an assembly, which was intoxicated with the contemplation of negro emancipation upon the Western continent.

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The weakness and incapacity of men for self-government was fully exemplified in the campaign of 1860. The people of both sections of the country, in opposition to the admonitions of the framers and ancient patriots of the American Republic, permitted themselves to be seduced by false leaders into a hostility of sections, which could not but carry with it revolution and constitutional overthrow. Party success and partisan triumph, were the motives of the politicians in a campaign which, of all others, should have produced instances of pure disinterestedness and patriotic selfdevotion. But the contrary was everywhere apparent. Men adhered to their parties, although in doing so, they were consciously adding firebrands to the Federal Republic, soon to be ignited in the flames of civil convulsion. The campaign resulted as all reflecting men must have anticipated, in the election of the revolutionary candidates, Lincoln and Hamlin. Republicanism, save in New Jersey, triumphed throughout the entire North. Sectional antagonism, which an Anti-Slavery agitation of many years had been preparing, was at length fully complete. Destiny, however, had in store for the American people the fruits of officious interference and impolitic reform.

CHAPTER XII.

SECESSION OF THE SOUTHERN STATES, AND THE EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.

The Southern people correctly interpreted the import of Northern ascendency in the election of Lincoln and Hamlin, on the 6th of November, 1860. The composition of the Republican party, the utterances of its orators and press, and the resolves of its conventions, left no doubt as to the animus of the organization, much as this, for political reasons, might be concealed. The most violent Abolitionists of the North were the most ardent champions of the new combination, and the entrusted chiefs in all party manipulations, provided they displayed sufficient sagacity as not to disclose the esoteric doctrines of the initiated. The enunciated principles of simple opposition to the extension of slavery, were far from being those which raised the enthusiasm of the sincere Abolitionists, and attracted them to the standards of Republicanism. The same secret which attached to the rising party, the enemies of slavery, aroused the friends of the institution, and, as it were, admonished them of the adder in the grass, whose poison was to be avoided. This antagonism resulted from the existence of slavery in the Southern States, and although the Republicans avowed no intention to interfere with the institution where it existed, yet this addition to the creed was simply a matter of time, and the education of Northern public opinion.

Southern institutions were doomed to a short existence under the Federal Government in the hands of the Republican party. This, leading statesmen of the South had often predicted, should Northern sectionalism succeed in gaining control of national affairs. It had been determined, therefore, by the controlling minds in the slave States, that if their constitutional rights were to be preserved, resistance would become necessary when a sectional party should come into power with principles known to be violative of the guarantees of the Federal compact. In the

election of Abraham Lincoln, as they conceived, that period had at length arrived. The predictions of Calhoun, Clay, and other leading statesmen of the South were verified; Northern Abolitionism, under the false name of Republicanism, had triumphed; and the Southern people would simply be conceded such rights as the new rulers would see proper to accord. The only question in the South, was the remedy to be adopted, in view of Northern ascendency upon a basis of hostility to their institutions.

A number of prominent South Carolinians had met on the 25th of October, 1860, and had determined upon the secession of their State, in case the Republican party, as was anticipated, should triumph in the pending campaign. This determination of the influential men of the Palmetto State, was shared very generally by the controllers of public opinion in the remainder of the cotton States. The Legislature of South Carolina, being convened by Gov. Gist, on Monday, November 5th, the day before the Presidential election, for the purpose of choosing electors; the State politicians had an opportunity of perfecting their plans, should Republicanism in the North triumph. The Governor, in his proclamation, and other prominent men of the State, who were serenaded on the evening of the 5th, expressed the opinion that in the event of Abraham Lincoln being chosen President of the United States, duty demanded that South Carolina should inaugurate the movement of separation from the Union; and set in motion the ball of resistance to the Northern despotism.

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The morning of the 7th of November, 1860, announced to the people of the South the unwelcome news that the hated party of the North had won its crowning victory. Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin were elected to the highest offices in the gift of the people; and by a party pledged in its platform to prohibit Slavery extension; and animated with the resolve to weaken the institution at all points, and ultimately effect its entire extinction. William H. Seward, the life and soul of the Republican party in 1848, thus spoke at Cleveland:

Correct your own error that Slavery has any constitutional guarantees which may not be released, and ought not to be relinquished. Say to Slavery, when it shows its bond (the Constitution) and demands its pound of flesh, that if it draws one drop of blood, its life shall pay the forfeit." "Do all this and inculcate all this, in the spirit of moderation and benevolence, and not of retaliation and fanaticism,

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and you will soon bring the parties of the country into an effective aggression upon slavery. Slavery can be limited to

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its present bounds; it can be ameliorated. It can be and must be abolished, and you and I can and must do it. The task is as simple and easy as its consummation will be beneficent and its reward glorious.”

Henry Wilson, another of the shining lights of Republicanism, expressed himself in the following manner:

We shall triumph in the end; and we shall overthrow the slavepower of the Republic; we shall enthrone freedom; we shall abolish slavery; we shall change the Supreme Court of the United States, and place men in that Court who believe that our prayers will be impious to heaven while we sustain and support human slavery."

The diabolical and fiendish principles of the Helper Book, which had been endorsed by 69 Republican members of Congress, could never be forgotten by the people of the Southern States. As soon, therefore, as the triumph of Abolitionism was made known, secession was very generally determined upon by Southern Statesmen as the remedy for evils which threatened the overthrow of that form of Constitutional Government under which their States had prospered, and to which they were devotedly attached. The Legislature of South Carolina being at this time in session, joint resolves were passed in both Houses calling for the election of a convention on the 6th of December, and which should meet on the 17th of the same month, to take into consideration the question of separation from the Union. Steps leading in the same direction were taken throughout the whole section of the cotton States; and the influential leaders in most of the remaining slave States prepared themselves so to act as the current of a united Southern sentiment might dictate. By general consent it seemed now recognized that the period had arrived which demanded harmony of counsel amongst the slave States, in order that they might be able by united action to countervail Northern sectionalism, and defend their constitutional rights as equal members of the American Confederacy.

The South Carolina Convention, assembled at Columbia, the Capitol of the State, on the day determined upon; and on the 20th of December, 1860, proceeded to pass by an unanimous vote an Ordinance of Secession, dissolving their connection with the Federal Union. The secession of South Carolina was received by the dominant party in the North as a matter of light consequence; as only another nullification affair which would scarcely

create a ripple upon the ocean of American life. Indeed, a studied system of deception had characterized the utterances of the organs of this party from its organization in 1854. During the whole of the campaign of 1860, the declarations of Northern and Southern Conservatives that the election of Abraham Lincoln would produce revolution and civil war, were scouted by the Republican orators and press, as simply election threats, intended to intimidate the dough faces of the North; and that as soon as the election was over the Southern braggarts, as they were termed, would tame down as on former occasions. This system of deception was simply a part of the programme to enable the party to gain power. The objects to which they were leading the Northern people, and the dangerous course over which the passage led, must all be concealed from the eyes of the people, otherwise these were unattainable. The Northern masses were neither prepared for the abolition of slavery, nor for civil war with their countrymen of the South; both of which were logical results of the success of the Republican party.

But the eyes of the Northern masses were partially opened as one after another of the cotton States followed in the wake of South Carolina secession. Mississippi was the first to imitate the example of the Palmetto State, and enrol herself under the banner of Southern resistance, having passed an ordinance of secession January 9th, 1861. Florida buckled on the secession armor in defence of her inherited rights on the 10th of the same month, and on the day following, Alabama was by her side in similar warlike array. On three successive days, these last named States had in secession resolves, donned the martial outfit of Southern independence. Georgia, the old Empire State of the South, was next to take her stand by the side of her resistant sisters, and give character and weight to the movement of secession. This she did January 19th, in an ordinance asserting her State Sovereignty and independence of the Federal Government. Louisiana passed her act of secession January 25th, and on the 1st of February the Lone Star of Texas was added to the flag of the Southern Confederacy. On the 4th of February, 1861, a Congress of Delegates from the seven seceded States convened at Montgomery, the capitol of Alabama, adopted a Provisional Government, and elected Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States.