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this represented slavery as a local and not a national institution, which Congress had no power to establish in any territory, without the consent of the inhabitants, or to legalize in any free State.

The "Constitutional Union" party had also their ticket, which bore the names of Hon. John Bell of Tennessee for President, and Hon. Edward Everett for Vice-President. This was chiefly meant to be a conservative ticket, and pledged simply to uphold "the Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws," without going into any particulars as to the application of the Constitution and the laws, to the questions that had arisen in respect to slavery.

vass.

On these various issues, and in this critical state of the country, the several parties went into the presidential canNever had there been such intense interest felt in any presidential election before. Never had there been any such reason for it, when the success of one party was to revolutionize the principles of the government, so far as it recognized "all men as free and equal" before the law and possessed of "certain unalienable rights," and was to change entirely in this respect the future policy of the government, and when the success of another party threatened to break up the Union. It is needless to say that the struggle was a fierce one, engaging the ability, the principle, the passion of the whole land, and attracting the attention from other lands of those who wished well to our free government, or feared the influence of its success upon other forms of government.

The result of this presidential election of November 6, 1860, was that Mr. Lincoln carried 17 of the 33 States, and received 180 out of the 303 electoral votes, and out of the popular vote of more than four million and a half (4,645,390), he had a plurality over Mr. Douglas of half a million (566,036).

Here opens a new period in our history, more important than any other, unless it was the framing of our Constitution and the organization of the government. And while that required such wisdom and regard for human rights, and fair adjustment of all conflicting interests, as will make it forever memorable in the framing of human institutions; this new period is to require different and more heroic qualities than even those, if, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, "this nation, under God, was to have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, should not perish from off the earth."

CHAPTER IV.

THE SECESSION MOVEMENT.

Its Growth Traced from the Nullification Days-Breaking Up of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet-His Own Partial Change of OpinionHow and Why South Carolina Forced Secession-Most of the Slave States Averse to It.

Secession began thirty years before the outbreak of the war, when South Carolina undertook to nullify the revenue laws under the old tariff, and would have resorted to violence had it not have been for Mr. Webster in the Senate, and General Jackson in the presidency. The one carried the nation with him in his argument to prove the unconstitutionality of such a measure, or the safety of any such mode of redressing wrongs, and the other on some great occasion swore his solemn oath that "the Union must and shall be preserved."

now.

But no such man was at the head of the government Mr. Buchanan, after the election of Mr. Lincoln, and of the new members to Congress, had shown that the people had repudiated his pro-slavery schemes, still insisted upon their adoption. When Congress came together in December, 1860, he sent in that "mischievous and deplorable message," as it has been justly termed, which encouraged the South to push on their secession and war measures, until they were compelled to fight the government. Most likely they would have done it in any case, but it is to be regretted that they had such encouragement to think they could do it with impunity. In this message he attributed the threatened dissolution of the Union to the "violent and incessant agitation of the slavery questions throughout the

North for the last quarter of a century," apparently unconscious of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the attempt to force slavery upon Kansas, or that these measures were a sufficient cause for such agitation and discussion. He held that while the election of a President by one class of citizens, who is objectionable to another class, "does not afford just cause for dissolving the Union," there may be such a cause, and refers as such a cause to "the palpable violations of constitutional duty by different State legislatures to defeat the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law." He denies the right of secession, and makes a good argument against it, but neutralizes it all, and worse than neutralizes it, by telling the South that if they do secede the government has no right to use force to prevent it. "Congress possesses many means for preserving the Union by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in its hands to preserve it by force." He justifies revolution, though not secession, saying: "The right of resistance on the part of the governed against the oppression of their governments cannot be denied." So that the South had only to call their secession, revolution, as they virtually did, to justify it, and feel safe from any serious interference from an administration that conceived it had no right to use force to prevent it. The remedy proposed by the President was an explanatory amendment of the Constitution, which there was no prospect of ever securing, so that this message brought no relief to the North, and only left the South to call their proposed secession a revolution, and prosecute it with vigor as long as this administration should last, knowing that they were to expect no serious hindrance from this quarter, whatever might be feared from the incoming administration.

This position, however, could not long be maintained. Indeed, Mr. Buchanan's message indicated the division in his own cabinet, where the Secessionists had carried their

point, but where the Union sentiment of the country was beginning to be felt and was bound to express itself. General Cass, Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of State, had become satisfied that such a position was abetting treason, and would only end in breaking up the government. He was a life-long Democrat, an able and honored leader of his party, deserving of an honorable place in the history of the government, and now in his old age to be mixed up with treason, and implicated in what threatened to be the dissolution of the Union, was more than he could bear. When he found that the President would not insist upon the collection of the national revenue in South Carolina, or upon strengthening the forts in Charleston harbor, he resigned. Judge Black, a younger and more brilliant man, in the prime of his political manhood and ambition, who was Mr. Buchanan's Attorney-General, and had been in a large degree responsible for the President's pro-slavery positions, succeeded General Cass at the head of the State department. Startled by the retreat of his predecessor, and by the gulf that yawned before him, and satisfied that his position was a wrong one and that he had been misleading the President, he nobly resolved to retrace his steps and save the administration if possible, but at any rate to save the Union and the government. The cabinet was a nest of conspiracy, where such men as Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson were disarming the North and robbing the treasury, and where Davis, Toombs, Benjamin, and Slidell of the Senate, had a controlling influence. But the President, who always had great respect for Judge Black, and had been guided by his counsels, became convinced that he was ruining his administration, if not breaking up the government. So his secretary, together with Mr. Holt, a Southern man, but a loyal one, and Edwin M. Stanton who soon became such a pillar of strength to the government, and who had just become Attorney-General, were allowed to frame an answer

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