School History of North Carolina : from 1584 to the present time

by John W. Moore

CHAPTER LIV.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND THE WAR.

A. D. 1860 TO 1861.

1860.

After seventy years of party struggles touching the relations of the General Government to the individual States, the Presidential contest of 1860 opened with such notes of violence and public confusion, that it was at once seen that at last the supreme crisis had come.

2. The only issue apparently before the American people was that of slavery in the Territories. The Democrats were divided into two fragments. Those supporting Judge Douglas for the Presidency advocated "Squatter Sovereignty." The Breckinridge men said that the question of slavery should only be settled as to the new States at their constitutional conventions; while Republicans supporting Abraham Lincoln, proclaimed that only the enactment of the "Wilmot Proviso" would satisfy them. The Whig candidates, Messrs. Bell and Everett, and the Whig party, were silent on all these stormy differences, and were not of much significance in the general upheaval.

3. Back of this question, however, about slavery in the Territories, and involved in it, was the real issue between the Republican and Democratic parties, and that was whether the Federal Constitution should be the supreme law of the land. The right of property in slaves was guaranteed by that Constitution, and if the Republican party could thus destroy that right it might when it so pleased, destroy any and all other rights. The Democrats hold that the Constitution was supreme; the Republicans held that there was a still higher law unwritten and undefined. One was certainty, the other chaos.

4. It was seen at an early period of the contest, that the bulk of the Southern people would be found supporting Breckinridge and Lane. * It was generally held in all the slave-holding States that the election of Mr. Lincoln would be significant of a purpose among Northern men to disregard their rights, and that the inauguration of the abolition policy by the Federal officers would compel and justify the secession of the Southern States from the Union.

*Joseph Lane was born in Buncombe county in this State, and was the cousin of Colonel Joel Lane, who once owned the lands upon which Raleigh was built. He had served gallantly as a Brigadier General in Mexico, afterwards in Congress, and as Governor of Oregon.

5. When, in November, 1860, it was known that the Republicans had triumphed in the national election, and that Abraham Lincoln would be chosen President of the United States by a majority of the electors in the different State electoral colleges, then it was realized that the extreme Southern States would, at an early period, sever their connection with the government at Washington.

1861.

6. South Carolina and others said that protection of their property would now be impossible in the Union, and therefore, before the inauguration of President Lincoln, on March 4th, 1861, seven States had assembled conventions, and by their ordinances declared the ties formerly binding them to the Republic of the United States null and void.

7. On the 1st of January, 1861, the Legislature then in regular session passed, by a large majority in each House, an act declaring that in its opinion the condition of the country was so perilous "that the sovereign people of the State should assemble in convention to effect an honorable adjustment of the difficulties whereby the Federal Union is endangered, or otherwise to determine what action will best preserve the honor and promote the interest of North Carolina."

8. At the same time that the delegates were to be elected the act required that the sense of the people should be taken whether there should be a convention at all or not. The election was held on 28th of February, 1861, and upon the question of convention or no convention, the official count showed a majority of 194 votes against convention, that is to say, 45,509 votes for convention and 45,603 votes against convention. The vote of Davie county, which was not received in time to be counted, would have increased the majority against convention some 200 votes.

9. How the delegates elected were divided in sentiment on the day of election cannot be ascertained, nor was such division to be relied upon, for changes were daily taking place, and men, no matter how reluctantly, were rapidly coming to believe that in United action by the South lay the only hope for the future.

10. In April, President Lincoln, in consequence of the attack upon and capture of Fort Sumter, required of Governor Ellis North Carolina's proportion of an army of seventy five thousand men, which was to be used in the coercion of the seceded States. This demand Governor Ellis promptly refused; and he at once convened the Legislature in special session, declaring in his proclamation that the time for action had come, and, upon his recommendation, twenty thousand volunteers were called for by the General Assembly to sustain North Carolina in her course.

11. A State Convention was called by the Legislature on the first of May, and met on the 20th of May, 1861; in the hall of the House of Commons. On this anniversary of the Mecklenburg Declaration the Ordinance of Secession was passed, and North Carolina made haste to connect herself with the " Confederate States of America."

12. The Ordinance of Secession was as follows

"AN ORDINANCE DISSOLVING THE UNION BETWEEN THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA AND THE OTHER STATES UNITED WITH HER UNDER THE COMPACT OF GOVERNMENT ENTITLED 'THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. '

"We, the people of the State of North Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the Convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted; and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.

"We do further declare and ordain, That the Union now subsisting between the State, of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State."

13. The number of submissionists in North Carolina was very small, and the real differences of opinion did not so much regard final action in the crisis as they did the way and the time in which it should be reached. Many preferred separate State action; many others preferred concert of action among the States. Some preferred immediate action; others thought it advisable to wait until some actual "overt act," as it was called, was committed by the new administration. But no matter how much people were divided on these points, on one point they were a unit, that is to say, in the desire that final action should represent as near as possible every phase of public sentiment. And to secure this greatly to be desired unanimity in action, many personal preferences and original opinions were sacrificed.

14. Many good people had hoped and prayed that the troubles between the North and South would be peaceably arranged; but all hope of such a blessing was now lost, and the whole State resounded with the notes of preparation for the war. In every county men pressed forward by thousands to enlist at the call of the State.

15. Governor Ellis was in the last stages of hopeless disease, but, with great resolution, he addressed himself to the discharge of the onerous duties of his station until his death, on June 9, 1861. He was succeeded by Colonel Henry Toole Clark, of Edgecombe, who became Governor of the State by virtue of his office as Speaker of the Senate.

16. Colonel John F. Hoke, of Lincoln, was succeeded as Adjutant- General by James G. Martin, of Pasquotank, late a major in the army of the United States. The forts, Johnston, Macon and Caswell, were seized, as was also the Federal arsenal at Fayetteville; and, in this way, fifty-seven thousand stand of small firearms and a considerable store of cannon and ammunition were secured.

17. After many years of peace and prosperity, the people of North Carolina were once again to exhibit their patriotism, courage and endurance under the most trying circumstances. In the first revolution they had contributed twenty-two thousand nine hundred and ten men to the defence of the United Colonies; in this second upheaval more than a hundred and fifty thousand crowded to the fray, and grew famous on more than a hundred fields.