of all the territory added to the original states.  She fought the annexation of Texas because it would be slave-holding.  In 1845 Florida was admitted with slave labor.  In the same year Texas came in as a slave State.  In 1846 Iowa came in with free labor; in 1848 Wisconsin, also free.  When California applied for admission in 1850 there was such bitter antagonism that it was universally feared the Southern States would secede from the Union.  Should she be a free state there would then be no other State to offset it with slaves.  It was finally decided to leave the choice to California herself.  Henry Clay was again at hand to effect a satisfactory compromise.  In a former paper I have referred to the Fugitive Slave Law, whereby runaway slaves should be captured and sent back to their owners.  But about a decade before the war, a great Abolition wave had begun to flood the country.  Thurlow Weed, William Lloyd Garrison, Parson Brownlow, John Brown and Mrs. Stowe, by the power of tongue and pen and printing press, endeavored to stir up the North to the pitch of fanatical desperation, and the slaves to revolt against their masters.  It was not for the sake of the Union.  Perish the Union, if only the slaves were freed.  Drive out the Southern States if they refused to abolish them.  Their acts and their words were the extreme of anarchy and tyranny.

Jealousy had long formed a vindictive element in their breasts.  And how could the two sections be wholly fraternal?  They had come from, not only different stocks of population, but from different creeds in religion and politics.  There could be no congeniality between the Puritan exiles who settled upon the cold, rugged and cheerless soil of New England, and the Cavaliers who sought the brighter climate of the south, and who, in their baronial halls, felt nothing in common with roundheads and regicides.

In 1859 the tragic raid of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry—­his execution—­and the startling effects of the open outbreak against slavery put the Southern States on guard.  When the next presidential election came on it was apparent from Mr. Lincoln’s debates with Mr. Douglas, what the future policy of the government would be.  When he therefore, won the election, the south withdrew her representatives from Congress, and her states from the Union.  Secession, so long threatened by both sections in turn, had come at last.  Everything had been done on the floor of the House to harmonize the issues, but without avail.

On December 20, 1860 South Carolina passed the ordinance of secession.  On January 9, 1861, Mississippi followed; Florida, January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, January 19; Louisiana, January 26; Texas, February 1; Virginia, April 17; Arkansas, May 6; North Carolina, May 20; Tennessee, June 8.

To sum up the Causes for the secession of the South: 

1.  The State had always been supreme:  each was a distinct sovereignty, not subject to the general government in matters of their own home rule.