John M. Daniel

For Southern patriots, the election of Abraham Lincoln proved the final straw in the bitter and worsening rivalry with the North. Lincoln's avowed policy of limiting the spread of slavery posed a direct challenge to Southern economic interests. Southern politicians and editorialists nearly unanimously agreed that the new president would personally see to the South's subjugation, by blocking southern-favored legislation in Congress, by appointing abolitionist judges to the courts, and by imposing military occupation on recalcitrant Southern states. Those who favored secession found their most prominent target yet in the president-elect, who personified the abolitionist sentiment that was rapidly pushing the country toward war.

On the occasion of Lincoln's inauguration, on March 4, 1861, John M. Daniel of the Richmond Examiner welcomed the nation's new leader with a viciously eloquent and sarcastic literary portrait. Likening the Kentucky-born country lawyer...