territory, and was trying to draw a "cordon of free states" around the South and thus slowly to strangle slavery.

(5) Election of Lincoln. That the choice of an antislavery President was an act of hostility to the South and would result in an attack on slavery in the states.

In this list the main and deciding grievance is briefly that the North disliked slavery, wanted to check it, and allowed people to discuss it. As Robert Toombs of Georgia put it, "What is wanted is that the North shall call slavery right." It is also true that the South was fast losing strength in Congress. By the admission of Minnesota in 1858, Oregon in 1859, and Kansas (34th state) in 1861, the number of free states was raised to 19, as against 15 slaveholding states.

A feeling of injury and wrath was also widespread in the North because of grievances expressed substantially as follows:

(1) Territory. That the southerners had for years been forcing the annexation of territory in order to strengthen slavery.

(2) Free speech. That the South had arrogantly attempted to put down free speech and a free press in the northern states, and even in Congress.

(3) Citizenship. That by the South Carolina negro seamen act of 1820 and other statutes against the movement of free negroes, the southern states violated rights of northern negro citizens which were guaranteed by the Constitution.

(4) Violence in Kansas. That the Kansas episode showed a determination to foist a slavery constitution by fraud and violence on the people of a practically free territory.

(5) Political control. That the slave power had ever since 1829 practically controlled the presidency, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House (except for two Congresses), and now wanted to leave the Union when other people began to come into control.

(6) Secession. That the South entertained doctrines of secession which were contrary to the Constitution and destructive to the Union.

Basis of Secession

268. BASIS OF SECESSION

409

Were there no Union men in the South? There were thousands. A few were permanent Union men, such as Sam Houston of Texas, and James L. Petigru of South Carolina, who marched out of St. Michael's Church, in Charleston, when prayers were first offered for the President of the Confederacy; but most of them, like Alexander H. Stephens, yielded when their states seceded. Stephens, born in 1812, educated in North Carolina, entered Congress as a Whig in 1843. Though little and boyish in appearance, he was soon recognized as one of the strongest men in Congress. When the crisis of 1861 came, Stephens headed the opposition to the secession of his state, Georgia. He urged that the southern people had not been entirely blameless, and that the only real ground for secession was the personal liberty laws, which would probably be withdrawn if a proper effort were made.

Nearly all southerners admitted that the majority in each state should decide whether there was sufficient reason for secession; but they upheld the principle that if there was sufficient reason, there was an undeniable right to withdraw from the Union; and they felt that such a secession ought not to be looked upon by the North as a breach of the Constitution or as a hostile act. The southern theory of secession can be traced back to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (152) and the nullification doctrine (§ 201). It was, in effect, that secession was not war, but a constitutional and practical way of getting rid of the controversy between the sections.

Even admitting that secession was right, many serious questions were left undecided:

(1) The constitutionality of secession was not self-evident, though it was accepted not only by southern public men, but by some in the North. Once admit that the states were sovereign and the Constitution only a compact, and any state

was undoubtedly entitled to leave the Union whenever it wished. But had the states ever been sovereign?

(2) The expediency of secession, even if it were constitutional, depended on what the secessionists wanted. Some preferred to go out of the Union, so as to put a pressure on the North to readmit them on such terms as they might dictate; but Davis and other leaders from the first intended to form a permanent southern government, and they confidently expected all the slave states to join them.

(3) Secession under any circumstances was really a solution of the problem only if it did not lead to war. Most southern leaders thought the North would not fight; others foresaw a long war, notwithstanding the arguments for the constitutional right of secession, but were sure that the South would be successful in the end.

(4) The most potent reason for the whole doctrine of secession was clearly that it offered a means of relieving slavery from the dangers that were growing up under the Union. When the Georgia convention declared for secession, Stephens announced that he would go with his state, and later made a famous speech in which he said of the Confederate constitution: "Its foundations are laid, its corner stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition." This left unanswered the question whether slavery would be protected by a war between South and North.

269. ATTEMPTED COMPROMISE (1860-1861)

As soon as the danger of secession was realized, four desperate attempts were made to stop it by framing a compromise, something like those which had averted trouble in 1820, 1833, and 1850 (§§ 185, 218, 236):

(1) Special committees of the House and Senate were appointed (December, 1860), to try to prepare bills or constitutional amendments that would hold the Union together.

Attempted Compromise

4II

In the Senate committee, the Republicans offered a proposition (which we now know was drafted by Abraham Lincoln) to the effect that neither the federal government nor the free-state governments should interfere with slavery in the states; but they added the very unwelcome clause that fugitive slaves should have a jury trial. Jefferson Davis, as the southern spokesman in the committee, demanded that the free states should be put under obligation to protect slave owners who might wish to carry slaves across free territory or to hold them there for short periods.

(2) The House committee submitted the "Corwin Amendment" against interference by Congress with slavery in the states, and both houses approved it but it never was ratified -it was too weak and too late. Plainly, neither side really desired compromise.

(3) As yet the secession movement had not spread to the five "border states "-Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri - nor to the next tier of southern states North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Senator Crittenden of Kentucky brought forward a set of constitutional amendments intended to keep these doubtful states in the Union. The plan included a division of future territory between freedom and slavery; and against it Lincoln, as President-elect, used all his personal influence over the Republicans in Congress. He felt that any compromise which recognized, extended, and perpetuated territorial slavery was an admission that the Republican party had no reason for existence.

(4) A fourth attempt at compromise was a "Peace Congress," called by the border states at Washington in February, 1861. This body sat for a month and made a report, which was substantially the Crittenden compromise; but it could make no headway.

Neither side would give way in Congress or outside on the main issue, which was whether the federal government would thereafter throw its influence for or against slavery. The

Republicans would not agree to let slavery alone; and the South would not agree to accept any limitation of slavery by the federal government.

If the North would neither consent to secession nor make a compromise, what was left but to keep the seceding states in the Union by force? To this remedy there were many objections. Thousands of people in the North, especially some of the abolitionists, thought the country would be better off without the slaveholding states; the army and navy were small and scattered; and President Buchanan argued that there was no way of "coercing a state.” Yet some action had to be taken, because the sites of the few southern forts still in possession of the United States had been formally ceded by the states to the Union, and to give them up would be an acknowledgment of the right of secession.

Fort Sumter, which lay in the sea channel of Charleston, became the storm center. When the merchant ship Star of the West, carrying the stars and stripes, appeared with provisions and reënforcements for the fort (January 9, 1861), she was fired upon by a South Carolina battery, and compelled to turn back. Major Anderson wisely referred the whole matter to the government in Washington; and the South waited for the new Lincoln administration to declare its position.

270. LINCOLN'S PURPOSES (1860-1861)

For three months after his election, Lincoln remained quietly at his home in Springfield, arranging his Cabinet, receiving delegations, listening to office seekers, and keeping his eye on Congress. He early selected Seward to be his Secretary of State, and gave Chase of Ohio and Cameron of Pennsylvania to understand that they could come into his Cabinet. He also sent word to General Scott (December 21, 1860), asking him to be prepared "to either hold or retake the forts, as the case may require, at and after the inauguration.'

In February, 1861, Lincoln started eastward, and made a