Lincoln; An Account of his Personal Life, Especially of its Springs of Action as Revealed and Deepened by the Ordeal of WarStephenson, Nathaniel W. (Nathaniel Wright)
History
Lincoln; An Account of his Personal Life, Especially of its Springs of Action as Revealed and Deepened by the Ordeal of War
Stephenson, Nathaniel W. (Nathaniel Wright)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
Meanwhile, the upper South had been proclaiming its idealism. Its
attitude was creating a problem for the lower South as well as for the
North. The pro-slavery leaders had been startled out of a dream. The
belief in a Southern economic solidarity so complete that the secession
of any one Slave State would compel the secession of all the others,
that belief had been proved fallacious. It had been made plain that
on the economic issue, even as on the issue of sectional distrust,
the upper South would not follow the lower South into secession. When
delegates from the Georgia Secessionists visited the legislature of
North Carolina, every courtesy was shown to them; the Speaker of the
House assured them of North Carolina's sympathy and of her enduring
friendliness; but he was careful not to suggest an intention to secede,
unless (the condition that was destiny!) an attempt should be made to
violate the sovereignty of the State by marching troops across her soil
to attack the Confederates. Then, on the one issue of State sovereignty,
North Carolina would leave the Union.(15) The Unionists in Virginia
took similar ground. They wished to stay in the Union, and they were
determined not to go out on the issue of slavery. Therefore they laid
their heads together to get that issue out of the way. Their problem
was to devise a compromise that would do three things: lay the Southern
dread of an inundation of sectional Northern influence; silence the
slave profiteers; meet the objections that had induced Lincoln to
wreck the Crittenden Compromise. They felt that the first and second
objectives would be reached easily enough by reviving the line of the
Missouri Compromise. But something more was needed, or again, Lincoln
would refuse to negotiate. They met their crucial difficulty by boldly
appealing to the South to be satisfied with the conservation of its
present life and renounce the dream of unlimited Southern expansion.
Their Compromise proposed a death blow to the filibuster and all he
stood for. It provided that no new territory other than naval stations
should be acquired by the United States on either side the Missouri Line
without consent of a majority of the Senators from the States on the
opposite side of that line.(16)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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