The Southern States, led on by South Carolina, which formally severed its connection with the Union November 17, 1860 (only eleven days after Lincoln’s election), were preparing to dissolve their alliance with the Free States.  Mississippi passed the ordinance of secession January 9, 1861; Florida followed on the 10th; Alabama on the 11th; Georgia on the 19th; Louisiana on the 25th; and Texas on the 1st day of February.  The plans of the seceders went on, unmolested by the Buchanan administration.  Southerners in the Cabinet and in Congress conspired to deplete the resources of the Government, leaving it helpless to contest the assumptions of the revolted States.  The treasury was deliberately bankrupted; the ships of the navy were banished to distant ports; the Northern arsenals were rifled to furnish arms for the seceded States; the United States forts and armaments on the Southern coast were delivered into the hands of the enemy, with the exception of Fort Sumter, which was gallantly held by Major Robert Anderson.  While this system of bold and unscrupulous treachery was carried on by men in the highest places of trust, the chief executive of the nation remained a passive spectator.  The South was in open rebellion, and the North was powerless to interfere.  The weeks prior to the inauguration of the new administration dragged slowly along, each day adding fresh cause for anxiety and alarm.

Amidst these portentous scenes Lincoln, watching them from a distance, maintained his calm and vigilant attitude.  No one knew better than he the significance of these ominous events that were taking place at the nation’s capital and in the disaffected States; but there was nothing he could do about them.  His time for action had not yet come.  He said little, but enough to show unmistakably what he thought of the situation and what course he had resolved upon to meet it.  As early as December 17, 1860—­a little more than a month after his election—­in writing to Thurlow Weed, he said:  “My opinion is that no State can in any way get out of the Union without the consent of the other States; and that it is the duty of the President to run the machine as it is.”  He had been made the pilot of the ship of State, and his duty and purpose were to save the vessel.[B] Upon this mighty task were concentrated all the powers of his intellect and will; and through all the desperate voyage that followed he never wavered or faltered in his course, from the time of his supreme resolve, made in the quiet of his country home, to the hour when

     “From fearful trip the victor ship came in with object won”—­

but with her more than heroic but now victorious Captain “fallen cold and dead” upon her deck.