stitution. Lincoln, therefore, plainly asserted a policy which the Abolitionists equally plainly condemned. In their eyes to be a party to a contract maintaining slavery throughout a third of a continent was only a trifle less criminal than aiding to extend it over another third. Yet it should be said that the Abolitionists were not all of one mind, and some voted the Republican ticket as being at least a step in the right direction. Joshua R. Giddings was a member of the Republican Convention which nominated Lincoln. But Wendell Phillips, always an extremist among extremists, published an article entitled "Abraham Lincoln, the Slave-hound of Illinois," whereof the keynote was struck in this introductory sentence: "We gibbet a Northern hound to-day, side by side with the infamous Mason of Virginia." Mr. Garrison, a man of far larger and sounder intellectual powers than belonged to Phillips, did not fancy this sort of diatribe, though five months earlier he had accused the Republican party of "slavish subserviency to the Union," and declared it to be "still insanely engaged in glorifying the Union, and pledging itself to frown upon all attempts to dissolve it." Undeniably men who held these views could not honestly vote for Mr. Lincoln.

The popular vote and the electoral vote were as follows: 1

1 This table is taken from Stanwood's History of Presidential Elections.

Messrs. Nicolay and Hay say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice of the American people,' and by way of sustaining the statement say that, if the "whole voting strength of the three oppos

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ing parties had been united upon a single candidate, Lincoln would nevertheless have been chosen with only a trifling diminution of his electoral majority.”1 It might be better to say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice" of the electoral college. The "American people" fell enormously short of showing a majority in his favor. His career as President was made infinitely more difficult as well as greatly more creditable to him by reason of the very fact that he was not the choice of the American people, but of less than half of them, and this, too, even if the Confederate States be excluded from the computation.2

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.3

1 N. and H., iii. 146.

Lincoln had 1,866,452.

2 The total popular vote was 4,680,193. In North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee, no vote was cast for the Lincoln ticket; in Virginia only 1929 voted it. Adding the total popular vote of all these States (except the 1929), we get 854,775; deducting this from the total popular vote leaves a balance of 3,825,418; of which one half is 1,912,709; so that even outside of the States of the Confederacy Lincoln did not get one half of the popular vote. South Carolina is not included in any calculation concerning the popular vote, because she chose electors by her legislature.

8 Letter of Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, May 28, 1858, quoted N. and H., ii. 302 n.

CHAPTER VII.

INTERREGNUM.

FOR a while now the people of the Northern States were compelled passively to behold a spectacle which they could not easily reconcile with the theory of the supreme excellence and wisdom of their system of government. Abraham Lincoln was chosen President of the United States November 6, 1860; he was to be inaugurated March 4, 1861. During the intervening four months the government must be conducted by a chief whose political creed was condemned by an overwhelming majority of the nation.1 The situation was as unfair for Mr. Buchanan as it was hurtful for the people. As head of a republic, or, in the more popular phrase, as the chief "servant of the people," he must respect the popular will, yet he could not now administer the public business according to that will without being untrue to all his own convictions, and repudiating all his trusted counsellors. In a situation so intrinsically false efficient government was impossible, no matter

1 Breckenridge was the legitimate representative of the administrationists, and his ticket received only 847,953 votes out of 4,680,193. Douglas and Buchanan were at open war.

what was the strength or weakness of the hand at the helm. Therefore there was every reason for displacing Buchanan from control of the national affairs in the autumn, and every reason against continuing him in that control through the winter; yet the law of the land ordained the latter course. It seemed neither sensible nor even safe. During this doleful period all descriptions of him agree: he seemed, says Chittenden, "shaken in body and uncertain in mind, an old man worn out by worry;" while the Southerners also declared him as "incapable of purpose as a child." To the like purport spoke nearly all who saw him.

During the same time Lincoln's position was equally absurd and more trying. After the lapse of four months he was, by the brief ceremony of an hour, to become the leader of a great nation under an exceptionally awful responsibility; but during those four months he could play no other part than simply to watch, in utter powerlessness, the swift succession of crowding events, which all were tending to make his administration of the government difficult, or even impossible. Throughout all this long time, the third part of a year, which statutes scarcely less venerable than the Constitution itself freely presented to the disunion leaders, they safely completed their civil and military organization, while the Northerners, under a ruler whom they had discredited but of whom they could not get rid, were paralyzed for all purposes of counter preparation.