the delegates from the other Cotton States seceded from the convention, and later in the day, amidst bonfires and jubilation, Yancey prophesied, in a speech in Court-House Square, that "perhaps even now the pen of the historian is nibbed to write the story of a new revolution." On reassembling, the Douglas men attempted to nominate their leader. Fifty-seven ballots were cast, but Douglas was defeated by the "two-thirds' rule:" 202 votes being necessary for a choice and Douglas at no ballot rising above 1522. The Convention adjourned on May 10th to reassemble in Baltimore on June 18th. The seceders, after organizing in St. Andrew's Hall and listening to enthusiastic speeches, adjourned to meet in Richmond on June 11th.

Shortly before the reassembling of the Convention at Baltimore, an address appeared, signed by Jefferson Davis, Robert Toombs, Alfred Iverson, of Georgia, Benjamin Slidell, James M. Mason, of Virginia, Judah P. Benjamin and some fourteen other Southerners which declared approval of the withdrawal of the Cotton States from the Charleston Convention as a manifestation of adherence to principles "rising superior to all considerations of expediency, to all trammels of party, and looking with an eye single to the defense of the constitutional rights of the States." The seceders should come to Baltimore and seek to effect a reconciliation. A satisfactory platform at Baltimore would remove all occasion of dissension. If the Baltimore Convention failed to satisfy "just expectations," then the delegates from the remaining Democratic States would unite with the seceders at Richmond, and with the help of Pennsylvania alone elect the Democratic candidates. The pro-slavery States would thus, with the help of Pennsylvania, succeed. But the programme to be carried out at Baltimore meant the supremacy of the South and the dominance of the property theory of slavery and of the protection of slavery by Federal authority.

The Baltimore Convention was in its fifth day when it disrupted, the delegates from the remaining slave States and

from California mostly withdrawing, and the convention quickly nominated Douglas for president. The seceders as speedily and unanimously nominated Breckenridge and Lane. The Douglas platform declared that the party would "abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court on the questions of constitutional law": thus resting on the decision in the Dred Scott case.

On the 19th of May, at Baltimore, another convention composed of delegates who represented moderate pro-slavery men throughout the Union nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, for president, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, for vice-president, on a platform which "recognized no other principles than the Constitution of the Country, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the Laws."

Thus when parties had spoken and candidates were named, Breckenridge and Lane stood for an aggressive pro-slavery policy; Lincoln and Hamlin for a defensive slavery-limitation, and Bell and Everett for the statu quo. The Republicans declared slavery wrong, would limit it to the slaveholding States and pronounced it a local institution. The Douglas Democrats were indifferent to the right or wrong of slavery and to its extension or restriction; the people of a Territory should decide its existence in a new State and the Supreme Court all questions of constitutional law which it raised. The Breckenridge Democrats pronounced slavery right and beneficial to the country; it should be protected in new Territories and perpetuate itself, to which end the party advocated the immediate acquisition of Cuba. The balance of power in the Senate between slave and free States should be maintained. The Constitutional Unionists were neither positive nor negative toward slavery but demanded only the execution of the laws. Each nominee presently declared himself devoted to the Union and the campaign began. The gulf between the Douglas and Breckenridge wings of the Democratic party widened as the canvass proceeded and with the pro-slavery forces thus divided, Lincoln's election was presaged from the beginning. At

the election, November 6th, Lincoln received 1,865,913 popular votes and 180 electoral votes-the support of all the free States except New Jersey, in which he received four electoral votes and Douglas three. Douglas received the nine electoral votes of Missouri-twelve in all, and a popular vote of 1,374,664. Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia supported Bell and Everett, giving them 39 electoral votes, their popular vote throughout the country being 591,900. The twelve remaining slave States gave 72 electoral votes to Breckenridge and Lane-their popular vote in the country aggregating 848,404. Thus had all the electoral votes given to Breckenridge, Bell and Douglas been concentrated upon either of them, Lincoln would still have been elected.

When news of his election reached Charleston, South Carolina, signs of disapproval and resentment were immediately forthcoming and the talk of the street was of secession. The Revolution of '76, as many believed, was repeating itself; the North was the new England; the South was in the situation of the Thirteen Colonies. Independence alone would remedy the evils of which complaint was made. Presidential electors in South Carolina were, at this time, chosen by the Legislature, and though they had been chosen the Legislature had not adjourned. An irrepressible conflict was confidently expected. Should a convention be summoned? The people of Charleston, acting through representative citizens demanded it and on November 10th, the Legislature unanimously enacted a law summoning a Convention to be held on December 17th, which should examine into and consider the relations between South Carolina "the Northern States and the Government of the United States." The decision of the Legislature was received with rejoicings. Nor was there doubt of the issue involved: it was the "institution" of the South. November 21st was set apart as a day for fasting and prayer. The clergy assured their listeners that Providence approved the course the State was taking. "Charleston and South Carolina people," writes the

historian Rhodes, "felt that secession was no longer a choice, but a necessity; that they had submitted to as much aggression from the North as a free people could endure and preserve their liberties. It is a striking evidence of the mutual misunderstanding between the two sections that, while eleven-twelfths of the Northern voters thought the South had lorded it over the North since the annexation of Texas, South Carolinians, almost to a man, and the majority of the men of the Cotton States, were equally convinced that they suffered grievous wrongs from the North. This sentiment was now strong in South Carolina. When her people acknowledged the greater prosperity of the North, they asserted that it had been obtained at the expense of the South by protective tariffs. In the event of separation, the South Carolinians had dreams of unrestricted trade with Europe, which would redound to the advantage of their agricultural interests, and would make Charleston rival Boston and New York in commercial importance."

The thought of the Carolinians was of immediate secession, not only as of choice but as of necessity. At the North some doubted, but the majority of the plain people who heard of the agitation in Charleston considered it, if they considered it at all, only as the ebullition of feelings. common at times of presidential elections.

General Scott, the head of the army, advised President Buchanan to put the forts in the Southern States in a condition of defense so that none could be taken by surprise. Buchanan did nothing. He was a pro-slavery man; he owed his election to Southern votes; at least three members of his Cabinet were disunion men-John B. Floyd, of Virginia, secretary of war; Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, a holdover from Pierce's Cabinet, secretary of the interior, and Howell Cobb, of Georgia, secretary of the treasury-who did not hesitate to support secession in the Cabinet discussions. Major Robert Anderson, in command of Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, advised the reinforcement of the garrison and the immediate garrisoning of Fort Sumter

and Castle Pinckney if the government purposed holding them. The president took no action. He was preparing his last annual message, to which, when he read the original draft to the Cabinet, Thompson and Cobb objected because it denied the right of secession. He denied that the South had cause for precipitating a revolution; the troops in the Charleston forts would act on the defensive; their assailants would be responsible for consequences. But Congress had no right to coerce a State. The president faltered; non possumus, that was his policy. But even had he acted, secession would have gone on and his action, mild or aggressive, would only have accelerated it. But his message pleased nobody, North or South. He was in the most cruel of positions which a president has been fated to occupy and right or wrong, the judgment of his countrymen is that he was a weak, vacillating man. Meanwhile secession progressed at the South.

The new party which had won at the polls was not seriously conscious of the magnitude of the crisis at hand. Perhaps no Northern man was able at that moment to compass the situation. Republicans asked that acquiescence in the will of the majority which other victorious parties had received. Resistance to law provokes the hostility of a conservative people. All Republicans agreed in execrating Buchanan: he at least should execute the laws. Horace Greeley, in the Tribune, admitted the right of secession; the Cotton States should be suffered to go in peace; coercion was out of the question; the two sections of the Union could not be pinned together by bayonets. But this opinion though coming from one of the foremost Republicans was not the conviction of the rank and file of the party: thousands of men considered it as only one of Greeley's aberrations. There was still another opinion, which advocated coercion, but this course involved difficulties, and, moreover, who was to carry out such a policy? Coercion meant war, and the Republican party had all along asserted its pacific intentions.