dent was made
infinitely more difficult as well as greatly more creditable to him by
reason of the very fact that he was _not_ the choice of the American
people, but of less than half of them,--and this, too, even if the
Confederate States be excluded from the computation.[112]

The election of Lincoln was "hailed with delight" by the extremists in
South Carolina; for it signified secession, and the underlying and real
desire of these people was secession, and not either compromise or
postponement.[113]

FOOTNOTES:

[95] Lamon, 422.

[96] The majority report was supported by 15 slave States and 2 free
States, casting 127 electoral votes; the minority report was supported
by 15 free States, casting 176 electoral votes. N. and H. ii. 234.

[97] This action was soon afterward approved in a manifesto signed by
Jefferson Davis, Toombs, Iverson, Slidell, Benjamin, Mason, and others.
_Ibid._ 245.

[98] Greeley's _Amer. Conflict_, i. 326.

[99] _Ibid._ i. 306, 307.

[100] Mr. Blaine says that Lincoln "was chosen in spite of expressions
far more radical than those of Mr. Seward." _Twenty Years of Congress_,
i. 169.

[101] "In strong common sense, in sagacity and sound judgment, in rugged
integrity of character, Mr. Hamlin has had no superior among public
men." Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, i. 170.

[102] Lamon, 453.

[103] McClure adds, or rather mentions as the chief cause, Seward's
position on the public-school question in New York. _Lincoln and Men of
War-Times_, 28, 29.

[104] "To the country at large he was an obscure, not to say an unknown
man." _Life of W.L. Garrison_, by his children, iii. 503.

[105] _Life of W.L. Garrison_, by his children, iii. 503.

[106] See remarks of McClure, _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 28, 29.

[107] See N. and H. ii. 284 n.

[108] See letter of May 17, 1859, to Dr. Canisius, Holland, 196; N. and
H. ii. 181.

[109] _Life of W.L. Garrison_, by his children, iii. 502.

[110] This table is taken from Stanwood's _History of Presidential
Elections_.

[111] N. and H. iii. 146.

[112] The total popular vote was 4,680,193. Lincoln had 1,866,452. In
North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee, no vote was cast for the Lincoln ticket;
in Virginia only 1929 voted it. Adding the total popular vote of all
these States (except the 1929), we get 854,775; deducting this from the
total popular vote leaves a balance of 3,82