UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



5987 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



Democrats, who supported squatter sovereignty 

 and the Compromise of 1850; John Bell was 

 the candidate of the Constitutional Union 

 (formerly the Know-Nothing) party, which 

 wished to end all discussion of slavery. The 

 fourth candidate was Abraham Lincoln, nomi- 

 nated by the Republicans on a platform which 

 demanded that Congress prohibit slavery in the 

 territories. Lincoln was elected by a large 

 majority in the electoral college, but his popu- 

 lar vote was considerably less than one-half of 

 the total. There is good basis for the statement 

 that Lincoln was only a minority President ; if 

 the Southern states had not seceded, the Re- 

 publicans in Congress would have been out- 

 voted until the very end of his first administra- 

 tion. In South Carolina, after the Presidential 

 electors were chosen by the legislature, that 

 body remained in secession until it was evident 

 that Lincoln would be elected. It then sum- 

 moned a state convention, which at once passed 

 an "ordinance of secession." South Carolina 

 was followed in order by Mississippi, Florida, 

 Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. 



In February, 1861, these states organized a 

 separate government, the Confederate States of 

 America, to which Texas, Arkansas, Virginia and 

 North Carolina were admitted later in 1861. 

 President Buchanan, though publicly denying 

 the right of the states to secede, maintained 

 that he had no right or power to force them 

 to remain in the Union. Congress likewise took 

 no action, except to admit Kansas as a free 

 state. The only signs that the North realized 

 the approach of a great conflict were the state 

 elections. Most of the states, in 1860 and 1861, 

 elected governors who proved to be strong lead- 

 ers, men like John A. Andrew of Massachusetts, 

 William Sprague of Rhode Island, William A. 

 Buckingham of Connecticut, Andrew G. Curtin 

 of Pennsylvania, William Dennison of Ohio, 

 Oliver Perry Morton of Indiana, and Richard 

 Yates of Illinois. Some of them, like Andrew 

 and Buckingham, appreciating the situation, 

 even ordered war supplies on their personal 

 responsibility, pledging their private means in 

 payment. 



Meanwhile the Southern states were taking 

 active steps to maintain their right to secede. 

 Forts, arsenals and other United States prop- 

 erty were seized by the states and later turned 

 over to the Confederacy. During January and 

 February the authority of the United States 

 came to an end in seven states, and was in 

 tin- balance in seven more. Lincoln, on his 

 inauguration, found secession an accomplished 



fact. Efforts to furnish a basis of readjustment, 

 such as the Crittenden Compromise, had been 

 found useless, and it was clear that only force 

 could hold the seceding states in the Union. 

 In his inaugural address Lincoln said that he 

 had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to inter- 

 fere with the institution of slavery in the states 

 where it now exists," but he states with equal 

 frankness that it was impossible for a state to 

 secede. This was the situation when the attack 

 on Fort Sumter opened the war. 



For a history of the war, see WAR OP SECES- 

 SION, also the articles to which reference is 

 made therein ; for history of the South see CON- 

 FEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA and articles on the 

 separate states. 



There were many people in the North op- 

 posed to war, and this opposition increased with 

 the failure of the Federal armies in 1861 and 

 1862. Some of Lincoln's acts, such as the sus- 

 pension of the writ of habeas corpus, were ex- 

 traconstitutional. The suppression of news- 

 papers and the occasional dispersal of public 

 gatherings, the drafting of soldiers, the heavy 

 war taxes and the uncertain business conditions, 

 all created an anti-war sentiment which culmi- 

 nated in the election of 1864, in which General 

 George B. McClellan, the Democratic candi- 

 date, was nominated on a platform dec-hiring 

 the war a failure and demanding its end. 



The result of the war ended for all time the 

 right of an individual state to secede from the 

 Union, even granted that it once possessed that 

 right. Another great result of the war was the 

 freeing of the slaves and the end of the institu- 

 tion of slavery (see EMANCIPATION PROCLAMA- 

 TION). The Thirteenth Amendment, forever 

 prohibiting slavery in the United States, was 

 declared a part of the Constitution on Decem- 

 ber 18, 1865. 



Reconstruction. The joy with which the end 

 of the war was hailed in the North was suc- 

 ceeded by mourning on the assassination of 

 President Lincoln by John Wilkes Bootl 

 drew Johnson, who became President, tried to 

 carry out the liberal policy of reconstruction 

 (which see) as it had been outlined by Lincoln. 

 Unfortunately for the South, Johnson was lack- 

 ing in tact ; perhaps, indeed, he lacked in states- 

 manship, though not in stubbornness and hon- 

 orable purpose. He soon quarreled with tin- 

 Republicans in Congress over the policy of re- 

 construction and the weight to be attached to 

 his own wishes. The leading opponents of the 

 Presidents policy were Charles Sumner and 

 Thaddeus Stevens. The quarrel reached it* 



