It must be admitted that in early years the North had helped to make the thought of secession familiar. In 1803, in view of the great increase of southern territory by the Louisiana Purchase, and again in 1813, when New England opposition to the war with England culminated in the Hartford Convention, there had been talk of a separate northern confederacy. But from that time on the thought of disunion died out at the North, while the South dallied with it more and more boldly. During the presidential campaign of 1856, threats were made that if Fremont, the republican candidate, should be elected, the South would leave the Union. In October of that year a secret convention of southern governors was held at Raleigh, N. C., supposed to have been for the purpose of considering such a contingency. Governor Wise, of Virginia, who called the convention, afterward proclaimed that had Fremont been chosen he would have marched to Washington at the head of 20,000 troops, seized the Capitol, and prevented the inauguration. This threatening attitude in 1856 may have been chiefly an electioneering device; but during the next four years the gulf between North and South widened rapidly, and the southern leaders turned more and more resolutely toward secession as the remedy for their alleged wrongs. No sooner had the presidential campaign of 1860 begun than deep mutterings foretold the coming storm. "Elect Lincoln, and the South will secede!" cried the campaign orators of the South, while the halls of Congress rang with threats similar in tenor. As the campaign went on and republican success became probable, the southern leaders began to nerve up their hosts for the conflict. In October the governor and congressmen of South Carolina, with other prominent politicians, met and unanimously resolved that if Lincoln should win, the Palmetto State ought to renounce the Union. Similar meetings were held in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Governor Gist sent a confidential circular to the governors of all the cotton States declaring that South Carolina would secede with any other State, or would make the plunge alone if others would promise to follow. The governors of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi replied that their States would certainly do this. Georgia proposed to wait for some overt act by the National Government. North Carolina and Louisiana, it was learned, would probably not go out at all.