Calhoun himself had a sincere
desire to avoid the exercise of the right of secession, and it was as a
substitute for it that he evolved his doctrine of nullification,
which has been placed in the first volume. When it failed in 1833, the
exercise of the right of secession was the only remaining remedy for an
asserted breach of State sovereignty.
The events which led up to the success of the Republican party in
electing Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency in 1860 are so intimately
connected with the anti-slavery struggle that they have been placed in
the preceding volume. They culminated in the first organized attempt to
put the right of secession to a practical test. The election of
Lincoln, the success of a "sectional party," and the evasion of the
fugitive-slave law through the passage of "personal-liberty laws" by
many of the Northern States, are the leading reasons assigned by South
Carolina for her secession in 1860. These were intelligible reasons, and
were the ones most commonly used to influence the popular vote. But all
the evidence goes to show that the leaders of secession were not so
weak in judgment as to run the hazards of war by reason of "injuries"
so minute as these. Their apprehensions were far broader, if less
calculated to influence a popular vote.
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