Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/275



N 1860 the Presidential election showed that political parties were at length arrayed on the geographical line which divided the Free and Slave States. (American Politics, Johnston, p. 334.) The representation in Congress stood: In the Senate, Free States, 36, Slave States, 30; in the House, Free States, 147, Slave States, 90. Thus, the Free States cast an electoral vote of 183 and the Slave States a vote of 120. The South had been outstripped in the race for winning political control of the territories. The slavery agitation had assumed the form of a movement for forcible abolition. The election of Mr. Lincoln by a vote of 180 in his favor to 123 against him, placed the entire machinery of government in the hands of the Free States. The South was now in the position which New England had occupied in 1814.

There were in the positions of the two sections two important points of difference: 1st. In 1814, the South was in possession of the legislative and executive branches of the government, but made no effort to disturb the domestic institutions of New England; now, when the Free States were in power, an aggressive party threatened the overthrow of the institution of slavery, which was the foundation of the industrial system of the South. 2d. In 1814, New England would have been permitted to leave the Union had she persisted in carrying out her threats of secession, and no efforts at coercion would have been attempted; now, a national sentiment in favor of coercion had developed. This sentiment was the unforeseen outgrowth of the Southern policy of