It is not at first sight apparent why a change of government should have caused so sudden a disruption of the Union.  The Republican party, however, embraced sections of various shades of thought.  One of these, rising every day to greater prominence, was that which advocated immediate abolition; and to this section, designated by the South as “Black Republicans,” the new President was believed to belong.  It is possible that, on his advent to office, the political leaders of the South, despite the safeguards of the Constitution, saw in the near future the unconditional emancipation of the slaves; and not only this, but that the emancipated slaves would receive the right of suffrage, and be placed on a footing of complete equality with their former masters.* (* Grant’s Memoirs volume 1 page 214.) As in many districts the whites were far outnumbered by the negroes, this was tantamount to transferring all local government into the hands of the latter, and surrendering the planters to the mercies of their former bondsmen.

It is hardly necessary to say that an act of such gross injustice was never contemplated, except by hysterical abolitionists and those who truckled for their votes.  It was certainly not contemplated by Mr. Lincoln; and it was hardly likely that a President who had been elected by a minority of the people would dare, even if he were so inclined, to assume unconstitutional powers.  The Democratic party, taking both sections together, was still the stronger; and the Northern Democrats, temporarily severed as they were from their Southern brethren, would most assuredly have united with them in resisting any unconstitutional action on the part of the Republicans.

If, then, it might be asked, slavery ran no risk of unconditional abolition, why should the Southern political leaders have acted with such extraordinary precipitation?  Why, in a country in which, to all appearances, the two sections had been cordially united, should the advent to power of one political party have been the signal for so much disquietude on the part of the other?  Had the presidential seat been suddenly usurped by an abolitionist tyrant of the type of Robespierre the South could hardly have exhibited greater apprehension.  Few Americans denied that a permanent Union, such as had been designed by the founders of the Republic, was the best guarantee of prosperity and peace.  And yet because a certain number of misguided if well-meaning men clamoured for emancipation, the South chose to bring down in ruin the splendid fabric which their forefathers had constructed.  In thus refusing to trust the good sense and fair dealing of the Republicans, it would seem, at a superficial glance, that the course adopted by the members of the new Confederacy, whether legitimate or not, could not possibly be justified.* (* I have been somewhat severely taken to task for attaching the epithets “misguided,” “unpractical,” “fanatical,” to the abolitionists.