Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[51] politicians who were exciting them to revolt, but another fact, afterward made clear — that months before Mr. Lincoln's election, emissaries of the conspirators had been sent to Europe, to prepare the way for aid and recognition of the contemplated Southern Confederacy by foreign powers. “If we wait for co-operation,” he said, “Slavery and State Rights will be abandoned, State Sovereignty and the cause of the South lost forever; and we would be subjected to a dominion, the parallel to which is that of the poor Indian under the British East India Company. When we have pledged ourselves to take the State out of the Union, and place it on record, then I am willing to send a commissioner to Georgia, or any other Southern State, to announce our determination, and to submit the question whether they will join us or not. We have it from high authority, that the representative of one of the imperial powers of Europe, in view of the prospective separation of one or more of the Southern States from the present Confederacy, has made propositions in advance for the establishment of such relations between it and the government about to be established in this State, as will insure to that power such a supply of cotton for the future as their increasing demand for that article will require.” ¹

Led by Robert Barnwell Rhett, Senior, the extremists in the South Carolina Legislature held sway in that body, and on the 9th of November a bill calling a convention for the purpose of secession passed the Senate, and was concurred in by the House on the 12th. It provided for the election of delegates on the 6th of December, to meet in convention on the 17th of that month. This accomplished, Messrs. Chesnut and Hammond formally offered the resignation of their seats in the Senate of the United States. The offer was accepted with great applause, as the beginning of the dissolution of the Union.

Georgia was the first to follow the bad example of South Carolina. Its Legislature was convened on the 7th of November. Robert Toombs and Alfred Iverson, then United States Senators, and others, had been laboring with intense zeal, during the Presidential canvass, to arouse the people to revolt when the leaders should give the signal. Many influential men were co-workers with them. It was exceedingly difficult to seduce the people of that State from their affection for the Union. They succeeded, however, in producing a general ferment and unrest throughout the State; and, by falsehoods, impassioned addresses, and, in some cases, intimations of impending wrath for Union men, they confused, distracted, and divided the people. Toombs, like Rhett, was anxious for the immediate and separate secession of his State.

By the time the Legislature met, which was on the day after the Presidential election,

November 7.

there had been created quite a strong disunion feeling throughout the State. It permeated the woof of society, and was prominent in the whole social fabric. The Legislature was divided in sentiment; and a majority of them did not coincide with the Speaker, who, in opening the session, declared that the triumph of the Republican party would lead to a nullification of the Fugitive Slave Law; the exclusion of Slavery from the Territories; the non-admission of any more Slave States