Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 42.djvu/18

 6 Southern Historical Society Papers

The General Assembly have described a presidential Nero — a man seizing the powers of the Federal Government at the head of a party "deadly hostile," and with the "unmistakable aim" to use them to the destruction of a portion of the people by the subversion of the Constitution, and their rights and in- stitutions. I cannot but think that the picture drawn in these resolutions must have had for a prototype the raid of John Brown.

I assume that Mr. Lincoln will be elected President of the United States conformably to the Constitution and that he will be inaugurated according to law and usage. There will be no seizure nor usurpation of the office. The persons who elected him are from one million and three-quarters to two million of voters in the different States and are in the majority in fifteen States of the Union. The party that nominated him is ruled* in respect to some questions, by ideas confined to one of the two great sections of the Union, and these ideas' are of no mean consequence in the domestic relations of the two sections.

The election of Mr. Lincoln I regard as a calamity to the country, as it has undermined if not destroyed the confidence — the diminished confidence — of a portion of the Southern States towards the Federal Government:

"Peace exists only betwixt confidence And faith. Who poisons confidence, he murders The future generations."

The Democratic party which had assumed to provide for the stability, energy and repose of the Union and claimed the support of the people to execute these great duties, was rent during the Presidential canvass by scandalous factions who em- ployed the summer in biting and devouring one another, taking no heed lest they might consume one another. They left the government exposed as an easy prey to a party numbering less than two-fifths of the voters of the Union. The question before us is not whether a more acceptable election could not have been made. In my opinion, Mr. Hunter might have been nomi-