and blood thirsty of the primeval savages of the forest.  These deeds were heralded all over the North as “acts of God, done by the hands of men.”  The leader of this diabolical plan and his compeers were sainted by their followers and admirers, and praises sung over him all over the North, as if over the death of saints.  By a stupendous blunder the people of the South, and the friends of the Union generally, allowed this party to elect Lincoln and Hamlin.  The South now had no alternative.  Now she must either remain in a Union, where our institutions were to be dragged down; where the laws were to be obeyed in one section, but not in another; where existed open resistance to laws in one State and quiet obedience in another; where servile insurrections were being threatened continuously; where the slaves were aided and abetted by whites at the North in the butcheries of their families; or secede and fight.  These were the alternatives on the one part, or a severance from the Union and its consequences on the other.  From the very formation of the government, two constructions were put upon this constitution—­the South not viewing this compact with that fiery zeal, or fanatical adulation, as they did at the North.  The South looked upon it more as a confederation of States for mutual protection in times of danger, and a general advancement of those interests where the whole were concerned.  Then, again, the vast accumulation of wealth in the Southern States, caused by the overshadowing of all other commodities of commerce—­cotton—­created a jealousy at the North that nothing but the prostration of the South, the shattering of her commerce, the destruction of her homes, and the freedom of her slaves, could answer.  The wealth of the South had become a proverb The “Wealthy Southern Planter” had become an eyesore to the North, and to humble her haughty pride, as the North saw it, was to free her slaves.  As one of the first statesmen of the South has truly said, “The seeds of the Civil War were sown fifty years before they were born who fought her battles.”

A convention was called to meet in Columbia, in December, 1860, to frame a new constitution, and to take such steps as were best suited to meet the new order of things that would be brought about by this fanatical party soon to be at the head of the government.  Feeling ran high—­people were excited—­everywhere the voice of the people was for secession.  The women of the South, who would naturally be the first sufferers if the programme of the “Agitators” were carried out, were loud in their cries for separation.  Some few people were in favor of the South moving in a body, and a feeble opposition ticket for the delegates to the convention was put in the field.  These were called “Co-operationists,” i.e., in favor of secession, but to await a union with the other Southern States.  These were dubbed by the most fiery zealots of secession, “Submissionists” in derision.  The negroes, too, scented freedom