Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/355

Rh the profound silence of assembled Congress, nor was the proclamation saluted by a single cheer from the multitude present in the capital at the time. More than regret was felt at the result of this election in quite every part of the United States. The feeling that a wrong had occurred in the Republic under legal procedure at the ballot box prevailed North as well as South. The national sense of propriety, of fairness, of generosity was wounded. Northern States had banded together to use the power of the State electoral vote under constitutional forms in order to acquire political ascendency; giving only the one reason for this movement, that the Southern States possessed property under the same Constitution which ought not to be recognized. Regret was quickly followed by anxiety for the consequences. The North became excited with apprehensions of danger to the Union, and public meetings were held in Northern cities to express the sentiments of the people. (Lunt, 382.) The imports of specie, always sensitive, began to decrease. Orders from America to Europe countermanded the orders previously sent, and foreign trade fell off. Southern buyers of Northern goods, and Northern sellers were in mutual distress. The tremblings of general intersectional trade manifested the dangers into which the peculiar system of interstate commerce had been precipitated. The prices of securities fell and government credit went down. All business became depressed. The mails bore tons of letters and circulars from manufacturers and merchants deprecating disunion, and presenting in strong terms the damage that would follow sectional divisions. Business men publicly stated the great value of the South to the Union and to the trade of the North. &quot;The North derives from forty to fifty millions revenue annually from Southern consumption through the tariff. The aggregate trade of the every year. &quot; One statement was made that the North