tside the Constitutional
Union Party, in 1860, were those Democrats in the following of Douglas
who, after fighting to the last ditch against both the sectional
parties, were to accept, in 1861, the alternative of war rather than
dissolution. The course of Douglas himself, as we shall see hereafter,
showed that in his mind there was a fixed limit of concession beyond
which he could not go. When circumstances forced him to that limit,
the sentiment of Union took control of him, swept aside his political
jugglery, abolished his time-serving, and drove him into cooperation
with his bitterest foes that the Union might be saved. Nor was the pure
sentiment of Union confined to the North and West. Though undoubtedly
the sentiment of locality was more powerful through the South, yet when
the test came in the election of 1860, the leading candidate of the
upper South, in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, was John Bell, the
Constitutional Unionist. In every Southern State this sentiment was able
to command a considerable part of the vote.*

*A possible exception was South Carolina. As the
presidential electors were appointed by the legislature,
there is no certain record of minority sentiment.

Widely different in temper were those stern and resolute men whose
organization, in perfect fighting trim, faced eagerly the divided
Democrats. The Republicans had no division among themselves upon
doctrine. Such division as existed was due to the ordinary rivalry
of political leaders. In the opinion of all his enemies and of most
Americans, Seward was the Republican man of the hour. During much of
1859 he had discreetly withdrawn from the country and had left to his
partisans the conduct of his campaign, which seems to have been going
well when he returned in the midst of the turmoil following the death
of John Brown. Nevertheless he was disturbed over his prospects, for he
found that in many minds, both North and South, he was looked upon
as the ultimate cause of all the turmoil. His famous speech on the
"irrepressible conflict" was everywhere quoted as an exultant prophecy
of these terrible latter days.

It was long the custom to deny to Seward any good motive in a speech
which he now delivered, just as it was to deny Webster any good motive
for his famous 7th of March speech. But such criticism is now less
frequent than it used to be. Both men were seeking the Presidency;
both, we may fairly believe, were shocked by