The story of Abraham Lincoln

by Mary Agnes Hamilton

Lincoln’s great difficulty was this. The South saw that the nation could not hold together for ever half slave and half free. Two years before Lincoln’s election, one of the members for South Carolina had written what was afterwards known as the Scarlet Letter. In it he declared, “We can make a revolution in the cotton States,” and there were many, even at that time, who shared his views. The South saw that, if they were to remain united to the North, slavery must go, and they were ready to separate from the North in order to keep slavery.

But, while the South understood the position, the North did not. It did not understand it fully at the time of Lincoln’s election, or, indeed, until the end of the second year of the war. And because they did not understand they could not appreciate Lincoln’s policy, or support it as they ought to have done. All the time they criticised, blamed, and abused him, making his hard task harder.

Not until after his death did all the Northerners see how great and how right he had been. Not until his death did Americans realise that had it not been for Lincoln the United States might have ceased to be.

Lincoln’s speeches had been plain and outspoken enough; the South was terrified by his election. They resolved on separation.

Lincoln, though elected in November 1860, did not actually become President until February 1861. During these three months he remained in the plain, yellow house at Springfield, his little office crowded every day with visitors who came to consult him, to advise him, or often merely to shake his hand. “Honest old Abe,” as they called him, had a joke or a kindly word for all of them. He was presented with many quaint gifts. An old woman came one day, and, after shaking hands with Lincoln, produced from under her huge cloak a vast pair of knitted stockings for the President to wear in winter. Lincoln thanked her graciously and led her out; then returning, he lifted up the stockings, and showing the enormous feet, said to his secretary, “The old lady seems to have guessed the latitude and longitude about right!”

Lincoln spent the time reading and writing, drawing up memoranda, choosing his Cabinet, learning the difficult ins and outs of the new work before him. All these months he was thinking hard. His purpose was already clear: but the presidentship, always a heavy burden, had never been so heavy as it was to be for Lincoln.

Things grew more serious every day. The weakness of Buchanan, who had no plan or purpose, allowed the South to do as it chose. The only chance of avoiding war lay in firm action now; but it was not in Buchanan’s nature to be firm. He had been made President by the votes of the South because he was not firm, because he would allow them to do as they chose. They dreaded Lincoln because he was firm, and therefore acted while there was yet time.

On December 20, 1860, the chief men of South Carolina met together and declared the Union to be dissolved. Posters appeared all over the State: the South was in a state of feverish excitement. Within the month the States of Missouri, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—the chief cotton-growing, slave-owning States—also declared themselves to be separated from the Union; and these six States joined with South Carolina to form what they called the Southern Confederation, independent of the North. They chose for their first President Jefferson Davis.

Buchanan did not know what to do. The question was: Has a State any right to leave the Union? America, of course, is a Federation: at the time of the Declaration of Independence the thirteen States that then existed joined themselves together for ever, and created a common Federal Government for common purposes, with a President at its head. Lincoln would have said one State has no more right to leave the others than an English county has to declare that it is a separate kingdom, not bound by the common law. Buchanan said “no,” too; but he also said, if a State does leave, the Federal Government has no right to force it to stay: which meant a standstill. “You ought not to want to go; but if you do, we have no right to prevent you.” Buchanan’s one idea, indeed, was to let things drift.

There was one great and immediate difficulty. In each of the coast States of the Union the Federal Government had armed forts: in South Carolina there were two important ones, Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter, with a small garrison in each, commanded by Major Anderson. South Carolina demanded that the garrisons should be withdrawn. Now to withdraw the garrisons and abandon the forts was to admit that South Carolina had a right to leave the Union, and to recognise the Southern Confederation as independent of the Federal Government. To maintain the forts more forces must be sent. Anderson wrote to say that he was not strong enough to hold out against an attack. Buchanan did nothing. Anderson, believing that an attack was going to be made on Fort Moultrie, which he was too weak to defend, removed all his men to Fort Sumter. The militia of South Carolina at once occupied Fort Moultrie.