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

“ [62] World. If I am not mistaken in public opinion,” he said, , “the Convention, if assembled, will decide that Louisiana will not submit to the Presidency of Mr. Lincoln.” The Legislature passed an act providing for a State Convention, to assemble on the 22d of January; and another, appropriating five hundred thousand dollars for military purposes. They listened to a commissioner from Mississippi (Wirt Adams), but refused to authorize the Governor to appoint like agents to visit the Slave-labor States. They gave him authority to correspond with the governors of those States upon the great topic of the day, and adjourned on the 13th, to meet again on the 23d of January.

1861.

Texas, under the leadership of its venerable Governor, Samuel Houston, and the influence of a strong Union feeling, held back, when invited by conspirators to plunge into secession. So did Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, all Slave-labor States. The Governor of Tennessee, Isham G. Harris, who was a traitor at heart, and had corresponded extensively with the disunionists of the Cotton-growing States, made great but unsuccessful exertions to link the fortunes of his State with those of South Carolina in the secession movement.

North Carolina took early but cautious action. The most open and influential secessionists in that State were Thomas L. Clingman, then a member of the United States Senate, and John W. Ellis, the Governor of the Commonwealth. They made great efforts to arouse the people of the State to revolt, but failed. The Union sentiment, and the respect for law and the principles of republican government were so deeply implanted in the nature and the habits of the people, that they could not be easily seduced from their allegiance to the National Government. The Legislature met on the 19th of November. An act was passed providing for a Convention, but directing that “no ordinance of said Convention, dissolving the connection of the State of North Carolina with the Federal Government, or connecting it with any other, shall have any force or validity until it shall have been submitted to and ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the State for members of the General Assembly, to whom it shall be submitted for their approval or rejection ;” and that it should be “advertised for at least thirty days in the newspapers of the State, before the people should be called upon to vote on the same.”

Such is a brief outline of the preparations for the marshaling of the cohorts of rebellion in the Slave-labor States; for a vigorous assault, not only upon the Republic, but upon the advancing civilization of the age, and the rights of man — upon the cherished institutions of good and free government inherited from the patriots of the old War for Independence, and the hopes of aspirants for freedom throughout the world.

It is evident, in even this shadowy picture, which reveals similarity of expressions and actions in the movements of the opponents of the Government in widely separated portions of the Slave-labor States, that there had been long and thorough preparation for the revolt. This will become more manifest as we proceed in our inquiry; and when, at the close of this work, we shall consider the <*>istory of political parties at the beginning of our national career, and the gradual development of radical differences of social and political opinions in sections of the Republic remote from each other, we