Although the election of Mr. Lincoln was, under the circumstances, almost a foregone conclusion, yet the canvass which ensued was acrimonious and vindictive in the extreme, the choicest selections from the rank Billingsgate vocabularies being lavished on the head of Mr. Lincoln and his supporters.
On the 6th of November, 1860, Mr. Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, securing the electoral votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Oregon, and four votes of New Jersey, 180 in all; Douglas, 1,375,157 votes, and the electoral votes of Missouri, and three of New Jersey, 12 in all; Breckinridge, 847,953, and the votes of Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, 72 in all; and Bell, 590,631, and the votes of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, 39 in all.
And now was to be tested whether words were to ripen into deeds—whether threats would be reduced to practice—whether, indeed, there were madness enough in any State or States to attempt the life of the republic. Unfortunately, a short space of time elapsed before all doubts were at an end. Men were to be found—not confined to a single State, but representatives of nearly, if not quite all—not to be counted by scores or hundreds even, but by thousands, and soon by tens of thousands—ready to lay their unhallowed hands upon the Union, the ark of our nation’s glory and strength.
To South Carolina belongs the bold, bad eminence of taking the initiation in this conspiracy against the interests of humanity. While this State—doomed forever after to an ignominy from which centuries of unquestioned loyalty cannot free her—was taking the requisite steps toward secession, the then President, James Buchanan, with a pusillanimity—to use no stronger term—which modern history certainly has never paralleled, in his annual message, after having urged the unconstitutionality of the proceeding, gave explicit notification that he had no constitutional power to prevent the proposed measures being hastened to successful completion. Neither, though appealed to, at a still earlier day, by the veteran chief of the army, to occupy and hold the United States on the Southern coast, could he find any warrant for protecting and defending the national property.
Surely nothing more could the conspirators have desired. On the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina claims to secede—Government forts and arsenals are seized, and placed under the protection of the flag of the State. Georgia’s Governor lays hand on the United States forts on the coast of that State, on the 3d of January, 1861; as did the Executive of Alabama on the following day.
Events of a startling nature follow in rapid succession. On the 9th of January, hostile shots are fired upon a vessel bringing tardy reinforcements to Fort Sumter, and Mississippi assumes to put herself out of the Union. Alabama, Florida, and Georgia are not laggard; nor are Texas and Louisiana found wanting. Cabinet officers from the slave States either resigned, after having aided the fell work to their utmost, or remained only to hasten its consummation. A new constitution, “temporary” in its nature, was declared by delegates from the seven States then in rebellion, and a President and Vice-President appointed.
Meanwhile a convention, composed of delegates from most of the Free States, and from all the border Slave States, was striving, at Washington, to heal existing difficulties by compromise. Of its members some were acting in good faith, others were using it as a breakwater for the States already in overt rebellion. A series of resolutions, however, aiming at peace on the basis of a preserved Union was agreed to by a majority, and the body adjourned on the 1st of March.
On the 11th of February, moreover, the National House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution—shortly afterward concurred in by the Senate—providing for an amendment to the Constitution, forever prohibiting any Congressional legislation interfering with slavery in any State. Some there were, too, who were willing to concede almost every thing and surrender the long mooted question of slavery in the territories by the adoption of the so-called Crittenden resolutions, which were killed in cold blood by Southern Senators.
But no concession, short of actual national degradation, would satisfy the recusants. Jefferson Davis, the head of the “Confederacy,” on placing himself at the head of the rebellion, at Montgomery, Alabama, February 18th, modestly defined the position of himself and his co-conspirators thus:
“If a just perception of neutral interest shall permit us peaceably to pursue our separate political career, my most earnest desire will have been fulfilled. But if this be denied us, and the integrity of our territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us with firm resolve to appeal to arms, and invoke the blessing of Providence on a just cause.”