Chap. III.

to the very verge of revolt from that Union; and she was the first in 1860 to raise her hand against it.

The South Carolina Legislature had assembled on the 4th November. On the 7th, with hardly the formality of a discussion, an Act was passed summoning a Convention of delegates to be elected by the inhabitants of the State, and to meet at Columbia on the 17th December following. The Convention met, adjourned to Charleston, and immediately appointed a Committee to prepare an Ordinance of Secession. So rapid were its proceedings, that on the 20th the Ordinance was presented, and adopted by a unanimous vote; and South Carolina was on the same day solemnly proclaimed an independent commonwealth.1 Her example was followed in quick succession by Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In all of these States Conventions were held, on the summons either of the Legislature or of the Governor, and Ordinances of Secession passed; and each, one by one, declared itself free, sovereign, and independent. The dates of these proceedings are shown in the subjoined Table:

1 This Ordinance, on the model of which those of other seceding States were afterwards framed, was in the following terms :

"An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.'

"We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention on the 23rd day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of

In Texas the Ordinance, after being adopted by the Chap. III. Convention, was submitted to the people of the State for ratification. The majority for secession was 34,794, the minority against it 11,235. The Convention in this State was summoned by a private requisition, but was sanctioned by the Legislature.

All marks of the Federal sovereignty within the seceding States were immediately effaced, and all the instruments through which the general Government had exercised its constitutional powers were destroyed, or appropriated by the State Governments. The Circuit and District Courts ceased to sit, and the Federal tribunals were supplanted by those of the State; the State authorities took possession of custom-houses and postoffices; Federal officials resigned, or were dismissed, or passed into the service of the State and took the oath of allegiance to it. The Federal arsenals at Charleston, Mount Vernon, Augusta, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, the Pensacola navy-yard, the forts commanding the approaches to Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, were seized and wrested from the Federal Government, without a shot fired or a blow struck, as well as Forts Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and Sullivan's Island in South Carolina, and Forts Barrancas and McRae, near Pensacola. All of these seizures were effected before the end of January, and some of them without waiting for the passing of a Secession Ordinance, the active secessionists throughout the South being in regular correspondence with one another, and the Governors for the most part warmly devoted to the cause. In Texas, where the United States had a regular force about 2,500 strong, Commissioners were sent to the headquarters of the officer commanding the department, with

the State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved."-American Annual Cyclopædia for 1861, p. 650.

Chap. III. instructions to demand the withdrawal of the troops and a surrender of the ordnance stores and public property under his control. A military force was organized to support these demands. General Twiggs, a Georgian by birth and an officer of long service, yielded to them, and marched his soldiers to the coast, whence they were conveyed to the North-an act of timidity or supineness for which he was soon afterwards cashiered. Two detachments, which had been left behind in his retreat, subsequently surrendered to a superior force and were dismissed on parole. Two military posts of some strength-Fort Sumter at the mouth of Charleston harbour, and Fort Pickens situated on the extremity of a long island which bars the entrance of Pensacola Bay -continued to be held for the United States by officers whose fidelity was unshaken; but, except at these isolated points, the authority of the Federal Government had everywhere throughout the seceding States ceased to be acknowledged, and every symbol of the Union had disappeared.

The revolt of this group of States was effected, as we have seen, not suddenly or simultaneously, but by a series of acts extending over a considerable time, without violence or disorder, and with as near an approach perhaps as a revolt is capable of to formal regularity of proceeding. The declaration of independence was preceded in every case by the holding of a Convention; and, in the choice of delegates, "secession or no secession " was known to be the real issue presented to the electors. The authority of the Union was dethroned and de facto abolished; but in the internal administration of the several States there was no violent displacement of power, since none was called for, and in most instances there was no change at all. If the South had succeeded in severing itself from the Union, the complete sovereignty of these States, as regards their internal government and laws, must have been held to date from

their respective declarations. This could hardly be dis- Chap. III. puted at least by an American jurist.1

Yet in most of these States, if not in all, opinion during the earlier stages of the revolt was far from being unanimous. The division was especially marked in Alabama,—where the northern and upland counties were generally Unionist,-in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Men whose station, character, and experience made them respectable, were found to urge, not only that secession was not justified by the election of a Republican President, but that it was inexpedient. The South and its institutions, they urged, even slavery itself, were really safer under the Constitution than they would be if the Union were dissolved. No one spoke more eloquently in this sense than Mr. A. H. Stephens, of Georgia, who, scarcely three months later, became Vice-President of the Confederacy. Few, however, appear to have directly opposed Secession; the many who dreaded the movement, and followed it reluctantly, confined themselves for the most part to counselling delay and co-operation among the Slave States, in preference to separate action. But opposition and reluctance were everywhere overborne and silenced, sometimes perhaps by direct intimidation, but more generally by that instinctive deference which Americans, like Englishmen, are accustomed to yield to the decision of majorities, as well as by the strong and blinding attachment which the Southerner cherished towards his State. To his appre

1 See the well-known case of McIlvaine v. Coxe's Lessee, Cranch, iv, 212. 2 of the state of feeling in Texas General Houston wrote as follows, in September 1861

"The time has been when there was a powerful Union sentiment in Texas, and a willingness on the part of many true patriots to give Mr. Lincoln a fair trial in the administration of the Federal Government. There was also a time when many of the best men in the country hoped that by an energetic demonstration they might bring about a reconstruction of the Government upon such principles as might guarantee the rights of the South. These times have passed by, while Union and reconstruction have become obsolete terms, or, if even mentioned, it is

Chap. III, hension this was patriotism; duty to his State ranked high, perhaps highest, among his public duties. With men like Lee and Maury, and many thousands more, this was the ruling motive. The sword once drawn, such men, though they would never have unsheathed it voluntarily, felt bound to side with their own Government and their own people, threw themselves into the cause with unhesitating gallantry, and adhered to it with unswerving constancy. And yet I think it must always be a doubtful question whether there would ever have been a secession at all, but for the deliberate temerity of South Carolina.

Even before the revolt was consummated, preparations had been made in the seceding States to form a Confederacy for their common government and defence. Delegates from all except Texas, which had not yet seceded, met on the 4th February at the town of Montgomery in Alabama, and proceeded to organize themselves as a General Convention and Provisional Congress of the "Confederate States of North America," to establish a temporary form of Government, and elect a President and Vice-President. For the Presidency their choice fell on Mr. Jefferson Davis, a Mississippi planter, who had sat as Senator in Congress, and had long exercised a commanding influence among the politicians of the South. Educated at the Military Academy at West Point, he had served in Mexico, and had held the office of Secretary at War. Mr. Davis hastened at once to Montgomery, took the oath of office, formed a Cabinet, and threw himself into the arduous work of organizing the resources of the Confederacy. On the 11th March the temporary form of Government, which had been only in reference to past events. If there is any Union sentiment in Texas, I am not apprised of it."—American Annual Cyclopædia for 1861, p. 692.

General Houston had himself been unwilling to follow the movement, and had been deprived of the Governorship for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.