chief business of the South in 1860? 4. Of the North? 5. If anything should happen to the South, who would suffer? 6. If anything should happen to the North, who would suffer? 7. Of whom was cotton king? 8. Of whom was corn king? 9. How did Northern people help to support slavery? 10. What new states had come into the Union during this period? (See list at close of Group.) 11. Which of them were free states and which slave? 12. Judging by the admissions of these states, which part of our country was growing during this time? 13. What great writers lived and worked during the fifties? (See list at close of Group.)

Supplementary Reading. - Jessie Benton Fremont's Far West Sketches. Boston, 1890. Susan Dabney Smede's Memorials of a Southern Planter. 1887. Frederick Law Olmsted's A Journey through Texas. New York, 1859.

6. ELECTION OF LINCOLN AND SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1860.

BUCHANAN, President.

Fling down thy gauntlet to the Huns,
And roar the challenge from thy guns;
Then leave the future to thy sons,
Carolina!

- Southern poem of time.322

Parties, Candidates, and Platforms. Since 1854 the Republican party had been growing stronger and stronger, and it was much feared by the Democrats that 1860 would see the election of a Republican President. This was the more likely to happen, as the Democratic party had itself split into two parts, Northern and Southern. The candidate of the Republican party was Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, who had risen by his own efforts from great poverty and ignorance to be a much-trusted and loved citizen in his own state. The candi

date of the Northern Democrats was STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, also an Illinois lawyer. The Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. There was, besides, another party, called the American party, with John Bell for a candidate. The excitement of this campaign was tremendous. A reporter who was present at the National Republican Convention held in Chicago, writes that when Lincoln's nomination was announced:

Men embraced each other and fell on one another's neck, and wept out their repressed feeling. They threw hats in air, and almost rent the roof with huzzas. Thousands and thousands were packed in the streets outside, who stood patiently receiving accounts of the proceedings within, from reporters posted on the roof, listening at the numerous open sky-lights, and shouting them. . . to the crowd below....323

The questions at issue are thus stated: for the Republicans, by Lincoln:

I say we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so. We must not withhold an efficient fugitive slave law, because the Constitution requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither the Constitution nor the general welfare requires us to extend it.324

For the Southern Democrats, by Davis:

possesses

Neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature, power to annul or impair the Constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while the Territorial condition remains.

For the Northern Democrats, by Douglas:

I tell you, gentlemen of the South, in all candor, I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever carry any one Democratic State of the North on the platform that it is the duty of the Federal Government to force the people of a Territory to have slavery when they do not want it."

325

For the American National Constitutional party, by their platform, which ran:

The Constitution of the country, the Union of the States, and the Enforcement of the Laws.

Secession of South Carolina. It was soon seen that the result of the campaign would be the election of Lincoln. Upon this, the governor of South Carolina sent a circular letter to the governors of the several cotton states, in which he said:

South Carolina... will unquestionably call a convention as soon as it is ascertained that a majority of the electors will support Lincoln. If a single State secedes, she will follow her. If no other State takes the lead, South Carolina will secede (in my opinion) alone, if she has every assurance that she will be soon followed by another or other States; otherwise it is doubtful.

To this the governor of Louisiana replied that he did not advise secession, but

If... the General Government shall attempt to coerce a State [force her to remain in the Union] and forcibly attempt the exercise of this right, I should certainly sustain the State in such a contest.

North Carolina and Georgia gave much the same answer. The governor of Mississippi replied that "if any state moves, I think Mississippi will go with her"; and Alabama promised "to rally to the rescue" if the government should use force against a seceding state. Florida answered:

proper

...

Florida is ready to wheel into line with the gallant Palmetto State [South Carolina] . . . in any course which she ... may think to adopt, looking to . . . the honor and safety of the South.326 Almost at once after this correspondence, came the news of the election of Lincoln; South Carolina at once determined on her course, and on the 20th of December, 1860, the following broadside appeared in the streets of Charleston:

CHARLESTON MERCURY.

Extra:

Passed unanimously at 1.15 o'clock P.M. Dec. 20th, 1860,

AN ORDINANCE

to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina, and other States united with her under the compact entitled the Constitution of the United States of America.

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain,... that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of United States of America, is hereby dissolved. [Passed by unanimous vote of 169 members, Dec. 20, 1860.]

THE UNION IS DISSOLVED.3
327

One who was living in Charleston at the time wrote:

No one living in Charleston at the time . . . can ever forget the scenes by which it was accompanied. No sooner had the bells of St. Michael's announced the fact than the wildest frenzy seemed to seize the whole population. The air was rent with huzzas; . . . palmetto branches were borne in triumph along the streets; bales of cotton were suspended on ropes stretched from house to house,

on one of which was inscribed in large letters, "THE WORLD WANTS IT"; while the stirring notes of the Marseillaise, afterward exchanged for those of Dixie, met the ear at every corner.

STUDY ON 6.

328

1. Why should there be so great an excitement over this campaign? 2. Name the events which had happened since 1850 to cause this excitement. (See list.) 3. Why should the Republicans especially be excited? 4. Just what was the difference between the Northern and Southern Democrats at this election? 5. Between the Republicans and the Northern Democrats? 6. Between the Republicans and the Abolitionists? 7. What did the American party refer to by the enforcement of the laws? 8. By the preservation of the Union? 9. What threats of secession had been made in our history before 1860? 10. Why should any cotton state fear to secede alone? 11. What was secession? 12. At what times in our history had compromise prevented disunion?

7. THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR.

BUCHANAN, LINCOLN, Presidents.

The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor. LINCOLN, in first inaugural.329

Opinion in the South. The greatest excitement sprang up when the news of the secession of South Carolina ran over the country. By the first of February, she was joined by North