Coming Fury, Volume 1 (77 page)

2.
Dwight Dumond: “William Lowndes Yancey,” in the Dictionary of American Biography” (cited hereafter as D.A.B.), Vol. XX, 592–95.

3.
Dumond, op cit.

4.
Halstead, 12–13.

5.
D. E. Huger Smith,
A Charlestonian’s Recollections
, 63; New York
Times
, issues dated April 27, April 28, and May 1, 1860; Avery Craven,
The Growth of Southern Nationalism
, 323–24; Allan Nevins,
The Emergence of Lincoln
, Vol. II, 203–4 (cited hereafter as Nevins); Roy Nichols,
The Disruption of American Democracy
, 288; Robert Molloy,
Charleston: a Gracious Heritage
, 1–2, 26–29.

6.
Halstead, 4–5.

7.
cf Craven, op cit, 323: “A place worse than Charleston, South Carolina, in which to hold the convention could not have been selected.” See also Dumond,
The Secession Movement, 1860–1861
, 4: “Not all of the men of the South were state-rights men, nor was the doctrine of state rights confined to that section of the country; but that doctrine was the constitutional refuge of the secessionists; and the fundamental cause of secession was the threatened extinction of slavery.”

8.
Halstead, 1–3.

9.
Richmond
Dispatch
, issue dated April 24, 1860.

10.
New York
Times
, April 27, 1860; Halstead, 5–7, 13.

11.
Halstead, 3–4, 6.

1.
French Ensor Chadwick,
Causes of the Civil War, 1859–1861
, 90.

2.
Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 3; Chadwick, op cit, 91.

3.
For a sketch of Helper’s life, see D.A.B., Vol. VIII, 517–18; also Ulrich Bonnell Phillips,
The Course of the South to Secession
, 113–14, 154–55, and Craven, op cit, 250. Helper’s
The Impending Crisis of the South; How to Meet It, 155–56
, urged Southerners to boycott all business and professional men who owned slaves, to hold “no fellowship with them in religion—no affiliation with them in society,” and said that slaveholders should be given no recognition at all “except as ruffians, outlaws and criminals.” In a later book,
Nojoque: Question for a Continent
, Helper voiced what must be the most bitter anti-Negro diatribe ever written in America. The passage quoted in the text (
Nojoque
: 105) concludes that Negroes “are not upon the earth to be loved and preserved, but, under the unobstructed and salutary operation of the laws of nature, to be permitted to decay and die, and then to disappear, at once and forever, down, down, deep down, in the vortex of oblivion!”

4.
Helper,
The Impending Crisis of the South
, 21, 22, 25. For Blair’s work on the
Compend
, see John Sherman,
Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet
, Vol. I, 169.

5.
Sherman, op cit, 169–70.

6.
Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 17.

7.
Ibid, 21, 44, 45, 82–83.

8.
John B. McMaster,
A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War
, Vol. VIII, 434. (This work is cited hereafter as McMaster.)

9.
Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 658, 935.

10.
Ibid, III, 2156. For an excellent summary of the situation as it developed in this session of Congress, see Craven, 313–16, 341.

11.
Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. III, 2155–56.

12.
Benjamin Thomas,
Abraham Lincoln
, 201–2; Roy Basler,
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
(cited hereafter as Basler) Vol. III, 526, 534.

13.
Halstead, 102; Congressional Globe, as above, Vol. I, 914.

14.
Congressional Globe, Vol. I, appendix, 203–4; James Ford Rhodes,
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule in the South in 1877
(cited hereafter as Rhodes), Vol. II, 439. Reading the record of scenes like this, and the earlier row over the speakership, one sees so much passion and unrestrained invective that one is almost surprised the war did not come earlier than it did.

15.
Nevins, Vol. II, 189–91.

16.
Chadwick,
Causes of the Civil War
, 125; Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. IV, 2848–49.

1.
Halstead, 5, 18–19.

2.
Ibid, 10.

3.
Ibid, 23–25.

4.
Craven, 320–21, 327; Dumond,
The Secession Movement, 1860–1861
, 33; John Witherspoon Du-Bose,
The Life and Times of William Lowndes Yancey
, 362–63.

5.
Laura W. White,
Robert Barnwell Rhett: Father of Secession
, 157.

6.
Rhodes, Vol. II, 357.

7.
Halstead, 25–28.

8.
Nevins, Vol. II, 214–15; Halstead, 43–44; Edward Stanwood,
A History of the Presidency from 1788 to 1897
, Vol. I, 266–69.

9.
Pamphlet in the Newberry Library, “Speech of the Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama, Delivered in the National Democratic Convention”; Halstead, 47–48.

10.
Halstead, 48–50.

11.
Ibid, 52, 58–59, 61.

12.
Richmond
Dispatch
, May 5, 1860; Montgomery
Weekly Advertiser
, May 16, 1860; Nichols, op cit, 303–4.

13.
Halstead, 67–68, 71, 75.

1.
Emerson Davis Fite,
The Presidential Campaign of 1860
, 110–11; Halstead, 76; B. F. Perry,
Biographical Sketches of Eminent American Statesmen
, 148.

2.
Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, 74–75; Halstead, 85–87.

3.
Halstead, 97–98.

4.
Benjamin F. Butler,
Butler’s Book
, 138–40; Halstead, 88, 92; Nichols, 308–9.

5.
New York
Times
, May 2, 1860.

6.
Richmond
Dispatch
, May 7, 1860.

7.
Henry A. Wise to William Sergeant, May 28, 1858, in John G. Nicolay and John Hay,
Abraham Lincoln: A History
, Vol. II, 302. (Cited hereafter as Nicolay & Hay.)

8.
Halstead, 101–3.

9.
Jefferson Davis,
Relations of the States: Speech of May
7, 1860, 13–14.

10.
Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 18.

11.
Richard Malcolm Johnston and William Hand Browne,
Life of Alexander H. Stephens
, 365.

12.
Ibid, 355–56.

1.
Halstead, 120.

2.
Ibid, 208–12; Rhodes, Vol. II, 454. Note that Dumond (
The Secession Movement
, 94) insists that this group actually adopted “a distinctly Southern platform.” He remarks: “It was not an endorsement of Federal supremacy, nor of majority rule, but rather of state rights and constitutional protection for the rights of minorities.”

3.
P. Orman Ray,
The Convention that Nominated Lincoln
, 5–8, 15.

4.
Ibid, 11, 13–14.

5.
Halstead, 122, 140.

6.
Willard L. King,
Lincoln’s Manager, David Davis
, 134–36. According to Don G. Fehrenbacher, in
Chicago Giant: A Biography of Long John Wentworth
, 177, David Davis had previously written to Lincoln recommending Wentworth’s talents as a political manager: “You ought to have got him long ago to ‘run’ you.”

7.
King, op cit, 134. For a succinct
discussion of the different candidates and their prospects when the convention opened, see William E. Baringer,
Lincoln’s Rise to Power
, 204–7.

8.
King, 138; telegram, Davis and Dubois to Lincoln, May 15, 1860, photostat in the Lincoln Collection, Chicago Historical Society.

9.
Francis Fisher Browne,
The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln
, 232–33.

10.
Halstead, 129.

11.
Ray, op cit, 19, 21.

12.
Ibid, 22–23; Halstead, 131, 138–39.

13.
Ray, 25–26; Halstead, 140.

1.
King, 139.

2.
For a careful weighing of the evidence on this point, see King, 137.

3.
Halstead, 141.

4.
Thomas Haines Dudley, a delegate from New Jersey, was one of the group meeting in Davis’s headquarters suite, and he wrote a detailed account of the night’s operations—“Report on Republican National Convention of 1860—Caucuses etc leading to nomination of Lincoln”—which has been followed in the preparation of this chapter. The manuscript is in the Thomas Haines Dudley Papers in the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

5.
For the generally accepted version of the deal with the Cameron men, see Carl Sandburg,
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
, Vol. II, 341–42. Alexander K. McClure
Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times
, 20–30 insists that the Pennsylvania delegation caucused and voted to swing to Lincoln because of the pressure exerted by Governor Curtin and the influence of the Indiana delegation’s action; he asserts (139) that the Lincoln managers definitely made a deal with Cameron but that they simply bought something they were going to get anyway. King’s version is in his
Lincoln’s Manager
, 140–41, 162–64.

6.
Halstead, 143–44.

7.
Ibid, 144–45.

8.
For all of the foregoing, the Halstead account (149–51) is a graphic and detailed bit of reporting.

9.
Ray, op cit, 37.

10.
Addison G. Procter, “Lincoln and the Convention of 1860: an Address Before the Chicago Historical Society,” 10–12.

11.
Halstead, 153.

1.
Letter of Lee to Major Earl Van Dorn, July 3, 1860, in the R. E. Lee Papers, Library of Congress.

2.
cf Nichols (320): “The great majority of Americans no longer wished to compromise.”

3.
Halstead, 160; Nichols, 314.

4.
Halstead, 176, 185.

5.
Ibid, 154–56.

6.
Dumond, 81–82; Nichols, 316; Halstead, 185.

7.
This account follows Halstead, who gives the text of Douglas’s
letter to Dean Richmond and quotes liberally from the debates. (Halstead, 187–99.)

8.
Ibid, 205–6.

9.
For a résumé of the voting statistics and an excellent analysis of their significance, see Nichols, 321. Douglas’s letter to Richardson, and Richardson’s remarks on it, are from Halstead, 207.

10.
Halstead (citing a news story in the Baltimore
Sun
) 217–25.

11.
Ibid, 227.

1.
Since the Civil War ended, practically every conceivable interpretation of its causes and significance has been advanced. An almost indispensable survey and summary of these varying opinions can be found in Thomas J. Pressly’s
Americans Interpret Their Civil War
. Highly recommended also is Howard K. Beale’s
What Historians Have Said About the Causes of the Civil War
(Theory and Practice in Historical Study; a Report of the Committee on Historiography, Bulletin 54, 1946, Social Science Research Council.) Two sharply contrasting analyses which this writer found stimulating and informative are Avery Craven,
The Coming of the Civil War
, (second revised edition, 1957) and Nevins, Vol. II, 462 et seq.

2.
“The general period in American history from 1825 to 1860 was one of vast material growth and expansion. But it was also one in which the wealth and power of the few grew disproportionately to that of the many. Democracy was not functioning properly.… Injustice, lack of material prosperity, loss of equality or failure to achieve American purposes—all became matters of moral significance and evidence of God’s plan thwarted.” (Craven, “The Coming of the War Between the States: an Interpretation,”
Journal of Southern History
, Vol. II, No. 3, 305.)

3.
“The localization of a great manufacture so distant from its sources of supply was as radical an innovation in industrial geography as was Arkwright machinery in industrial mechanics.” (Victor S. Clark,
History of Manufactures in the United States
, Vol. II, 1.)

4.
Clark, op cit, 2.

5.
Ibid, 7.

6.
cf Charles and Mary Beard, (
The Rise of American Civilization
, Vol. II, 6–7): “The amazing growth of northern industries, the rapid extension of railways, the swift expansion of foreign trade to the ends of the earth, the attachment of the farming regions of the west to the centers of manufacture and finance through transportation and credit, the destruction of state consciousness by migration, the alien invasion, the erection of new commonwealths in the Valley of Democracy, the nationalistic drive of interstate commerce, the increase of population in the north, and the southward pressure of the capitalistic glacier, all conspired to assure the ultimate triumph of what the orators were fond of calling ‘the free labor system.’ This was a dynamic thrust far too powerful for planters operating in a limited territory with incompetent labor on soil of diminishing fertility.”

7.
Frederick Law Olmsted,
A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States in the Years 1853–1854, with Remarks on Their Economy
, Vol. I, 19–20. See also Ulrich B. Phillips,
The Course of the South to Secession
, 152–53.