1860. LINCOLN CHOSEN PRESIDENT. 469 Pluralities had by this time come to determine the elections in most of the States, and Presidential electors were chosen by a popular vote in every State but South Carolina. Douglas stood next to Lincoln in the popular vote; nor was the latter's plurality sufficient, after all, over so many competitors to give him a majority. Douglas, however, made the worst failure in electoral votes, because his chief strength was spent in following behind Lincoln in the free States which the latter carried. He won the solid electoral vote of no State but Missouri, in whose gratitude there was poetic justice.* Even the Bell conservatives came out of the field with better honors, for they carried Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Almost throughout the South, in fact, Douglas had been of light weight in comparison, the real contest being in that section between quiescent and aggressive slaveholding, union and secession, as typified in the leaders, Bell and Breckinridge, who were identified with their own domestic system. Northern candidates who faced in two directions were no longer in fashion. While Douglas fell at last between two stools, Breckinridge and the advanced school of slaveholders won eleven out of the fifteen slave States.† Threats of disunion, which had been kept discreetly under breath until after the October elections, came up now from the remote South. The question which had been put to Douglas during his brief canvass beyond the border was now of profound consequence to every citizen of the slave region. Should a proud and imperious race of masters submit to the galling yoke of an administration which would hold their labor system in scorn and disgrace, tolerating their invested capital of human bones. and sinews, rather than according to it better safeguards? *Besides these nine electoral votes, Douglas received three in New Jersey, against four given Lincoln. This was the final outcome of the fusion efforts which had been attempted in the Middle States. ↑ Pluralities were very close in some States, as, for instance, in Virginia, Missouri, Maryland, North Carolina, and California. The outlook for slavery expansion within the Union was already gloomy enough. Kansas would soon come in necessarily as a free State; the violent death of Walker cast a pall over all schemes for acquiring neighboring territory by the agency of private adventurers; and as for public enterprises in Cuba, in Mexico, or wherever else the seed of caste might be sown, the advent of a President like Lincoln meant indefinite postponement. The full measure of Southern humiliation was by no means appreciated in the free States. Northern men considered such threats thrasonic and vaporing. They knew that the Union was essential to the very existence of slavery, and supposed their Southern brethren equally convinced of it. The charge made by Southern orators who came North, like the fervid Yancey, that the South was intrenched behind the Constitution while the North was trying to break the barrier, they honestly felt to be untrue. So they went on, stronger than ever in attachment to their principles, to roll up greater pluralities for November. Merchants and financiers gave in their final adhesion to the cause of the Republicans, persuaded that in manliness and fidelity to right lay the correct policy for the times. South and North had entered the Presidential strife as though honorably intending to abide results. And no result of a national ballot could have been plainer or more legitimate. There was no fraud, no cloud upon title, no room for doubtful disputation. If ever a President was elected over all opponents by the requisite number of votes in a free, open, and stubborn contest, that President was Abraham Lincoln. In the Constitution, a newspaper published at the capital under the inspiration of the Secretary of the Treasury, and fed upon the treasury patronage, appeared November, a rabid article, just after the election, proclaimDecember. ing that the South could not submit to the administration of Lincoln. "Dissolution is inevitable if the Black Republicans triumph," had been, in fact, the burden of Southern journals for a month; and now came telegraphic intelligence that most of the cotton States medi 1860. DISUNION AT THE SOUTH. 471 tated instant disunion. In Virginia a jealous rivalry had been manifested between Wise and Governor Letcher, the latter supporting Douglas, while the former bore the red standard of secession. Even Letcher's advice inclined to making common cause with the South in the event of secession; while Wise, in his fury, would have seized Washington city, and held the public buildings and treasure as security for Southern redress. A resolution was promptly passed by the legislature of Alabama which instructed the governor of the State to call a convention immediately upon ascertaining that a Republican President was elected. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, the disposition to secede soon predominated. South Carolina was nearly unanimous in favor of such a step; and in Georgia, Arkansas, and Texas, the feeling gained rapid ascendency, notwithstanding prominent leaders were reluctant to take the step. South Carolina led in impetuous rebellion. Governor Gist counselled the legislature of that State to remain in permanent session, and make military and other preparations to meet the crisis. Public gatherings at Charleston and other centres of opinion in the palmetto State emphasized the idea of immediate and independent secession, relying upon the belief that the gulf States would speedily follow. The South Carolina legislature provided accordingly for a State convention to meet on the 17th of December. Congress met in final session on Monday, December 3d, a large majority of the members of both Houses December being present. Representatives from South Caro- 3, 4. lina took their seats, as usual, but both Senators from that State were absent. The victorious Republicans, whose spirits had dropped from exultation to anxiety under the past month's pressure of events, had neither system nor confidence to meet the unforeseen emergency. Their mood reflected that of their several constituencies throughout the North, who waited, as the great mass of a community are apt to wait under such circumstances, for some positive and inspiring direction. "Indecision, under the circumstances," wrote the leader of the triumphant party in this body, "shows only that the Union sentiment is so strong as to leave the people unprepared." * It was the opportunity for Buchanan to have sounded a trumpet note which would disconcert disloyal citizens and recall the doubtful to their duty. But the President, with three months longer to serve, had not in him the stuff of heroic purpose. He was a loyal man after his sort, but secessionism raged about him, and kept its last clutch upon his cabinet circle. His opening message was craven and cowardly for the emergency; its whole scope was to upbraid the people for their choice of a President, and exhort them to fall upon their knees to propitiate the fellow-citizens they had out-voted, and avert the dire calamity of disunion which otherwise seemed inevitable. Explanatory amendments to the Constitution were suggested as a basis of capitulation, slavery to be recog nized as rightful in all States now or hereafter choosing to adopt the system; negro ownership to be protected in all national domains while the territorial condition lasted; all State laws which interfered with the surrender of fugitive slaves to be null and void. The inefficacy of the Constitution to preserve the Union against domestic violence, such as now impended, was maintained in a finespun argument to the effect that, while secession was unlawful, a State which attempted to secede could not be coerced into submission. In short, the President's message, whose loyal expression was strained in the skim-milk of apology, was ill-calculated for anything but to encourage disunion to go on with its work. There was no vigor in it, no backbone; transgressors were not recalled to their loyal obligations; no money, no military strength, no means of collecting the public revenue or of protecting the public property were asked for; some phrases might be tortured into one view of executive responsibility, others into another, but the too evident meaning of the whole was irresolution.† * 2 Seward's Life, 478. † President's message, December 4, 1860. 1860. * BUCHANAN'S FEEBLE MESSAGE. 473 No wonder, then, that while Cobb and Thompson had taken issue with their chief upon the theoretical right of secession, they tarried longer in the cabinet to use their pernicious pressure. No wonder that Jefferson Davis and other Southern leaders at the capitol took a haughty and unreconciling stand, as though the grievance were wholly theirs. The message of a Northern President alleged at length the continuous and intemperate interference of the North with questions of local slavery. But had the South shown no aggression? It asked that the slave States be let alone. But why were constitutional amendments called for to buttress slavery in new regions which it chose to enter? And why did that same message insist, moreover, upon the scheme of annexing Cuba and taking another slice from Mexico? Republicans riddled with their satire, as it deserved, the feeble cobweb of Buchanan's constitutional exposition. This was no time for spiders' syllogisms, for political metaphysics. With ingenious disquisitions upon the inner sense of the Constitution, we had been overloaded since the giants of the Senate began their oratorical strife. Calhoun, who brought such disputations into fashion, was incapable, perhaps, of saying what he did not really believe; but the mechanism of his mighty mind made sound and unsound premises appear often alike when the flame of a strong purpose blew upon them. What the country wanted of its chief Executive was a bold and manly stand, a free avowal that the Union must be preserved, and the laws of the land obeyed. This would have relieved the gloom and despondency which was already gathering in business circles, while Southern payments were suspended, and the stocks of States and the national government led in a feverish decline. "O for *See 2 Curtis's Buchanan, c. 16. † Hale summed it up wittily in three propositions: (1) that South Carolina had just cause to secede; (2) that she had no right to secede; (3) that we had no right to prevent her. Seward wrote of the message: "It shows conclusively that it is the duty of the President to execute the laws, unless somebody opposes him,—and that no State has a right to go out of the Union - unless it wants to." 2 Seward, 480. |