When the certain news of Lincoln's election finally came, it was hailed with joy and acclamation by both the leaders and the people of South Carolina. They had at length their much coveted pretext for disunion; and they now put into the enterprise a degree of earnestness, frankness, courage, and persistency worthy of a better cause. Public opinion, so long prepared, responded with enthusiasm to the plans and calls of the leaders. Manifestations of disloyalty became universal. Political clubs were transformed into military companies. Drill-rooms and armories were alive with nightly meetings. Sermons, agricultural addresses, and speeches at railroad banquets were only so many secession harangues. The State became filled with volunteer organizations of "minute men."
The Legislature, remaining in extra session, and cheered and urged on by repeated popular demonstrations and the inflamed speeches of the highest State officials, proceeded without delay to carry out the Governor's programme. In fact, the members needed no great incitement. They had been freshly chosen within the preceding month; many of them on the well-understood "resistance" issue. Their election took place on the 8th and 9th days of October, 1860. Since there was but one party in South Carolina, there could be no party drill; but a tyrannical and intolerant public sentiment usurped its place and functions. On the sixteen different tickets paraded in one of the Charleston newspapers, the names of the most pronounced disunionists were the most frequent and conspicuous. "Southern rights at all hazards," was the substance of many mottoes, and the palmetto and the rattlesnake were favorite emblems. There was neither mistaking nor avoiding the strong undercurrent of treason and rebellion here manifested, and the Governor's proclamation had doubtless been largely based upon it.
South Carolina, "House Journal," Called Session, 1860, pp. 13, 14.
The first day's session of the Legislature (November 5) developed one of the important preparatory steps of the long-expected revolution. The Legislature of 1859 had appropriated a military contingent fund of one hundred thousand dollars, "to be drawn and accounted for as directed by the Legislature." The appropriation had been allowed to remain untouched. It was now proposed to place this sum at the control of the Governor to be expended in obtaining improved small arms, in purchasing a field battery of rifled cannon, in providing accouterments, and in furnishing an additional supply of tents; and a resolution to that effect was passed two days later, The chief measure of the session, however, was a bill to provide for calling the proposed State Convention, which it was well understood would adopt an ordinance of secession. There was scarcely a ripple of opposition to this measure. One or two members still pleaded for delay, to secure the coöperation of Georgia, but dared not record a vote against the prevailing mania. The chairman of the proper committee on November 10 reported an act calling a convention "for the purpose of taking into consideration the dangers incident to the position of the State in the Federal Union," which unanimously became a law November 13, and the extra session adjourned to meet again in regular annual session on the 26th.
Meanwhile public excitement had been kept at fever heat by all manner of popular demonstrations. The two United States Senators and the principal Federal officials resigned their offices with a public flourish of their insubordinate zeal. An enthusiastic ratification meeting was given to the returning members of the Legislature. To give still further emphasis to the general movement a grand mass meeting was held at Charleston on the 17th of November. The streets were filled with the excited multitude. Gaily dressed ladies crowded balconies and windows, and zealous mothers decorated their children with revolutionary badges. There was a brisk trade in fire-arms and gunpowder. The leading merchants and prominent men of the city came forth and seated themselves on platforms to witness and countenance a formal ceremony of insurrection. A white flag, bearing a palmetto tree and the legend Animis opibusque parati (one of the mottoes on the State seal), was, after solemn prayer, displayed from a pole of Carolina pine. Music, salutes, and huzzahs filled the air. Speeches were addressed to "citizens of the Southern Republic." Orations and processions completed the day, and illuminations and bonfires occupied the night. The preparations were without stint. The proceedings and ceremonies were conducted with spirit and abandon. The rejoicings were deep and earnest. And yet there was a skeleton at the feast; the Federal flag, invisible among the city banners, and absent from the gay bunting and decorations of the harbor shipping, still floated far down the bay over a faithful commander and loyal garrison in Fort Moultrie.
[ CHAPTER XX ]
MAJOR ANDERSON
President Buchanan and his Administration could not, if they would, shut their eyes to the treasonable utterances and preparations at Charleston and elsewhere in the South; but so far neither the speeches nor bonfires nor palmetto flags, nor even the secession message of Governor Gist or the Convention bill of the South Carolina Legislature, constituted a statutory offense. For twelve years the threat of disunion had been in the mouths of the Southern slavery extremists and their Northern allies the most potent and formidable weapon of national politics. It was declaimed on the stump, elaborated in Congressional speeches, set out in national platforms, and paraded as a solemn warning in executive messages.
Mr. Buchanan had profited by the disunion cry both as politician and functionary; and now when disunion came in a practical and undisguised shape he was to a degree powerless to oppose it, because he was disarmed by his own words and his own acts. The disunionists were his partisans, his friends, and confidential counselors; they constituted a remnant of the once proud and successful party which, by his compliance and coöperation in their interest, he had disrupted and defeated. Their programme hitherto had been the policy upon which he had staked the success or failure of his Administration, so that in addition to every other tie he was bound to them by the common sorrow of political disaster.