CHAPTER XIII.

THE campaign of 1860, with all its evil passions and boisterous enthusiasm, finally ended with the election of Mr. Lincoln by a large majority of electoral votes, but with a minority of nearly a million in the popular vote. It was with an ominous presage that the result was announced. Not an electoral vote south of Mason and Dixon's line was given to him. He was to become the first sectional President. The South understood neither Lincoln's character, nor his policy. Then, as to a great extent since, he was totally misapprehended, his character maligned and his motives impugned. Yet, the bitter hostility to the man was but a cloak for the enduring enmity felt towards the principles he was supposed to represent.

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The campaign had been pre-eminently a conflict between opposing principles rather than persons. Douglas, in one of his speeches, remarked substantially, that the great principle involved in the contest was that of "interference" or non-interference." The Republicans who opposed, and the Buchanan Democrats who favored the extension of slavery, were, to all intents, committed to the same policy, while the American party, headed by Mr. Bell and the Douglas wing of the Democracy, could easily coalesce, being pledged to the principle of noninterference, a policy which would leave to each

State the decision of the question, whether it should be free or slave.

Many times before had slavery and anti-slavery met at the polls in violent, though nominally, peaceful strife. But the crisis had now come, when the decision of the ballot was no longer deemed authoritative. For the sake of slavery the South was ready to cast away all the memories of the past, fraught with the glory achieved by the heroes of an united country; to renounce the presage of future greatness and prosperity, which harmony alone could bring; to haul down the "Stars and Stripes" which had waved over many a battle-field where their fathers had stood, shoulder to shoulder, with the now hated heroes of the North in defense of a common country against a common tyranny. For slavery they would destroy the Government, disrupt the country and enter into a war which should devastate the land, destroy their homes and stain the soil with the blood of their beloved sons.

The question of secession was not a new one, nor was the issue hastily raised. It had its root in the opposition to the adoption of the Constitution. That instrument, efficient and able as it has since proven itself to be, was then viewed with disfavor and distrust by a majority of the people in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and South Carolina. Yet the emergency of the hour and the ability of its advocates overrode the objections and secured its adoption. There was a constantly increasing party which believed that the Union was but a federation, a compact into which the States had voluntarily entered and from which they possessed the

power to withdraw at their discretion. The Union party believed that by the adoption of the Constitution, the States had merged their existence into that of the Nation, permanently surrendering their rights to the central government, except such as the Constitution should delegate to them. According to this view the events of 1789 constituted a revolution as radical as that of 1776, though of a different character. The one established the independence of the individual States, the other took away the independence of the States and made them component parts of a nation, laying emphasis upon their nationality.

The doctrine of State sovereignty was first distinctly stated in 1798, after the passage of the "Alien and Sedition" laws by Congress. The Legislatures. of Kentucky and Virginia passed resolutions, prepared by Jefferson and Madison, respectively, which asserted that the Constitution was of the nature of a compact to which the separate States were parties, and that each State had the exclusive right to decide for itself when the compact had been broken and the mode and measure of redress. At different times one or more of the States had asserted the right of secession, but had either been restrained by wiser counsels or by force. Calhoun's doctrine of nullification, which was tried in South Carolina in 1832 and failed, was a legitimate offspring of this political theory. Another outbreak was imminent in 1850, but was subdued by compromise and popular vote. The sentiment was not destroyed, but reposed in the faith of its ultimate triumph, and awaited an opportunity for an outbreak. The election of Lincoln brought the opportunity and a nominal provocation.

During the memorable winter preceding Lincoln's inauguration, secession was the all-absorbing topic. The South energetically maintained its right to secede, and proceeded to exercise it; while the North was loth to believe that the secession movement was not conceived in a spirit of mere bravado, and that the Union would be broken.

The subject was discussed in the press and pulpit, and in the national Legislature. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, in a speech in the House of Representatives, said:

"The secession and rebellion of the South have been inculcated as a doctrine for twenty years past among slaveholding communities. At one time the tariff was deemed a sufficient cause; then the exclusion of slavery from the Territories; then some violation of the Fugitive Slave Law. Now the culminating cause is the election of a President who does not believe in the benefits of slavery or approve of that great missionary enterprise, the slave-trade. The truth is, all these things are mere pretenses. The restless spirits of the South desire to have a slave empire, and they use all these things as excuses. Some of them desire a more brilliant and stronger government than a republic. Their domestic institutions and the social inequality of their free people naturally prepare them for a monarchy, surrounded by a lordly nobility, for a throne founded upon the neck of labor."

The extreme Southern view was partially presented in a short speech in the Senate, December 4, by Thomas Clingman of North Carolina, which he began as follows:

"My purpose was not so much to make a speech, as to state what I think is the great difficulty; and that is, that a man has been elected because he has been and is hostile to the South. It is this that alarms our people; and I am free to say, as I have said upon the stump this summer repeatedly, that if an election were not resisted, either now or at a day not far distant, the Abolitionists would succeed in abolishing slavery all over the South. . . . Therefore, I maintain that our true policy is to meet this issue in limine, and I hope it will be done. If we can maintain our personal safety let us hold on to the present Government, if not, we must take care of ourselves at all hazards. . . . The current of resistance is running rapidly over the South. It is idle for men to shut their eyes to consequences such as these."

The views of the ultra-secessionists were presented much more elaborately in the same place, January 7, by Robert Toombs of Georgia. He formulated the grievances of the South into five demands: "First, that the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present or future acquired Territories, with whatever property they may possess (including slaves), and be securely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such a Territory be admitted as a State into the Union, with or without slavery as she may determine, on an equality with existing States. . . The second proposition is, that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection from the Government of the United States, in all its departments, everywhere, which the Constitution confers upon it the power to extend to any other property, provided that nothing herein