-1861

Upon the election of Lincoln in November, 1860, South Carolina almost
immediately gave evidence of its purpose to secede from the Union.
Democrats generally, and many supporters of Bell and Everett, had
deemed secession probable in the event of Republican success--a belief
so fully shared by the authorities at Washington, who understood the
Southern people, that General Scott, then at the head of the army,
wrote to President Buchanan before the end of October, advising that
forts in all important Southern seaports be strengthened to avoid
capture by surprise. On the other hand, the Republicans had regarded
Southern threats as largely buncombe. They had been heard in 1820, in
1850, and so frequently in debate leading up to the contest in 1860,
that William H. Seward, the most powerful leader of opinion in his
party, had declared: "These hasty threats of disunion are so unnatural
that they will find no hand to execute them."[598]

[Footnote 598: Speech of February 29, 1860: _Seward's Works_, Vol. 4,
p. 619.]

Nevertheless, when, on November 16, the South Carolina Legislature
passed an act calling a convention to meet on December 17, the
Republicans, still enthusiastic over their success, began seriously to
consider the question of disunion. "Do you think the South will
secede?" became as common a salutation as "Good-morning;" and,
although a few New Yorkers, perhaps, gave the indifferent reply of
Henry Ward Beecher--"I don't believe they will; and I don't care if
they do"[599]--the gloom and uncertainty which hung over business
circles made all anxious to hear from the leaders of their party.
Heretofore, Horace Greeley, Thurlow Weed, and William H. Seward,
backed by Henry J. Raymond of the New York _Times_ and James Watson
Webb of the _Courier_, had been quick to meet any emergency, and their
followers now looked to them for direction.

[Footnote 599: New York _Tribune_, November 30, 1860. The quotation is
from an address delivered in Boston.]

Horace Greeley was admittedly the most influential Republican
journalist. He had not always agreed with the leaders, and just now an
open break existed in the relations of himself and the powerful
triumvirate headed by Thurlow Weed; but Greeley had voiced the
sentiment of the rank and file of his party more often than he had
misstated it, and the _Tribune_ readers naturally turned to their
prophet for a solution of the pending trouble. As usual, he had an
opinion. T