Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

Carolina, North Carolina and Missouri. Seymour carried eight States, including Oregon, New York and New Jersey. The other five carried by him were States that had been slave States.

Since the war. In 1872 General Grant received the majority vote of all the States except eight. The States carried by him included Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Delaware. Greeley having died before the meeting of the electors, the Democratic electors scattered their votes. By 1876 the Democratic party had secured control of most of the States which had seceded and which under the Reconstruction régime had given most of their votes to the Republican party. In the latter year the Democratic party clearly carried all the States which had comprised the Confederacy, except South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. In these States there arose a dispute which was afterward settled by the Joint Electoral Commission in favor of the Republican candidate. From that date down to the present time (1906) the South has held solid for the Democratic party, except in the Silver campaign of 1896, when Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky went for the Republican candidate, and in 1900 when Delaware and Maryland again went Republican.

State rights in the South. While the South had ever been the seat of the State rights theory, its situation in relation to the slave issue augmented the importance of its recognition of that theory. While the cause of the war was substantially in the status of the slave, its real cause was in the question whether or not a State could secede. The question became organic at once. The traditions of the Democratic party naturally allied it with the State rights theory of the South, but the great bulk of the party refused to recognize the theory to the extent of the right of a State to withdraw from the Union, as claimed by the radicals of the South.

Against this extreme theory the great bulk of Northern Democrats offered resistance upon the field, while, on the

other hand, they declined to support many of the policies of the Republican party whose theory they believed extended too far toward centralization.

Slavery becomes a partizan question. The Republican party had no history and therefore no traditions, save as it was regarded as the successor of Whig traditions and therefore representative of the Whig principles which were Hamiltonian. The growth of the Republican party was determined by an issue, not by a theory of government, except as was suggested by the issue. Its origin was in response to a demand in the North to limit the extension of slavery. This sentiment was strong enough to threaten the Democratic party with deposition at once. The issue was made up. The Republican party opposed the further spread of slavery. The Southern wing of the Democratic party demanded constitutional protection, the same as granted to other species of property. The Democratic party, proper, attempted to reach a compromise by agreeing to allow the people of the State or Territory to decide the question for themselves. The "popular sovereignty" scheme failed to satisfy the radical wing of the Democracy in the South. The years 1858, 1859 and 1860 furnished abundant evidence that the extremists of the South would not follow the lead of Douglas. This sectional dissension fed the Republican ranks as it weakened the Democratic ranks. The situation disrupted the party and it went before the country in 1860 with two candidates, making it possible for the Republican candidate to receive a majority of the electoral votes and secure the election without receiving a single electoral vote from the Slave States. Thus slavery gave rise to a new political party, disrupted the party that had attempted to protect it, occasioned a sectional contest and laid the foundations for a solid South and a united North.

Election of Lincoln and Secession of the States. Abraham Lincoln was elected President on the sixth of November, 1860. His inauguration was on the following fourth of March. On

the twentieth of December, 1860, South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Secession, declaring itself no longer a part of the Union. One month later, on the twenty-first of January, a dramatic scene was enacted in the United States Senate Chamber when the senators from all the States except South Carolina were present. Those from Florida, Alabama and Mississippi withdrew from the Senate.

Confederate States of America. On February fourth, 1861, the seven States which had seceded, held a convention at Montgomery, Alabama. Four days later it adopted a provisional constitution and on the following day elected Jefferson Davis president and Alexander Stephens of Georgia vicepresident. On the eleventh of March the permanent constitution was adopted. With slight exceptions this instrument is in the phraseology of the Federal Constitution, except where the altered circumstances necessitated a change. Its preamble omitted the "general welfare" clause, which had been a nightmare to the Strict Constructionist. The slight exceptions had reference to the points in dispute. The framers desired to leave no room for dispute. The doctrine of State Sovereignty was expressly declared. It asserted protection of slavery, but forbade the slave-trade. It denied the power to establish a protective tariff, and forbade the adoption of an internal improvement policy. These items had been opposed by the slave States since the days of the younger Adams. The constitution followed the English custom of giving Cabinet members a voice in legislation, by permitting them to speak to either House of the Confederate congress. It made the presidential term six years, and forbade a re-election. The constitution was not submitted to the people of the States for ratification, but to conventions in each State.

Certainty of war. Thus two weeks before Lincoln was inaugurated, the Confederacy was established. On the twelfth of April, Fort Sumter was bombarded. On the fifteenth, Lincoln called for troops. Four more States joined the seven

[graphic][merged small]

in Secession: Arkansas May 6, North Carolina May 20, Virginia May 23, and Tennessee June 8. The contention over rival political theories was at last transferred from the council chamber to the battle-field. War was chosen as the final test of constitutional interpretation. This was continued from April 12, 1861, the bombardment of Fort Sumter, to April 9, 1865, the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.

Its extent. During the war there were at least two and a quarter million soldiers in the field. There were over three hundred battles fought which are recorded as sanguine engagements. The loss of life from various causes on both sides approximated six hundred thousand. The cost in money baffles all figures. The slave property alone was estimated to be at least $2,000,000,000. The loss due to the suspension of production will not admit of estimate. All this was to determine the correct interpretation of the Federal Constitution, in a dispute between the advocates of State Sovereignty on the one hand, and those of constitutional supremacy on the other. The prosecution of a war to suppress a rebellion necessitated an enlargement of the constitutional supremacy doctrine, a fact readily accepted by Lincoln.

The Cleveland convention. There was a considerable element in the North which could not adjust its theories of abolition to the Administration's policy of inactivity on the slavery question. These elements in Lincoln's own party crystallized in a convention of three hundred delegates, held in Cleveland on the 31st of May, 1864, to express their opposition to the President and his policy. The call of the convention denounced the administration of Lincoln as "imbecile and vacillating." It characterized his conduct of the war as treachery to justice, freedom, and genuine democratic principles, in its plan of reconstruction, whereby the honor and dignity of the nation have been sacrificed to conciliate this still existing and arrogant slave-power," etc. The immediate extinction of slavery was demanded by them throughout the

66

« PředchozíPokračovat »