for
the cotton States to refrain from precipitating themselves headlong into
them. The repression that will come by and by will not repair the evil
that has been done. Explanations will also follow too late; it was for
the President to reply on the spot, and categorically, to the manifestos
issued by the South. To let the violent States know that their
unconstitutional plans would meet a prompt chastisement; to let the
neighboring States know that their sovereignty was by no means menaced,
and that they would continue to regulate their internal institutions as
they pleased; to say to all that the discussion of plans of abolition
was not in question; to say too to all that the majorities of
free-soilers would be protected in the Territories, and that the
conquests of slavery were ended: what language would have been better
fitted than this to isolate the Gulf States--perhaps to check them?

I say _perhaps_, because I know that passions had reached such a pitch
of exasperation that a rupture seemed inevitable. In South Carolina, for
example, the Governor had recommended both Houses in advance to take
measures for seceding if Mr. Lincoln should be elected; a special
commission was nominated, and held permanent session. In Texas, Senator
Wigfall did not fear to say, in supporting Mr. Breckenridge: "If any
other candidate is elected, look for stormy weather. There may be a
Confederation, indeed, but it will not number more than thirty-three
States." Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and Mr. Benjamin, of
Louisiana, held no less explicit language, announcing that at the first
electoral defeat of the South, it would set about forming a separate
Confederation, long since demanded by its true interests.

What the South called its "interests," what it ended by adopting as a
political platform, outside of which there was no safety, was, as we
have seen, the subjugation of majorities in the Territories, the
restriction of sovereignty in the Northern States, the reform of the
liberty bills, which refused the prisons of these States and the
co-operation of their officers, to the Federal agents charged with
arresting fugitive slaves, the power of transporting slavery over the
whole Confederation, the duty of extending indefinitely the domain of
slavery. Who paid Walker? Who continually recruited bands of adventurers
to launch on Cuba or Central America? Who prepared the well-known lists
of slave States with which the South counted