To reach
the original area of secession with land-forces, it was necessary for
the Federal Government to cross the Border States, whose people in
general were no believers in the right of coercion. The first attempt
to do so extended the secession movement by methods which were far more
openly revolutionary than the original secessions. North Carolina and
Arkansas seceded in orthodox fashion as soon as President Lincoln called
for volunteers after the capture of Fort Sumter. The State governments
of Virginia and Tennessee concluded "military leagues" with the
Confederacy, allowed Confederate troops to take possession of their
States, and then submitted an ordinance of secession to the form of
a popular vote. The State officers of Missouri were chased out of the
State before they could do more than begin this process. In Maryland,
the State government arrayed itself successfully against secession.
In selecting the representative opinions for this period, all the
marked shades of opinion have been respected, both the Union and the
anti-coercion sentiment of the Border States, the extreme secession
spirit of the Gulf States, and, from the North, the moderate and the
extreme Republican, and the orthodox Democratic, views. The feeling of
the so-called "peace Democrats" of the North differed so little from
those of Toombs or Iverson that it has not seemed advisable to do more
than refer to Vallandigham's speech in opposition to the war, under the
next period.
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