With all of the other pressing issues facing him, it hard to imagine the newly elected President Lincoln trying to lead such an effort.
I wish I had paid more attention to the previous threads where this was discussed. If memory serves me right, there was some evidence (weak, strong, I don't remember) that he worked with others to promote the amendment. Some congress-critter took the lead for the amendment in Congress.
Too bad the South didn't feel even half as strongly about preserving the Union as Lincoln did.
They felt their interests were better served outside of the Union. The Union had failed in their eyes and the Constitution was being flaunted by the North. The great compromise that permitted the South and North to join together in the first place was in grave danger.
Here are some excerpts of a couple of Texas opinions of the times.
They Cry Peace, Peace, When There is no Peace (Austin State Gazette, November 24, 1860)
Under the conservative administration of James Buchanan, armed fanatics invaded the State of Virginia. Under the same administration, efforts have been made to lay waste the fairest portions of Texas, and to expel or murder its present inhabitants. In partial execution of this fiendish conspiracy, several towns have been burned, and millions of property destroyed. If such outrages can be perpetrated under such a President, would not every home in the South stand in constant danger from the abolitionist incendiary under the Government of Lincoln. Would our wives and little ones enjoy the sweet comforts of peace, and the blessed repose of security? Submission to Lincoln would give us no peace, but would subject us to a reign of terror more horrible than any war.
You may remember that the state of Texas had experienced a rash of town burings in the summer of 1860 alleged to have been done by abolitionists, some of whom apparently confessed.
Gallant Sentiment (about a speech in Houston reported in the Houston Telegraph as reported in the Austin State Gazette November 17, 1860)
Captain Baylor, the Indian fighter, was introduced to the audience, and in a few words defined his position in the event of Lincoln’s election, to the entire satisfaction of every person present. The Captain lives on the frontier; has for the last five years been engaged in its defense from marauding Indians, and has never yet received a dollar for his services from either State or Federal Government. He can speak for himself and for the frontier people; and, as he says for himself, the Union is not worth preserving, for it has failed to secure the frontier settlers a guarantee of life, liberty or prosperity. In the event of Lincoln’s election he was for immediate secession, and should no other State join in the movement, he was for again hoisting the Lone Star flag, and Texas lighting on its own hook. Captain Baylor’s platform, as enunciated by himself, in so many words, is, "The election of Breckenridge and Lane, and preservation in the Union; or their defeat and secession, and the total extirpation of abolitionists and Indians."
It seems to me that the criticism of Lincoln was just a little premature and excessive. If the southern States had waited to see what Lincoln would do as President before starting their rebellion, things might have been different also.
I've made the same argument myself. However, the majority of the people of the South didn't see it that way.
Waiting for Overt Acts. (From the Waco South West as reported in the State Gazette, Nov 17, 1860, paragraph and line breaks mine)
In the event of Lincoln’s election, would any respectable portion of the Southern people be so wanting in self respect, as to wait for an overt act before raising the arm of resistance against him and his armed bands of Wide Awakes.
Wait for overt acts, says Gov. Wise. Have not Southern men overt acts enough pressing upon their endurances?
Is the long secession of overt acts by which State after State at the North has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law
– is the constant inroad on our border, which hurries off every year property valued at hundreds of thousands on underground railroads
– is the constant invasion of incendiary appeals
– is the extension of fanaticism in our borders
– is the invasion with Sharp’s rifles, provided by the Emigrant Aid Societies, under the patronage and countenance of State authorities
– is the Harper’s Ferry Raid of John Brown
– is the recent squatter sovereignty burning of towns and poisoning of cattle, and midnight conspiracy to depopulate Northern Texas
– are not all of these overt acts, sufficiently imperative on Southern watchfulness, Southern self preservation, Southern honor, to awake Southern resistance to further aggression.
… Ah sirs! wait for another overt act, wait for another raid if you dare! And the next raid that comes upon you will not be a John Brown raid. It will not be led by one poor old fanatic, assisted by one handful of desperate or deluded followers scantily equipped and blindly advised. It will be a raid of thousands – perhaps tens of thousands of trained Wide-Awakes.
The fact is the lower South chose Disunion months before Lincoln was sworn into office, citing oppression and tyranny from the North as their reason. This after having won in Federal court [Dred Scott] and legislatively in Congress [Fugitive Slave Law].
I wonder how long the Dred Scott ruling would have survived if Lincoln had done what was threatened in the following article. Of course, by the time Lincoln got into power, reversing the Dred Scott decision was probably on the back burner.
The following is from the Austin State Gazette, November 17, 1860, reporting a speech by Stanton reported in the New York Tribune:
According to Mr. Stanton, the present organization of the Supreme Court is to be changed under Lincoln's administration, and New England, New York, and the Middle States, Missouri and the Northwest, and the Pacific coast are to have six or eight additional Judges.
"Then," says the Lincoln orator, "repudiating the novel and dangerous heresies of Taney and Catron, and returning to the faith of Jay and Marshall, it would embrace the earliest opportunity to entomb the political pronunciamento uttered in the Dred Scott case [loud cheers] and pile upon it an imperishable monument, inscribing thereon, as an appropriate epitaph, 'Died of the will of the American people!'
It seems to me that the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry was overblown by the Southern press. The raid itself was put down rather quickly without any Virginia slaves joining the revolt. It is interesting also to note that the possibility of a slave revolt so completely terrified Southerners as far away as Texas.
I am less familiar with the town burnings in Texas about the same period, but it would seem far fetched to blame the Buchanan administration for them. I am generally of the opinion that Texas should not have been admitted to the Union or at best should have been admitted as several states. Without the United States backing, Texas would have remained a weaker and poorer entity, more worried about its overall survival than with reneging on a solemn agreement it made a decade earlier.
"If such outrages can be perpetrated under such a President, would not every home in the South stand in constant danger from the abolitionist incendiary under the Government of Lincoln. Would our wives and little ones enjoy the sweet comforts of peace, and the blessed repose of security? Submission to Lincoln would give us no peace, but would subject us to a reign of terror more horrible than any war."
Wow, is this example representative of the 'logic' southern newspapers were engaged in regarding Lincoln? If so, it's not hard to see how the ordinary southern people came to believe that Secession was their only hope.
Hey RB, I thought about this thread while listening to the news this morning. They were talking about quick moving fires burning down homes in Texas and Oklahoma. It was a bit suprising since its winter time and the weather is cooler, but apparently the wind is a factor as well.
I'm pretty sure we can rule out abolitionists though...:^)