I.


After the October elections, in the autumn of 1860, had been carried by
the Republicans, the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the
United States, in November, became a foregone conclusion. On the 5th day
of October,--the initial day of the American Rebellion,--Governor Gist,
of South Carolina, wrote a confidential circular-letter, which he
despatched by special messenger to the governors of the so-called Cotton
States. In this letter he requested an "interchange of opinions which he
might be at liberty to submit to a consultation of the leading men" of
his State. He added that South Carolina would unquestionably call a
convention as soon as it was ascertained that a majority of Lincoln
electors were chosen in the then pending presidential election. "If a
single State secedes," he wrote, "she will follow her. If no other State
takes the lead, South Carolina will secede; in my opinion, alone, if she
has any assurance that she will be soon followed by another or other
States; otherwise, it is doubtful." He asked information, and advised
concerted action.

The governors of North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Georgia sent replies; but the discouraging tone of their responses
establishes, beyond controversy, that, with the exception of South
Carolina, "the Rebellion was not in any sense a popular revolution, but
was a conspiracy among the prominent local office-holders and
politicians, which the people neither expected nor desired, and which
they were made eventually to justify and uphold by the usual arts and
expedients of conspiracy."

From the dawn of its existence the South had practically controlled the