South, of any implication in the crime of slavery. Even that portion of
the party calling themselves Kepublicans, affected that the Union stood in
the way of the North. Mr. Banks, speaker of the House in the Thirty-first
Congress, was the author of the coarse jeer — " Let the Union slide ; " and
the New York Tribune had complained that the South " could not be
kicked out of the Union." — "Wo shall see in the light of subsequent events
how this Northern afiectation for disunion was a lie, a snare to the South,
and a hypocrisy unparalleled in all the records of partisan animosity.
76 THE LOST CAUSE.
It would have been more or less than liuman nature if the South had
not been incensed at expressions in which her people were compared with
" mad-doo-s " — with " small-pox, as nuisances to be abated," or classed with
gangs of " licensed robbers," " thieves," and " murderers." But it was
not only the wretched ribaldry of the " Hel^^er Book " that was the canse
of excitement ; the designs there declared of war upon the South, and
recommended by an array of Black Republican names, were the occasion
of the most serious alarm. It is true that Mr, Sherman, the " Helper
Book " candidate for the speakership of the House, was finally withdrawn,
and one of his party, not a subscriber to the book, elected. But the fact
remained that more than three-fourths of the entire Northern delegation
had adhered to Mr. Sherman for nearly two months in a factious and
fanatical spirit. Such an exhibition of obstinate rancour could not fail to
produce a deep impression' on the South ; and the early dissolution of the
Union had now come to be a subject freely canvassed in Congress and in
the country.
"We have thus, in a rapid summary of political events from 1857 to
I860 — the Kansas controversy, the John Brown raid, and the " Helper
Book " imbroglio — enabled the reader to discover and combine some of the
most remarkable indications of the coming catastrophe of Disunion. In
the historical succession of events we shall see that occurrence rapidly and
steadily advancing, until at last the sharp and distinct issue of a sectional
despotism was forced upon the South, and war precipitated upon the
country.
The Democratic party of the South had cooperated with the Demo-
cratic party of the North in the Presidential canvass of 1856, upon the
principles of the platform adopted by the National Democratic Convention
assembled in Cincinnati, in June of that year. Tliey expressed a willing-
ness to continue this cooperation in the election of 1860, upon the prin-
ciples of the Cincinnati platform ; but demanded, as a condition precedent
to this, that the question of the construction of this platform should be
satisfactorily settled. To this end, the Democratic party, in several of the
Southern States, defined the conditions upon which their delegates should
hold seats in the National Convention, appointed to meet at Charleston,
on the 23d of April, 1860. The Democracy in Alabama moved first and
adopted a series of resolutions, the purport of which was afterwards
embodied in the instructions administered by some of the other Cotton
States to their delegations to the National Convention.
The most important of these resolutions were as follows :
'•'■Resoli-ed, That the Constitution of the United States is a compact between sovereign
and co-equal States, united upon the basis of perfect equality of right? and privileges.
'■'• Resolved^ further^ That the Territories of the United States are common property, in
THE CHAKLESTON CONVENTION. 77
tvliich the States have equal rights, and to which the citizens of any State may right-
fully emigrate, with their slaves or other property, recognized as such in any of the Statea
of the Union, or by the Constitution of the United States.
"â– Hesolved, further, That the Congress of the United States has no power to abolish
slavery in the Territories, or to prohibit its introduction into any of them.
^^ Resolved, further, That the Territorial Legislatures, created by the legislation of
Ccngress, have no power to abolish slavery, or to prohibit the introduction of the same,
or to impair by unfriendly legislation the security and full enjoyment of the same within
the Territories ; and such constitutional power certainly does not belong to the people of
the Territories in any capacity, before, in the exercise of a lawful authority, they form a
Constitution, preparatory to admission as a State into the Union ; and their action in the
exercise of such lawful authority certainly cannot operate or take eifect before their
actual admission as a State into the Union."
When the Convention met at Charleston two sets of resolutions were
represented :
I.
" Resolved, That the platform at Cincinnati be reaffirmed with the following reso-
lutions :
" Resolved, That the Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal principles on
the subject of slavery in the Territories : First, that Congress has no power to abolish
slavery in the Territories. Second, that the Territorial Legislature has no power to
abolish slavery in any Territory, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor
any power to exclude slavery therefrom, nor any power to destroy and impair the right
of property in slaves by any legislation whatever.
II.
'''â– Resolved, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincmnati be
affirmed, with the following explanatory resolutions :
" First. That the government of a Territory, organized by an act of Congress, is
provisional and temporary ; and, during its existence, all citizens of the United States
have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights,
either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial
legislation.
" Second. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to
protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories and
' wherever else its constitutional authority extends.
" Third. That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form
a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being consummated by
admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States ;
and the State thus organized, ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether ita
Constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery."
The Convention refused to accept either of the foregoing resolutions,
and adopted, by a vote of 165 to 138, the following as its platform on the
slavery question :
78 THE LOST CAUSE.
" 1. Resolved, That we, the Democracy of the Union, in Convention asseniblecl, hereby
declare our affirmance of the resolutions unanimously adopted and declared as a platform
of principles by the Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, in the year 1856, believing
that Democratic principles are unchangeable in their nature, when applied to the same
subject-matters ; and we recommend as the only further resolutions the following:
" Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the nature
and extent of the powers of a Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of
Congress under the Constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery
within the Territories :
" 2. Hesolved, That the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme
Court of the United States on the questions of constitutional law."
This platform being unsatisfactory to the Southern delegates, a body
of them seceded, and called a new Convention at Baltimore, on the 18th
of June. The Cotton States all withdrew from the Charleston Convention ;
but the Border States remained in it, with the hope of efl'ecting some ulti-
mate settlement of the difficulty. But the reassembling of the Convention
at Baltimore resulted in a final and embittered separation of the opposing
delegations. The majority at Charleston exhibited a more uncompromising
spirit than ever ; and Virginia, and all the Border Slave States, with the
exception of Missouri, withdrew from the Convention, and united with the
representatives of the Cotton States, then assembled in Baltimore, in the
nomination of candidates representing the views of the South. Their nomi-
nees Avere John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President, and Joseph
Lane of Oregon for Yice-President.
The old Convention, or what remained of it, nominated Stephen A.
Douglas of Illinois for President, and Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama
for Yice-President. The latter declining, Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia
was substituted on the ticket.
A Convention of what was called the " Constitutional Union " party-
met in Baltimore on the 9th of May, 18G0, and nominated for President
and Yice-President John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massa-
chusetts. Their platform consisted of a vague and undefined enumeration
of their political principles, as, " The Constitution of the Country, the
Union of the States, and Enforcement of the Laws,"
The l^ational Convention of the Black Republican party was held at
Chicago in the month of June. It adopted a platform declaring freedom
to be the " normal condition " of the Territories ; and protesting especial
attachment to the Union of the States. The Presidential ticket nomi-
nated by the Convention was, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois for President,
and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Yice-President.
The great majority of the Southern Democracy supported the Breckin-
ridge ticket ; it was the leading ticket in all the Slave States except
Missouri ; but in the North only a small and feeble minority of the Demo-
ABEAHAM LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT. 79
cratic party gave it their support. In several States, the friends of
DougLas, of Breckinridge, and of Bell coalesced, to a certain extent, with
a view to the defeat of Lincoln, but without success, except in ISTew Jersey,
where they partially succeeded.
The result of the contest was, that Abraham Lincoln received, the entire
electoral vote of every free State, except New Jersey, and was, of course,
elected President of the United States, according to the forms of the Con-
stitution,
The entire popular vote for Lincoln was 1,858,200 ; that for Douglas,
giving him his share of the fusion vote, 1,276,780 ; that for Breckinridge,
giving him his share of the fusion vote, 812,500 ; and that for Bell, includ-
ing his proportion of the fusion vote, 735,504. The whole vote against
Lincoln was thus 2,824,871:, showing a clear aggregate majority against
him of nearly a million of votes.
The analysis of the vote which elected Mr. Lincoln showed plainly
enough that it was a sectional triumph ; and it was in view of that
ominous fact, rather than in any less important resentment, or with any
especial reference to the declaration of principles in the Chicago platform,
that the South proposed to repudiate for lierself the result of the election,
and to go out of a Union now plainly converted into a means of deliberate
sectional oppression.
There has been much loose and plausible protest against this course of
the South, in which it has been said that it was essentially revolutionary
and refractory ; that Mr. Lincoln had been elected according to the forma
of the Constitution by a majority of the electoral college, and that the
South was bound by honour and in precedent to submit to the result of an
election legitimately and constitutionally accomplished. This view was
pronounced by Mr. Seward, in the Senate of the United States. " Was
the election illegal ? " he asked, " No ; it is unimpeachable. Is the can-
didate personally offensive ? No ; he is a man of unblemished virtue and
amiable manners. Is an election of President an unfrequent or extraordi-
nary transaction ? No ; we never had a Chief Magistrate otherwise
designated than by such election, and that form of choice is renewed
every four years. Does any one even propose to change the mode of
appointing the Chief Magistrate ? No ; election by universal suffi-age, as
modilied by the Constitution, is the one crowning franchise of the Ameri-
can people. To save it they would defy the world,"
But it was surprising to find a man of Mr, Seward's pretension to
statesmanship) using such a loose and superficial argument to sustain an
election, the sectional significance of which, kept out of view, was really
the important point, and, of itself, terminated the constitutional existence
of the Union,
True, Mr. Lincoln was the choice of the majority of the electoral
80 THE LOST CAUSE.
college. But his election was almost purelj geographical. The South had
sustained a defeat, not at the hands of a party, but at tliose of the Northern
power. Every Northern State but New Jersey had voted for Mr. Lincoln ;
every Southern State had voted against him. lie was not known as a
r,tatesman, whose name might therefore be one of national significance ; he
M^as known only as a partisan, and the election of such a man in such a
I haracter was plainly to declare war against the other side.
In the face of this sectional triumph there was plainly no protection i'or
the South in the future. There was none in power ; for the superiour
political strength of the North was now beyond dispute. There was none
in public opinion ; for that, all the political history of America showed,
was the slave of the majority. There was none in the courts ; for the
Dred Scott decision had been denounced in the Chicago platform as a
dangerous heresy, and the doctrine upon which Mr. Lincoln had been
elected had been actually declared illegal by the supreme judicial authority
of the country.
In Congress the Northern States had 183 votes ; the South, if unani-
mous, 120. If then the North was prepared to act in a mass its power
was irresistible ; and the election of Mr. Lincoln plainly showed that it
was prepared so to act and to carry out a sectional design. The anti-
elavery power in the North was now compact and invincible. A party
opposed to slavery had organized in 1840, with about seven thousand
voters ; in 1860, it had polled nearly two million votes, and had succeeded
in electing the President of the United States. The conservative party in
the North had been thoroughly corrupted. They were beaten in every
Northern State in 1860, with a single exception, by tlie avowed enemies
of the South, who, but a few years ago, had been powerless in their midst.
The leaders of the Northern Democratic party had, in 1856 and in 1860,
openly taken the position that freedom would be more certainly secured
in the Territories by the rule of non-intervention than by any other policy
or expedient. This interpretation of their policy alone saved the Demo-
cratic party from entire annihilation. The overwhelming pressure of the
anti-slavery sentiment had prevented their acceding to the Southern plat-
form in the Presidential canvass. Nothing in the present or in the future
could be looked for from the so-called conservatives of the North ; and the
South prepared to go out of a Union which no longer afibrded any
guaranty for her rights or any permanent sense of security, and which
had brought her under the domination of a section, the designs of which,
carried into legislation, would destroy her institutions, and even involve
the lives of her people.
Such was the true and overwhelming significance of Mr. Lincoln's
election to the people of the South. They saw in it the era of a sectional
domination, which they proposed to encounter, not by revolution, properly
THE LOGICAL NECESSITY OF DISUNION. 8J
60 called, not by an attempt to recover by arms tlieir constitutional riglits
in the Union, bnt simply to escape by withdrawal from the confederation,
and the resumption of their original character of independent States.
But again it was urged by the apologists of Mr. Lincoln's election
that such escape of the South from its results was unfair, in view of the
liict that during most of the preceding period of the Union, the South liad
lield in its hands the administration at Washington, and had but little
reason now to complain that it had passed to those of the rival section.
This view was not without plausibility, and yet as fallacious as that
which appealed to the prescriptive rule of majorities in America. The
South had held political power at Washington for a long time ; but that
power threatened nothing in the ]S"orth, sought nothing from it, desired
to disturb nothing in it. It had no aggressive intent : it stood constantly
on the defensive. It had no sectional history : it was associated with a
general prosperity of the country. " Do not forget," said Senator Ham-
mond of South Carolina, when Mr. Seward boasted in the United States
Senate that the North was about to take control at Washington, — " it can
never be forgotten — it is w^rittcn on the brightest page of human history —
that we, the slaveholders of the South, took our country in her infancy,
and, after ruling her for sixty out of seventy years of her existence, we
shall surrender her to you without a stain upon her honour, boundless in
prosperit}', incalculable in her strength, the wonder and the admiration of
the world. Time will show what you will make of her ; but no time can
ever diminish our glory or your responsibility."
When the South held power, it was only to the Korth a certain
absence from office, a certain exclusion from patronage. But when the
North was to obtain it, acting nof as a party, but a people united on a
geographical idea, it was something more than a negative evil or disap-
pointment to the South ; it was the enthronement at Washington of a
sectional despotism that threatened the institutions, the property, and the
lives of the people of the Southern States. Power in the hands of the
South affected the patronage of a political party in the North, Power in
the hands of the North affected the safety and happiness of every indi-
vidual in the Soutli. — It was simply determined by the South to withdraw
from a game where thcstakes were so unequal, and where her loss would
have been ruin.
CHAPTEK Y.
PKEPAEATIONS OF SOUTH CAROLINA TO WITHDRAW FROM THE UlSriON'. — PASSAGE OF HBB
ORDINANCE OF SECESSION. THE FEDERAL FORCE IN CHARLESTON HARBOUR EVACUATES
FORT MOULTRIE, AND OCCUPIES SUMTER. DESCRIPTION OF FORT SUMTER. HOW THB
SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA WAS ENTERTAINED IN THE NORTH. — THE LEVITT AND
INCONSISTENCY OF THE NORTH WITH RESPECT TO THIS EVENT. — DOCTRINE OF SECESSION,
AND NORTHERN PRECEDENTS. — RECORD OF MASSAOHUSSETTS. — MR. QUINCT's DECLARA-
TION IN CONGRESS. — A DOUBLE JUSTIFICATION OF THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE SOUTHERN
STATES FROM THE UNION.- — THE RIGHT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. OPINION OF MR. LINCOLN.
— OPINION OF THE NEW YORK " TRIBUNE." — OPINION OF MR. SEWARD. — THE SECESSION
QUESTION IN THE COTTON STATES. HESITATION OF GEORGIA. PROJECT OF ALEXANDER
H. STEPHENS. — SECESSION OF ALL THE COTTON STATES. — SEIZURE OF FEDERAL FORTS AND
ARSENALS. — FORT PICKENS. — SENATOR YULEE's LETTER. — THE SCENES OF SECESSION
TRANSFERRED TO WASHINGTON. — RESIGNATION OF SOUTHERN SENATORS. — ^JEFFERSON
DA vis' FAREWELL SPEECH TO THE FEDERAL SENATE. — SENATOR CLAY's BILL OF INDICT-
MENT AGAINST THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. — THE CONVENTION AT MONTGOMERY. — CONSTI-
TUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES. — JEFFERSON DAVIS CHOSEN PRESIDENT. — HIS
PERSONAL HISTORY. HIS CHARACTER. WHY THE PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT HIM WAS SO
DIVIDED AND CONTRADICTORY. MEASURES LOOKING TO PACIFICATION. THREE AVENUES
THROUGH WHICH IT WAS EXPECTED. — EARLY PROSPECTS OF PACIFICATION IN CONGRESS.
— THE REPUBLICAN " ULTIMATUM." — " THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE." — MEASURES OF
COMPROMISE AND PEACE IN CONGRESS EXCLUSIVELY PROPOSED BY THE SOUTH, AND DE-
LIBERATELY DEFEATED BY THE NORTH. — THE PEACE CONFERENCE. — ITS FAILURE. — DIS-
POSITION OF THE BORDER SLAVE STATES. — HOW MISTAKEN BY THE NORTH. — THE VIRGINIA
CONVENTION. — HOW THE SECESSION PARTY GAINED IN IT. — THE RECORD OF VIRGINIA ON
THE SUBJECT OF STATE RIGHTS. PRESIDENT BUCHANAN ON THE SECESSION QUESTION.
HIS WEAK CHARACTER AND UNDECIDED POLICY. — HOW OVER-CENSURED BY THE NORTH. —
GEN. SCOTT's INTERMEDDLING. HIS IMPRACTICABLE ADVICE. — PRESIDENT BUCHANAN's
PERFIDY IN THE MOULTRIE-SUMTER AFFAIR. — HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE SOUTH CAROLINA
DELEGATION. — A SECOND DECEPTION. — THE " STAB OF THE WEST " AFFAIR. — THE SITU-
ATION AT THE CLOSE OF BUCHANAN's ADMINISTRATION. — THE COUNTEY WAITING FOE THB
SIGNAL OF COMBAT.
The telegraph had no sooner announced tlie election of Abraham Lin-
coln President of the United States than the State of South Carolina pre-
pared for a deliberate withdrawal from the Union. Considering the argu-
SECESSION OF SOUTH CAKOLINA. 83
ment as fully exhausted, she determined to resume the exercise of her
rights as a sovereign State ; and for this purpose her Legislature called a
Convention. It assembled in Columbia on the 17th of December, 1860.
Its sessions were held in a church, over which floated a flag bearing the
device of a palmetto tree, with un open Bible at its trunk, with the inscrip-
tion : " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trou-
ble, therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed and though
the mountains be carried into the sea ; the Lord of Hosts is with us — the
God of Jacob is our refuge."
On the 18th the Convention adjourned to Charleston, and on the 20th
of December passed the memorable ordinance of Secession, concluding
that " the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States,
under the name of ' The United States of America ' is hereby dissolved."
The ordinance was passed by a unanimous vote. A ceremony was ap-
pointed for the signing in public of the roll of parchment on which the
ordinance was engrossed. The public procession entered St. Andrew's
Hall in order : the President and members of the Convention coming flrst,
followed by the President and members of the Senate, and the Speaker
and House of Representatives. Their entry was greeted by loud and pro-
longed cheers fi'om the spectators ; the proceedings were commenced with
prayer ; the Attorney-General of the State then announced that the ordi-
nance had been engrossed by order of the Convention, and the parchment
roll was signed by the members who were called successively to the table.
When all had signed, the parchment was raised in the sight of the assem-
blage, and when the President announced the State of South Carolina an
Independent Commonwealth, the whole audience rose to their feet, and
with enthusiastic cheers testified their sense of the thrilling proclamation.
A few days after this event a memorable event occurred in Charleston
harbour. On the 26tli of December Major Anderson, who was in com-
mand of the Federal forces there, evacuated roj:t Moultrie, spiking the
guns and burning the gun carriages, and occupied Fort Sumter with a
view of strengthening his position. This movement was efiected as a sur-
prise under cover of night. The place in which Major Anderson had now
taken refuge was pronounced by military critics to be well-nigh impreg-
nable. Fort Sumter was a small work ; but as strong as could well be
conceived. It was a modern truncated pentagonal fort, rising abruptly
out of the water at the mouth of Charleston harbour, three and a half
miles from the city. The foundation was an artificial one, made of chips
of granite firmly imbedded in the innd and sand, and so well constructed
that it had cost half a million of dollars, and consumed ten years of labour.
"When Major Anderson occupied the fortification, it was so nearly com-
pleted as to admit tlic introduction of its armament. The walls were of
solid brick and concrete masonry, sixty feet high, and from eight to twelve
84 THE LOST CAUSE.
feet in thickness, and pierced for three tiers of guns on the northern, east-
ern, and western sides. These guns commanded the harbour, thus giving
the Federal garrison the power to arrest the shipping bound to and from
the port, and to assume an attitude of hostility inconsistent with the safety
of that part of the State of South Carolina.
In the mean time the event of South Carolina's formal withdrawal froni
tljc Union was treated by the Is^orth generally with derision, Northern
newspapers scoffed at her ; Northern pictorials abounded witli caricatures
of Palmetto chivalry ; secession cockades, it was said, would soon pass out
of fashion, and, on the appearance of the first United States regiment in