the alleged violations of the Fugitive-Slave Act and the election of Mr. Lincoln were made only pretexts for stirring up the "common people" to support and do the fighting for them. The testimony of speakers in the Convention at Charleston that declared the secession of that State from the Union, was clear and explicit. "It is not an event of a day," said Robert Barnwell Rhett, one of the most violent declaimers of his class; "it is not anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the Fugitive-Slave Law. It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years. In regard to the Fugitive-Slave Law, I myself doubted its constitutionality, and doubted it on the floor of the Senate when I was a member of that body. The States, acting in their sovereign capacity, should be responsible for the rendition of slaves. This was our best security." Another member of the Convention (Francis S. Parker) said: "It is no spasmodic effort that has come suddenly. upon us; it has been gradually culminating for a long period of thirty years." John A. Inglis, the chairman of the committee that drew up the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, said: "Most of us have had the matter under consideration for the last twenty years." And Lawrence M. Keit, one of the most active of the younger politicians, declared: "I have been engaged in this movement ever since I entered political life."

When President Buchanan, in his annual message in December, 1860, declared that "the long-continued and intemperate interference of the

Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States" had produced the estrangement which had led to present troubles, the assertion was claimed by the politicians in the slave-labor States to be untrue. Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, had declared in a speech in October, 1858, that the discussion of slavery at the North had been very useful to them. After speaking of the great value of slavery to the cotton States, he observed: "Such has been for us the happy results of the Abolition discussion. So far our gain has been immense from this contest, savage and

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

malignant as it has been. Now we have solved already the question of emancipation [from connection with the Northern States] by this re-examination and exposition of the false theories of religion, philanthropy, and political economy, which embarrassed the fathers in their days. At the North and in Europe, they cried havoc, and let loose upon us all the dogs of war. And how stands it now? Why, in this very quarter of a century, our slaves have doubled in numbers, and each slave has more than doubled in value." In July, 1859, Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, said he was not one of those who believed that the South had sustained any injury by these agitations. "So far," he said, "from the institution of African

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slavery in our section having been weakened or rendered less secure by the discussion, my deliberate judgment is that it has been greatly strengthened and fortified." Earl Russell, the British Premier, in a letter to Lord Lyons at Washington, in May, 1861, said that one of the Confederate commissioners told him that "the principal of the causes which led to secession was not slavery, but the very high price which, for the sake of protecting Northern manufactures, the South was obliged to pay for the manufactured goods which they required.

De Bow's Review was the acknowledged organ of the slave interest. In its issue for February, 1861, George Fitzhugh, a leading publicist of Virginia, commenting on the President's message, said: "It is a gross mistake to

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