John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[2] not, so wrote the governor under date of October 18th, consider Lincoln's election a sufficient cause for disunion, and the Legislature would probably not call a convention. The Governor of Alabama, under date of October 25th, thought Alabama would not secede alone, but would secede in cooperation with two or more States. The Governor of Mississippi, under date of October 26th, wrote: “If any State moves, I think Mississippi will go with her.” On the same day the Governor of Louisiana answered: “I shall not advise the secession of my State, and I will add that I do not think the people of Louisiana will ultimately decide in favor of that course.” The Governor of Georgia, under date of October 31st, advocated retaliatory legislation, and ventured his opinion that the people of Georgia would wait for some overt act. Florida alone responded with anything like enthusiasm, but only after the lapse of a month. Her governor said that Florida was “ready to wheel into line with the gallant Palmetto State, or any other Cotton State or States,” and thought she would unquestionably call a convention.

The discouraging tone of these answers establishes, beyond controversy, that, excepting in 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.

Directly and indirectly, the South had practically controlled the government during its whole existence. Excited to ambition by this success, she sought to perpetuate that control. The extension of slavery and the creation of additional Slave States was a necessary step in the scheme, and became the well-defined single issue in the presidential election. But in this contest the South for the first time me: