THE CAMPAIGN OF 1860 467 vote of the three candidates opposed to secession was 3,832,288, almost three million more than the secessionist candidate received, and over eighty per cent of the total. Four states which ultimately seceded cast anti-Breckenridge votes ranging from about 2,500 in Georgia to over 18,500 in Virginia. Also, in all the states which joined the Confederacy, with the exception of South Carolina, the combined anti-Breckenridge vote was heavier than the secessionist vote. In South Carolina there was no popular vote in the presidential election. In the country at large the sentiment was overwhelmingly against secession, and somewhat against it in the slave states as a whole. It should be remembered that Lincoln's popular vote was only about forty per cent of the total, so he was elected as a minority President. Again, Breckenridge and Douglas together, the two Democratic candidates, had nearly 100,000 more votes than Lincoln. Finally, in Congress, if the southern states had not seceded, there would have been an anti-administration majority of eight in the Senate, and twenty-one in the House. The election returns make the fact perfectly obvious that Lincoln's victory was due to the schism in the Democratic Party, and that he could command a majority neither in Congress nor in the country at large. That is, under ordinary conditions the Republican Party, while more of a sectional organization than the Whigs, would probably occupy about the same position with reference to the Democrats. It was a threat, which might become effective under abnormal conditions, but not otherwise. Had the southern leaders taken the trouble to analyze the vote, they might have seen little reason to fear the inauguration of Lincoln; from the point of view of the present day, they would have found it far more profitable to attempt to reunite the Democratic Party than to disrupt the Union. CHAPTER XLIII SECESSION AND WAR South Carolinians in 1860 followed the course of politics with lively concern. The leaders in the state had often declared that the election of Lincoln would be an intolerable grievance, and would lead to the disruption of the Union. Every one seemed to be keyed up to an unusually high pitch of excitement, and this tension increased rapidly as the election approached. The legislature was in session, to choose presidential electors, and to take whatever action the circumstances seemed to demand. There is no doubt that in South Carolina a majority of voters favored secession. On receipt of the news of Lincoln's election, the legislature passed a bill providing for a constitutional convention, to meet on December 17. THE SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA When the members of this body came together, it was a foregone conclusion that the state would secede. On December 20, the convention adopted, unanimously, an ordinance of secession. 'We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, 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." Four days later the convention adopted a Declaration of Causes, modeled upon the Declaration of Independence. This asserted that the federal Constitution had been adopted as an experiment, that it had worked constantly to the detriment of South Carolina, and that the character of the government had gradually changed from a federal organization to a consolidated democracy. Finally, it announced that the election of a president by a purely sectional party had rendered it unsafe for South Carolina to remain longer in the Union. As a result of these proceedings South Carolina resumed her status as an independent, sovereign state, organized an independent government, and adopted a state flag. Before the end of the winter conventions in the six other cotton states had taken similar action, that |