What in the United States from "A History of the Nineteenth Century Year by Year" by Edwin Emerson, Jr., edited by C.A. Venturi

After the failure of the efforts to make Kansas a slave State, it had become plain that the South could not hope to keep its equality of representation in the Senate without reversing what appeared to be the settled popular opinion concerning the status of the Northern Territories. Resolutions to this effect were moved by Jefferson Davis early in February, and were passed by the Senate. The House, however, would not pass them.

This was the ultimatum presented to the Democratic Party, and, in fact, to the North, at the Democratic National Convention, which assembled, on April 23, at Charleston, South Carolina. The spokesman of the Cotton States at that convention was William L. Yancey of Alabama, whose impetuous oratory had given him a place among the extreme men of the South, comparable to Garrison and Wendell Phillips among the extreme anti-slavery men in the North. An antislavery report was adopted by a small majority. The Alabama delegation withdrew, and practically all the delegates from the Cotton States followed. The convention adjourned to meet at Baltimore on June 18. There, Douglas was at last nominated. Meanwhile, the delegates who had withdrawn from the convention at Charleston met again at Richmond, whence they also adjourned to Baltimore, and, joined there by other seceders, nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President. Douglas went before the country practically on the Dred Scott decision for a platform. Breckinridgo stood for the Southern view as embodied in the majority report at Charleston. On May 19, a third faction, calling itself the "Constitutional Union Party," assembled in convention at Baltimore and nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts, declaring that they would have no other platform than "the Constitution, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws."

On May 16, the Republican Convention had met at Chicago. Of the slave States, only Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri were represented. David Wilmot of "Proviso" fame was temporary president and Ashmun of Massachusetts permanent chairman. The resolutions declared for "The maintenance inviolate of the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively," and condemned the attempt to enforce the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest (meaning the slave interest), through the intervention of Congress and the courts, by the Democratic Administration. They derided the new dogma that the Constitution of its own force carried slavery into the Territories, and denied the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individual to give leave of existence to slavery in any Territory in the United States. Seward was the leading candidate on the first ballot. Cameron, Chase and Bates also had respectable followings, but Abraham Lincoln of Illinois rapidly forged ahead, and on the 3d ballot was nominated with a total of 354 out of 466 votes. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for Vice-President.

A memorable political contest followed. Stephen A. Douglas made his last try for the Presidency with wonderful vigor and spirit. He canvassed the whole country, and great throngs were moved by his energetic oratory. Jefferson Davis and other Breckinridge orators had the courage to canvass Northern States. In some Northern States a fusion was effected among the opponents of the Republican Party. Before election day, however, it was clear to shrewd observers that the new party would carry the bulk of the Northern electoral vote.

Meanwhile, south of Mason and Dixon's line the interest in the contest was even more intense. Douglas had a good following, but a great majority of the ruling class, whether they had formerly been Democrats or Whigs, were now disposed to bring the long sectional controversy to an issue. Therefore, besides the debate over the Presidential election, there was also serious discussion of the course which the South should take in the event of Lincoln's election. South Carolina had been ready to secede from the Union 10 years before, and there had been considerable minorities in other Southern States in favor of secession at that time. The Alabama Legislature, early on, had instructed Governor Moore to call a Convention in case a "black Republican" should be elected.

None of the 4 candidates obtained a majority of the popular vote. Lincoln got 1,866,352, Douglas 1,375,157, Breckinridge 845,763, and Bell 589,581. Fifteen States chose Republican electors only, and so Lincoln got a majority of the Electoral College. most of the Southern States went for Breckinridge, who was second in the Electoral College. Douglas's support was hopelessly scattered throughout the two sections. Bell carried but 3 States, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The great excitement which swept throughout the whole country gradually subsided in the North, while in the South it rose
to fever heat.

With the election of Lincoln, the South Carolina Legislature at once made provision for a Constitutional Convention, and similar action was taken in others of the Cotton States. Throughout the South three distinct parties contended on the secession question. One party advocated immediate secession of each State without waiting for any other. The second party advocated cooperation among the States, to the end that if one seceded all might secede together. The third party opposed secession altogether. For the time being, the immediate Secessionists had their way in the Cotton States, while in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and other States the Co-operationists and Union men were in the ascendant. The South Carolina Convention passed its ordinance of secession on December 20, and at the same time invited the other Southern States to meet in Convention at Montgomery, Alabama, early next year.

As it became clear that the South was in terrible earnest, a strong feeling for compromise developed in the North and in the border States. Influential newspapers took the position that everything possible should be done to conciliate the South. Abraham Lincoln, while conceding nothing to the theory or policy of secession, took occasion, in a letter to Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, to make it plain that he had no purpose to interfere with slavery in any State where it already existed.

December 3, Congress convened at Washington. President Buchanan, in his last annual message, discussed the alarming state of affairs, but offered no solution of the difficulty. he denied the right of a State to secede from the Union, but could not find that the Constitution gave Congress any power to "coerce into submission a State which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn" from the Union. "The fact is," he said, '"that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war." Attorney-General Black sustained the President in this view. A committee of 33, appointed by the House, declared that "any reasonable, proper and Constitutional remedies and effectual guarantees of their political rights and interests should be promptly and cheerfully given" to the dissatisfied States. A Senate committee of 13, appointed, December 18, to advise compromise measures for a restoration of peace, soon reported that it was "not able to agree upon any general plan of compromise."

And so, while Congress debated, and Buchanan hesitated, and the North looked on helpless, the people of the lower South made ready to employ that remedy for their grievances which, at various times and in various dissatisfied corners of the Union, had been suggested or threatened but never tried. American drifted into what looked to be a ruinous war.

During the month of December, 2 Southern members of the Cabinet resianed. They were Cobb of Georgia and Floyd of Virginia, by whose connivance, it was asserted, Federal arsenals had fallen into the hands of the Southerners. Commissioners representing South Carolina appeared at Washington as the envoys of a separate republic, and Governor Pickens made a formal request that Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, be delivered to the authorities of the State. After some hesitation, Buchanan refused to receive the Commissioners, and let them know that Fort Sumter would not be abandoned. It was then that Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote "Brother Jonathan's Lament," addressed to South Carolina.

At this time, Forts Pinckney and Moultrie had already been seized by the South Carolina Troops. On December 31 possession was taken of the Federal arsenal at Charleston, the flag of the United States was hauled down, and in its place was hoisted the palmetto flag of South Carolina.

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