Part 1098

"Mr. J. W. Fell, a politician of Pennsylvania, says that after the debates of 1858 [with Douglas] he urged Lincoln to seek the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1860. Lincoln, however, replied curtly that men like Seward and Chase were entitled to take precedence, and that no such 'good luck' was in store for him. … In the winter of 1859-60 sundry 'intimate friends,' active politicians of Illinois, pressed him to consent to be mentioned as a candidate. He considered the matter over night and then gave them the desired permission, at the same time saying that he would not accept the vice-presidency. … With the opening of the spring of 1860 the several parties began the campaign in earnest. The Democratic Convention met first, at Charleston, April 23; and immediately the line of disruption opened. Upon the one side stood Douglas, with the moderate men and nearly all the Northern delegates, while against him were the advocates of extreme Southern doctrines, supported by the administration and by most of the delegates from the 'Cotton States.' The majority of the committee appointed to draft the platform were anti-Douglas men; but their report was rejected, and that offered by the pro-Douglas minority was substituted, 165 yeas to 138 nays. Thereupon the delegations of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, and sundry delegates from other States, withdrew from the Convention, taking away 45 votes out of a total of 303. Those who remained declared the vote of two thirds of a full Convention, i. e., 202 votes, to be necessary for a choice. Then during three days 57 ballots were cast, Douglas being always far in the lead, but never polling more than 152½ votes. At last, on May 3, an adjournment was had until June 18, at Baltimore. At this second meeting contesting delegations appeared, and the decisions were uniformly in favor of the Douglas men, which provoked another secession of the extremist Southern men. A ballot showed 173½ votes for Douglas out of a total of 191½; the total was less than two thirds of the full number of the original Convention, and therefore it was decided that any person receiving two thirds of the votes cast by the delegates present should be deemed the nominee. The next ballot gave Douglas 181½. Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was nominated for vice-president. On June 28, also at Baltimore [after a meeting and adjournment from Richmond, June 11], there came together a collection composed of original seceders at Charleston, and of some who had been rejected and others who had seceded at Baltimore. Very few Northern men were present, and the body in fact represented the Southern wing of the Democracy. Having, like its competitor, the merit of knowing its own mind, it promptly nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane of Oregon, and adopted the radical platform which had been reported at Charleston. These doings opened, so that it could never be closed, that seam of which the thread had long been visible athwart the surface of the old Democratic party. … In May the Convention of the Constitutional Union party met, also at Baltimore. This organization was a sudden outgrowth designed only to meet the present emergency. … The party died, of necessity, upon the day when Lincoln was elected, and its members were then distributed between the Republicans, the Secessionists, and the Copperheads. John Bell, of Tennessee, the candidate for the presidency, joined the Confederacy; Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, the candidate for the vice-presidency, became a Republican. The party never had a hope of electing its men; but its existence increased the chance of throwing the election into Congress; and this hope inspired exertions far beyond what its own prospects warranted. On May 16 the Republican Convention came together at Chicago, where the great 'Wigwam' had been built to hold 10,000 persons. … Many candidates were named, chiefly Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Cameron, Edward Bates of Missouri, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey. Thurlow Weed was Seward's lieutenant. Horace Greeley, chiefly bent upon the defeat of Seward, would have liked to achieve it by the success of Bates. David Davis, aided by Judge Logan and a band of personal friends from Illinois, was manager for Lincoln. Primarily the contest lay between Seward and Lincoln. … Upon the third ballot … those who were keeping the tally saw that it stood:—Seward, 180; Lincoln, 231½; Chase, 24½; Bates, 22; Dayton, 1; McLean, 5; Scattering, 1. … Before the count could be announced, a delegate from Ohio transferred four votes to Lincoln. This settled the matter; and then other delegations followed, till Lincoln's score rose to 354. … Later in the day the convention nominated Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, on tho second ballot, by 367 votes, for the vice-presidency. … Almost from the beginning it was highly probable that the Republicans would win, and it was substantially certain that none of their competitors could do so. The only contrary chance was that no election might be made by the people, and that it might be thrown into Congress."

_J. T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, volume 1, chapter 6._

At the popular election, the votes were: Lincoln, 1,866,452 (Free-States vote, 1,840,022, Slave States vote, 26,430); Douglas, 1,375,157 (Free States vote, 1,211,632, Slave States vote, 163,525); Breckenridge, 847,953 (Free States vote, 277,082, Slave States vote, 570,871); Bell, 590,631 (Free States vote, 74,658, Slave States vote, 515,973).

In the Electoral College, the four candidates were voted for as follows: Lincoln, 180; Breckenridge, 72; Bell, 39; Douglas, 12.

_E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, chapter 20._

ALSO IN: _H. W. Raymond, Life of Lincoln, chapter 4._

_E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, page 1._

_J. G. Holland, Life of Lincoln, chapters 15-16._

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 2, chapters 13-16._

_J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 11 (volume 2)._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (November-December). The plotting of the rebellion. Secession of South Carolina.

"The long-hoped-for opportunity of trying the experiment of secession was now at last presented. Abraham Lincoln had been elevated to the presidency by a strictly sectional vote; and though the fact could not be denied that he had been elected in a perfectly constitutional manner, … yet, no sooner was it ascertained that it was almost certain that he would receive a majority of the electoral votes of the whole Union, than steps began to be taken for carrying into effect a revolutionary project which had engrossed the thoughts and sensibilities of a small class of extreme Southern politicians, mainly confined to the State of South Carolina, for some thirty years preceding. … So thoroughly matured was the project of secession in the minds of Southern extremists in South Carolina, that they are known actually to have commenced movements looking to this desired end before even the presidential election had taken place, and when the result which soon ensued was yet but a strong probability. Accordingly we find Governor Gist, as early as the 5th of November, 1860, addressing a message to the South Carolina Legislature, embodying the following bold and explicit declarations. … 'That an exposition of the will of the people may be obtained on a question involving such momentous consequences, I would earnestly recommend that, in the event of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, a Convention of the people of this state be immediately called, to consider and determine for themselves the mode and measure of redress. My own opinions of what the Convention should do are of little moment; but, believing that the time has arrived when everyone, however humble he may be, should express his opinions in unmistakable language, I am constrained to say that the only alternative left, in my judgment, is the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The indications from many of the Southern States justify the conclusion that the secession of South Carolina will be immediately followed, if not adopted simultaneously by them, and ultimately by the entire South. … I would also respectfully recommend a thorough reorganization of the militia, so as to place the whole military force of the state in a position to be used at the shortest notice and with the greatest efficiency. … In addition to this general preparation, I would recommend that the services of 10,000 volunteers be immediately accepted.' … I desire not to particularize on this painful subject to an extent which might now prove annoying, and therefore proceed briefly to state that the Legislature of South Carolina provided for the assemblage of a state Convention, the members of which were to be elected on the 6th of December, while the conventional body itself was to come together on the 19th of the same month; that the Convention did assemble on the last-mentioned day, and, after an excited debate of several days' continuance, adopted an Ordinance of Secession on the 20th of December. Commissioners were sent with a copy of the ordinance to each of the slave states, in order to quicken co-operative action, and notification was duly made as to these events to the Federal government in Washington City. The next secession movement it was expected would come off in the State of Georgia. A Convention for this purpose had been already called. It was known that Alexander H. Stephens, Herschel V. Johnson, and other public men, of elevated standing and of extended influence, would be members of the Convention, and it was expected that they would exert themselves to the utmost to prevent the imitation by the State of Georgia of the rash example which had just been set by South Carolina; and it was likewise known that eminent personages from the State of South Carolina would attend the Convention of Georgia, in order to urge immediate co-operation. Under these circumstances, I took it upon myself to persuade the public men of most influence in the city of Nashville, where I was then residing, to send ten or fifteen delegates forthwith to Milledgeville, respectfully and earnestly to protest against extreme action on the part of Georgia. … I urged these views for several days most zealously, but, I regret to say, without success; some supposing that there was no serious danger of the Convention of Georgia adopting an Ordinance of Secession, and others that there was reason to fear, if we should send delegates to Milledgeville, it might result in fatally compromising our own attitude. The manly opposition made by Mr. Stephens to the attempt to draw Georgia into the Secession maelstrom is well known. This want of success is a circumstance which I shall ever deplore as the most unfortunate event of a public nature which has occurred within my recollection. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were now soon enrolled among the seceded States. Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware still stood firm, despite all the efforts essayed to shake their constancy. It is indeed true, as Mr. Greeley has deliberately recorded, that after the secession 'conspiracy had held complete possession of the Southern mind for three months, with the Southern members of the cabinet, nearly all the Federal officers, most of the governors and other state functionaries, and seven eighths of the prominent and active politicians pushing it on, and no force exerted against nor in any manner threatening to resist it, a majority of the slave states, with two thirds of the free population of the entire slaveholding region, was openly and positively adverse to it, either because they regarded the alleged grievances of the South as exaggerated if not unreal, or because they believed that those wrongs would rather be aggravated than cured by disunion.'"

_H. S. Foote, War of the Rebellion, chapter 15._

ALSO IN: _J. G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, chapter 1._

_S. W. Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War, chapters 2-5._

_F. Moore, editor, Rebellion Record, volume 1._

The following is the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, adopted December 20, together with the Declaration of Causes which was promulgated by the Convention four days later:

"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, and it is hereby declared and ordained. That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved."

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"Declaration of the immediate causes which induce and justify the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:

The People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A. D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue. And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act. In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, 'that they are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.' They further solemnly declared that whenever any 'form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.' Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies 'are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.' In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments—Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defence, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first article, 'that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. Under this Confederation the War of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3d September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definitive Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the Independence of the Colonies in the following terms:

'Article 1.—His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent States; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.' Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country as a free, sovereign and independent State. In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended, for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States. The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed, the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then to be invested with their authority. If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they were—separate sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation. By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But, to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her people, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken. Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government, with defined objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights. We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

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