Lincoln elected

CHAPTER XI.

SECESSION.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was nominated by the repub

lican party, and, after a most stirring canvass, was president. elected, over three competitors, to the presidency, (November 6, 1860.) His election signified the restoration of the executive branch of the government to the side of freedom.

South

to secede.

As such, it roused the other side to desperate Carolina action. The legislature of South Carolina, meetprepares ing, the day before the election, to cast the electoral vote of that state, received a message from the governor recommending the immediate call of a convention to adopt the only alternative within reach, and take the state out of the Union. Speeches in and out of the legis lature expressed the same opinion, and when the news of Lincoln's election arrived, (November 7,) it was hailed with rejoicing, as opening the way to secession, not only in South Carolina, but in all other southern states. Five days later, (November 12,) the legislature called a convention to meet in the middle of December.

Warn

The legislature of Georgia assembled the day ing in but one after the election, (November 8.) Many of Georgia. its members were impatient to follow the lead of South Carolina; but others hesitated, some refused. The majority were able to carry a bill appropriating a million to arm the state, (November 13,) and everything appeared to (409)

35

be in train for secession. At this point, Alexander H. Stephens, who had long represented Georgia in Congress, came before the legislature to warn them against proceeding farther. "In my judgment," he said, "the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to the presidency, is sufficient cause for any state to separate from the Union. ... The president can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Representatives is largely in the majority against Mr. Lincoln. In the Senate he will also be powerless. Why, then, I say, should we disrupt the bonds of this Union when his hands are tied? . . . Let the fanatics of the north break the Constitution if such is their fell purpose;

but let

not the south, let not us, be the ones to commit the aggression." Yet, against his own warning, and as if to render it ineffectual, Mr. Stephens proposed a convention, and four days after (November 18) a bill calling such a body was passed.

Presi

Other states were doing, or preparing to do, likedent's wise, and the whole country was conscious of peril message. close at hand, when Congress met, and received the annual message of the president, (December 3.) Few, if any, could have expected help from it; few, therefore, were disappointed. Mr. Buchanan argued that the election which had just occurred was no sufficient cause for the movements in South Carolina and elsewhere. But they might be regarded as justified by the personal liberty laws, and could certainly be accounted for by the agitation against slavery in which many of the people had long allowed themselves to share. As for the means to meet the existing danger, the president thought that Congress had no power to coerce a state, that is, to prevent its secession or compel its return to the Union. But Congress could adopt some amendments of the Constitution,

and recommend their adoption by the states, securing slavery, not only in the slave states, but in the territories, and, so far as fugitives were concerned, in the free states themselves. But the message fell dead as soon as delivered.

Critten

Congress plunged into the conflict. The southern den com- members spoke with pride of what their constitupromise. ents were doing, and the more reckless their course, the nobler it seemed. On the other hand, the northern members faltered; what their constituents were doing was uncertain, what they might do was more uncertain still, and every thing on their side continued in suspense. After a fortnight of wrangling, a joint resolution was laid before the Senate by John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky. This proposed to amend the Constitution, in order to restore the line of 36° 30′ between the free and the slave states, and to extend it to the Pacific shore, and further, to secure the execution of the fugitive slave law, and to provide, that when it could not be executed, the value of the fugitive should be paid to the claimant from the United States treasury. This was called a compromise.

Secession

On the same day that Crittenden brought forof South ward his resolution, (December 17,) the convenCarolina. tion of South Carolina assembled. Southerners from almost every state, commissioners from Alabama and Mississippi, came to urge haste; only an address from fiftytwo members of the Georgia legislature urged delay, and this address was not made public. No one doubted the result. "The secession of South Carolina," as a member of the convention said, "is not an event of a day. It is not any thing produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It has been a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years." Four days from the opening, a committee reported, and

the convention adopted, without a dissenting vote, "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." In the evening of the same day, the governor and legislature being invited to witness the ceremony, the ordinance was signed by every delegate, and then proclaimed by the president of the convention, who declared that "the State of South Carolina is now and henceforth a free and independent commonwealth." Greater exultation never sat upon southern lips than at the moment when South Carolina threw herself into the abyss of secession, and called it independence.

Anderson

Sumter.

The same spirit prevailed throughout the south. at Fort It suffered no check from Washington, where the national authorities made less ado about the secession of a state than they had been wont to make about the admission of one. In many of the public offices, and throughout the capital, more was said for South Carolina than against her attempt to destroy the Union. Only in one spot where the government was represented, and that the nearest to the scene of insurrection, was the will of the insurgents opposed. Major Robert Anderson had been for two months in command of a garrison numbering little more than eighty men, including a band, at Fort Moultrie, not quite four miles from Charleston. After the calling of the convention, he asked the war department to occupy Castle Pinckney, close by Charleston, and Fort Sumter, on an island in the harbor, three miles and a half from the city. General Scott, the head of the army, advised compliance; but the majority of the cabinet refused, and the secretary of state, Lewis Cass, resigned in indignation. After the secession ordinance, Anderson wrote, suggesting Fort Sumter as a stronger position than that he held at Fort

Moultrie, and, receiving no reply from Washington, took the responsibility, and moved his garrison, with the women and children belonging to them, to Fort Sumter, on the evening of the day after Christmas. "He has opened war," said one of the Charleston journals. "His holding Fort Sumter is an invasion of South Carolina," said another. The new commonwealth ordered the other forts to be occupied, the arsenal, post-office, custom-house, and revenue cutter, in short every remaining possession, to be seized. This relieved the president, as he said, from the necessity he at first thought himself under of ordering Anderson out of Sumter, and on his refusing to give such an order, the secretary of war, a Virginian, resigned, and a patriotic Kentuckian, Joseph Holt, was appointed, from whom Anderson received a despatch approving his act as "every way admirable, alike for its humanity and patriotism, as for its soldiership," (December 31.) A week later a resolution of similar tone was passed by the House of Representatives. Major Anderson had taken the first step towards preserving the Union.

Star of the

Under the inspiration of what he had done, the government determined upon sending him reënforceWest. ments; and in order to avoid publicity, they were embarked at New York, upon a passenger steamer, the Star of the West. On its arrival off Charleston harbor, it tried to pass the bar with the soldiers under hatches; but its mission had been betrayed, and though it bore the United States flag, fire was opened from Fort Moultrie and Morris Island, as well as from an armed vessel. Anderson, being under orders not to fire unless attacked, could not interfere, and the Star of the West, being unable to return fire or to pass the batteries, put back to sea, (January 9, 1861.) 35 *