In November, 1860, after the result of the Presidential
election was known, the Governor of Mississippi, having
issued his proclamation convoking a special session
of the Legislature to consider the propriety of calling
a convention, invited the Senators and Representatives
of the State in Congress to meet him for consultation
as to the character of the message he should send to
the Legislature when assembled.... While engaged
in the consultation with the Governor just referred
to, a telegraphic message was handed to me from two
members of Mr. Buchanan’s Cabinet, urging me
to proceed “immediately” to Washington.
This dispatch was laid before the Governor and the
members of Congress from the State who were in conference
with him, and it was decided that I should comply
with, the summons ... On arrival at Washington,
I found, as had been anticipated, that my presence
there was desired on account of the influence which
it was supposed I might exercise with the President
(Mr. Buchanan) in relation to his forthcoming message
to Congress. On paying my respects to the President,
he told me that he had finished the rough draft of
his message, but that it was still open to revision
and amendment, and that he would like to read it to
me. He did so and very kindly accepted all the
modifications which I suggested. The message was,
however, afterwards somewhat changed.
In the documents we have presented, though they manifestly
form but the merest fragment of the secret correspondence
which passed between the chief conspirators, and of
the written evidence recorded by them in various forms,
then and afterwards, we have a substantial unmasking
of the combined occult influences which presided over
the initiatory steps of the great American Rebellion—its
central council—the master wheel of its
machinery—and the connecting relation which
caused all its subordinate parts to move in harmonious
accord.
With the same mind to dictate a secession message
to a Legislature and a non-coercion message to Congress—to
assemble insurrectionary troops to seize Federal forts
and withhold Government troops from their protection—to
incite governors to rebellion and overawe a weak President
to a virtual abdication of his rightful authority,
history need not wonder at the surprising unity and
early success of the conspiracy against the Union.
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[1] Printed on pages 791 to 794 in “The Life and Times of Robert E.
Lee,” etc. By a distinguished Southern journalist. (E.A. Pollard,
author of “The Lost Cause.”)
CHAPTER XIX
FROM THE BALLOT TO THE BULLET
The secret circular of Governor Gist, of South Carolina,
heretofore quoted, inaugurated the great American
Rebellion a full month before a single ballot had
been cast for Abraham Lincoln. This was but repeating
in a bolder form the action taken by Governor Wise,
of Virginia, during the Fremont campaign four years
before. But, instead, as in that case, of confining
himself to a proposed consultation among slave-State
executives, Governor Gist proceeded almost immediately
to a public and official revolutionary act.
Copyrights
Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
