Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/39

22 The vote in the Southern slave States:

Abraham Lincoln........................................ 26,430 Stephen A. Douglas................................... 163,525 John C. Breckinridge..................................... 543,781 John Bell ........................................................ 488,923

The vote in the Gulf States:

Abraham Lincoln........................................  ...... Stephen A. Douglas................................... 24,926 John C. Breckinridge..................................... 168,400 John Bell ........................................................ 94,444

The vote in Alabama:

Abraham Lincoln........................................ ...... Stephen A. Douglas................................... 13,651 John C. Breckinridge..................................... 48,831 John Bell ........................................................ 27,325

When on that fateful 6th of November, 1860, it was decided by the election of Mr. Lincoln that Black Republican rule was to dominate the Union and crush the South under with its compromising cruelty. The North and the South both knew that the election of Lincoln meant the destruction of slavery, to be so accomplished as to bring financial ruin, if not entire annihilation; for Wendell Phillips had said: "This state of things is just what we have attempted to bring about The Republican party is a party of the North, pledged against the South."

Believing firmly in the sovereignty of the State, there was never an idea among the masses of the people of the South that secession would entail war. A few of the prominent leaders and profound thinkers foresaw the consequences, still peaceable secession was the thought uppermost. Coercion, "vi et armis," was not dreamed of; and these ideas were not confined to the Southern people. The opinion had always prevailed throughout the Union that secession was a right vested in each separate State, and that an attempt to coerce a sovereign State would be unwarrantable and unconstitutional. John Quincy Adams but gave expression to this universal sentiment when in a