John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[9] Lincoln's election was, so unexpectedly to many, rendered certain, they could not recover in time to evade the searching question which the conspirators immediately thrust at them. “whether they would submit to Black Republican rule.” A false shame and the inexorable tyranny of Southern public opinion made many a voter belie the honest convictions of his heart, and answer No, when at the very least he would gladly have evaded the inquiry.

The prominent office-holders, governors, senators, congressmen, judges, formed in each State a central clique of conspiracy. The governors had official authority to issue proclamations, to convene legislatures, to call out and command such militia as existed. Had their authority been wielded in behalf of the Union, no general revolt would have been possible; but, exercised without scruple or rest to promote secession, insurrection began with an official prestige which swept the hesitating and the timid irresistibly into the vortex of treason. Even then it was only by persistent nursing, management, and in many cases sheer deceit that a semblance of majorities was obtained to justify and apparently indorse the conspirators' plots. Legislatures were convened, commissioners sent from State to State, conventions called, military bills passed, minute-men and volunteer companies organized. Deliberative bodies were harangued by the conspirators' emissaries, and showered with inflammatory telegrams. After the meeting of Congress the fire-eaters of Washington held almost nightly caucuses, and sent addresses, solicitations, and commands from the capital. Individual opinion was overawed; the government was not only silent, but constantly yielding; legislative deliberation became, in secret session, legislative intrigue; pretexts were invented to defer and omit all proper scrutiny of election returns. The “State” was the idol of the hour. “The State ”