A School History of the United States Part 44

Plumbing.

Paved streets.

General use of anthracite.

Free schools.

Railroad expansion.

Express.

Postage stamps.

Ocean steamships.

_New Inventions._

Number of patents.

The sewing machine.

The harvester.

The telegraph.

India rubber.

Daguerreotype.

Anaesthesia.

Atlantic cable.

_The South._

Little affected by new industrial conditions.

Few manufactures.

Increase of the cotton area.

No immigration.

CHAPTER XXVII

WAR FOR THE UNION, 1861-1865

%419. South Carolina secedes%.--The only state where in 1860 presidential electors were chosen by the legislature was South Carolina.

When the legislature met for this purpose, November 6, 1860, the governor asked it not to adjourn, but to remain in session till the result of the election was known. If Lincoln is elected, said he, the "secession of South Carolina from the Union" will be necessary. Lincoln was elected, and on December 20, 1860, a convention of delegates, called by the legislature to consider the question of secession, formally declared that South Carolina was no longer one of the United States.[1]

[Footnote 1: "We the people of the state of South Carolina, in convention a.s.sembled, do declare and ordain ... that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."]

%420. The "Confederate States of America."%--The meaning of this act of secession was that South Carolina now claimed to be a "sovereign, free, and independent" nation. But she was not the only state to take this step. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had also left the Union. Three days later, February 4, 1861, delegates from six of these seven states met at Montgomery, Ala., formed a const.i.tution, established a provisional government, which they called the "Confederate States of America," and elected Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens provisional President and Vice President.

Toward preventing or stopping this, Buchanan did nothing. No state, he said, had a right to secede. But a state having seceded, he had no power to make her come back, because he could not make war on a state; that is, he could not preserve the Union. On one matter, however, he was forced to act. When South Carolina seceded, the three forts in Charleston harbor--Castle Pinckney, Fort Sumter, and Fort Moultrie--were in charge of a major of artillery named Robert Anderson. He had under him some eighty officers and men, and knowing that he could not hold all three forts, and fearing that the South would seize Fort Sumter, he dismantled Fort Moultrie, spiked the cannon, cut down the flagstaff, and removed to Fort Sumter, on the evening of December 26, 1860.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLESTON HARBOR]

This act was heartily approved by the people of the North and by Congress, and Buchanan with great reluctance yielded to their demand, and sent the _Star of the West,_ with food and men, to relieve Anderson.

But as the vessel, with our flag at its fore, was steaming up the channel toward Charleston harbor, the Southern batteries fired upon her, and she went back to New York. Anderson was thus left to his fate, and as Buchanan's term was nearly out, both sides waited to see what Lincoln would do.

%421. Why did the States secede?%--Why did the Southern slave states secede? To be fair to them we must seek the answer in the speeches of their leaders. "Your votes," said Jefferson Davis, "refuse to recognize our domestic inst.i.tutions [slavery], which preexisted the formation of the Union, our property [slaves], which was guaranteed by the Const.i.tution. You refuse us that equality without which we should be degraded if we remained in the Union. You elect a candidate upon the basis of sectional hostility; one who in his speeches, now thrown broadcast over the country, made a distinct declaration of war upon our inst.i.tutions."

"There is," said Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, "no other remedy for the existing state of things except immediate secession."

"Our position," said the Mississippi secession convention, "is thoroughly identified with the inst.i.tution of slavery. A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union."

Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, a.s.serted that the Personal Liberty laws of some of the free states "const.i.tute the only cause, in my opinion, which can justify secession."

The South seceded, then, according to its own statements, because the people believed that the election of Lincoln meant the abolition of slavery.

%422. Compromise attempted%.--The Republican party in 1861 had no intention of abolishing slavery. Its purpose was to stop the spread of slavery into the territories, to stop the admission of more slave states, but not to abolish slavery in states where it already existed. A strong wish therefore existed in the North to compromise the sectional differences. Many plans for a compromise were offered, but only one, that of Crittenden, of Kentucky, need be mentioned. He proposed that the Const.i.tution should be so amended as to provide

1. That all territory of the United States north of 36 30' should be free, and all south of it slave soil.

2. That slaves should be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government.

3. That states should be admitted with or without slavery as their const.i.tutions provided, whether the states were north or south of 36 30'.

4. That Congress should have no power to shut slavery out of the territories.

5. That the United States should pay owners for rescued fugitive slaves.

As these propositions recognized the right of property in slaves, that is, put the black man on a level with horses and cattle, the Republicans rejected them, and the attempt to compromise ended in failure.

%423. A Proposed Thirteenth Amendment%.--One act of great significance was done. A proposition to add a thirteenth amendment to the Const.i.tution was submitted to the states. It read,

"No amendment shall be made to the Const.i.tution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic inst.i.tutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said states."

Even Lincoln approved of this, and two states, Maryland and Ohio, accepted it. But the issue was at hand. It was too late to compromise.

%424. Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President%.--Lincoln and Hamlin were inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and in his speech from the Capitol steps Lincoln was very careful to state just what he wanted to do.

1. "I have no purpose," said he, "directly or indirectly, to interfere with the inst.i.tution of slavery in the states where it exists."

2. "I consider the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care ... that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states."

3. "In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority."

4. "The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government and to collect the duties and imposts."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fort Sumter]

%425. Civil War begins.%--One of the places Lincoln thus pledged himself to "hold" was Fort Sumter, to which he decided to send men and supplies. As soon as notice of this intention was sent to Governor Pickens of South Carolina, the Confederate commander at Charleston, General Beauregard (bo-ruh-gar'), demanded the surrender of the fort.

Major Anderson stoutly refused to comply with the demand, and at dawn on the morning of April 12, 1861, the Confederates fired the first gun at Sumter. During the next thirty-four hours, nineteen batteries poured shot and sh.e.l.l into the fort, which steadily returned the fire. Then both food and powder were nearly exhausted, and part of the fort being on fire, Anderson surrendered; and on Sunday, April 14, 1861, he marched out, taking with him the tattered flag under which he made so gallant a fight.[1] The fleet sent to his aid arrived in time to see the battle, but did not give him any help. After the surrender, one of the ships carried Anderson and the garrison to New York.[2]

[Footnote 1: "Having defended Fort Sumter for thirty-four hours, until the quarters were entirely burned, the main gates destroyed by fire, the gorge walls seriously injured, the magazine surrounded by flames, and its door closed from the effect of heat, four barrels and three cartridges of powder being available, and no provisions remaining but pork, I accepted terms of evacuation offered by General Beauregard . . .

and marched out of the fort on Sunday afternoon, the 14th instant, with colors flying and drums beating . . . and saluting my flag with fifty guns."--_Major Anderson to the Secretary of War._]

[Footnote 2: _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,_ Vol. I., pp.

60-73.]