The election of Lincoln was "hailed with delight" by the extremists in South Carolina; for it signified secession, and the underlying and real desire of these people was secession, and not either compromise or postponement.[[113]]
[95] Lamon, 422.
[96] The majority report was supported by 15 slave States and 2 free States, casting 127 electoral votes; the minority report was supported by 15 free States, casting 176 electoral votes. N. and H. ii. 234.
[97] This action was soon afterward approved in a manifesto signed by Jefferson Davis, Toombs, Iverson, Slidell, Benjamin, Mason, and others. Ibid. 245.
[98] Greeley's Amer. Conflict, i. 326.
[99] Ibid. i. 306, 307.
[100] Mr. Blaine says that Lincoln "was chosen in spite of expressions far more radical than those of Mr. Seward." Twenty Years of Congress, i. 169.
[101] "In strong common sense, in sagacity and sound judgment, in rugged integrity of character, Mr. Hamlin has had no superior among public men." Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 170.
[102] Lamon, 453.
[103] McClure adds, or rather mentions as the chief cause, Seward's position on the public-school question in New York. Lincoln and Men of War-Times, 28, 29.