=438. The Position of Douglas.=—The most important utterance of all the campaign was one made by Douglas at Norfolk, Virginia. He was asked in writing whether he was in favor of maintaining the Union by force. He declared, without a moment’s hesitation: “I answer emphatically that it is the duty of the President of the United States, and all others in authority under him, to enforce the laws, and I, as in duty bound by my oath of fidelity to the Constitution, would do all in my power to aid the Government of the United States in maintaining the laws against all resistance to them, come from what quarter it might. In other words, I think the President, whoever he may be, should treat all attempts to break up the Union, by resistance to the laws, as Old Hickory treated the nullifiers in 1832.” The South made the fatal mistake of supposing that this view was not held by a large majority of the Democrats of the North. In reality, it was this view, so frankly expressed by Douglas, that finally united an overwhelming majority of the Northern Democrats in supporting, with more or less heartiness, the Republicans in the great war that was at hand. =439. Result of the Election.=—In the election, Lincoln received one hundred and eighty electoral votes; Breckinridge, seventy-two; Bell, thirty-nine; and Douglas, twelve. Lincoln received the vote of every free state except New Jersey, whose vote was divided, four electors voting for Lincoln, and three for Douglas. Douglas, in addition to the three votes from New Jersey, received nine from Missouri; those of the other Southern states were divided between Breckinridge and Bell. SECESSION OF THE SOUTH. =440. Secession of South Carolina and Other States.=—At the time of the election, the legislature of South Carolina was in session. As soon as the result was known, that body called a State Convention to meet and consider the situation. The Convention met, and on the 20th of December, repealed the Act ratifying the Constitution, and declared that the union between South Carolina and the other states was dissolved. Before Lincoln’s inauguration, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida had followed the example of South Carolina. They seized all the military posts of the United States within their territory, a procedure that had been made easy by the strange doctrine of Buchanan that, although a state had no right to secede, the United States had no right to prevent it from seceding and carrying United States property with it.