ers. The love that had long warmed the national heart, and blended the once weak and dependent sections in a common and apparently indissoluble tie of friendship and union, was already in great part changed into hatred as intense as the human heart and mind can feel without special individual insult and injury.

The people of the South approached the polls of the election with a seriousness and earnestness becoming the great crisis which had been reached. Some believed that defeat in the election was a foregone conclusion; others trusted that an overruling Providence would give some direction to the raging storm which would be compatible with the safety and honor of our section and people, while many were credulous enough to believe that their respective candidates would be elected. But within a few hours after the ballotings had ceased, the telegrams displaced all doubts, and broke to the Southern mind the awful truth-that Abraham Lincoln, the nominee and standard bearer of the great Northern Republican party, was, by a triumphant majority vote in the electoral college, the president elect of the United States.

The pause that ensued was awful but brief; the shock was overpowering and the effects visible upon all classes of our people. But the chilled blood which had returned to the heart, leaving paleness to the cheek and bringing tremor to the nerves, soon reacted under the smart of wounded honor, and resumed its course of circulation with double speed. Where lately sat a shadow of dread and gloom, now presented to every beholder a look of defiance. Where hesitation and doubt had given a sickly cast to every effort and action, now all was alive with fixed purpose and resolution.

The telegrams which announced to the South the tri

umph of the Republicans were almost instantaneously responded to by the announcement that the legislative councils of the States of the South, in session, were calling the people together in State conventions to consider the mode and measure of their safety. And the Executives of those States whose Legislatures were not in session were calling them to assemble for the same purpose. There was an earnestness patent upon the face of the bulletins of that time which could not fail to impress the victors of the ballot-box that their triumph was not complete; and that a great barrier to their aims was soon to be set up in the form of a concentration on the part of the cotton States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to withdraw from the Union and organize a separate government; and a strong probability that the mother of States and statesmen, the cradle and grave of heroes, old Virginia, would ally herself with her Southern sisters; and that North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas would follow; with a reasonable probability that Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland would sooner or later cast their fortunes with us. The time to intervene between the election of Mr. Lincoln, the 7th of November, and the 4th of March when he was to be installed into office and invested with the executive authority of the government, was not quite four months. Hence the time given by the State Legislatures for popular deliberations was short, they being impressed with the belief that prompt and immediate decision was necessary in the then emergency of the country.

We have already sketched the reasons and considerations moving the people to action, in which, seemingly by a general consent, the lead was awarded to South Caro

lina. Her sterling purpose for many years past to resist the encroachments of Federal authority, and the prominence which her debates had given her, and the general confidence in the sincerity of her statesmen, and the virtue and fidelity of her people, seem to have awarded to that State the front rank in the movement of secession. Her ordinance of secession was adopted on the 20th of December, A. D., 1860; that of Mississippi on the 9th, and Alabama and Florida on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th, Louisiana on the 26th of January, A. D., 1861, and that of Texas on the first day of February.

The aggregate vote of the people against the candidates who were in favor of immediate and separate State action, as well as the vote of delegates in some of the State conventions, was large. The actions of the conven tions were generally made unanimous, or nearly so, after a test vote had been taken and the decision of the respective States for secession clearly ascertained. By which course the dissenting delegates gave in their adhesion to the will of the majority, and avowed their purpose to adhere to and defend the States to which they respectively belonged. In which example they were generally followed by the dissenting people at home. The mode adopted by the several seceding States to give effect to the purpose of secession was to pass in their several conventions an ordinance repealing the ordinance by which they became attached to the Federal Union. To illustrate this form of proceeding we annex here a copy of the ordinance passed by the Georgia convention:

66

AN ORDINANCE

TO DISSOLVE THE UNION BETWEEN THE STATE OF GEORGIA AND OTHER STATES UNITED WITH HER UNDER A COMPACT OF GOVERNMENT ENTITLED THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." We, the people of the State of Georgia, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained,

That the ordinance adopted by the people of the State of Georgia in convention, on the second day of January, in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified, and adopted; and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated. We do further declare and ordain, That the Union now subsisting between the State of Georgia and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in the full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

On the motion of Judge Nesbit, the author of the ordinance, it was engrossed on parchment, signed by the delegates, and deposited in the archives of the State. The following is a list of the convention, those voting against the ordinance marked with a * the balance voting for it. The vote stood 208 to 89.

Appling-Seaborn Hall, J. H. Latimer.
Banks-W. R. Bell, S. W. Pruett.
Baker—A. H. Colquitt, C. D. Hammond.
Baldwin A. H. Kenan, L. H. Briscoe.

Berrien W. J. Mabry, J. C. Lamb.

Bibb-Washington Poe, John B. Lamar, E. A. Nisbet.

Brooks-C. S. Gaulden, Henry Briggs.

Bryan-C. C. Slater, J. P. Hines.

Bulloch S. L. Moore, Samuel Harville.

Burke-E. A. Allen, E. B. Gresham, W. B. Jones.

Butts-D. J. Bailey, Henry Hendricks.

Camden-N. J. Patterson, F. M. Adams.

Campbell-J. M. Cantrell, T. C. Glover.

Calhoun-W. G. Sheffield, E. Padgett.

Carroll-B. W. Wright, B. W. Hargrave, Allen Rowe.
Cass-*W. T. Wofford, *H. F. Price, *T. H. Trippe.
Catoosa-*Presley Yates, J T. McConnell.

Charlton-F. M. Smith, H. M. Mershon.

Chatham-F. S. Bartow, A. S. Jones, John W. Anderson.
Chattooga--*Wesley Shropshire, *L. Williams.

Cherokee-W. A. Teasley, E. E. Fields, John McConnell.
Clark—T. R. R. Cobb, Asbury Hull, Jefferson Jennings.
Clayton-*R. E. Morrow, James F. Johnston.
Clay-W. H. C. Davenport, B. F. Burnett.
Clinch-Benjamin Sermons, F. G. Ramsey.

Cobb-G. D. Rice, A. A. Winn, E. H. Lindley.
Coffee-Rowan Pafford, J. H. Frier.

Columbia-W. A. S. Collins, H. R. Casey, R. S. Neal.

Colquitt H. C. Tucker, John G. Coleman.

Coweta-A. B. Calhoun, J. J. Pinson, W. B. Shell.
Crawford-W. C. Cleveland, Isaac Dennis.

Dade-*S. C. Hale, *R. M. Pariss.

Dawson-Alfred Webb, *R. H. Pierce.

Decatur-Richard Simms, C. J. Munnerlyn, B. H. Gee.
De Kalb-Charles Murphy, *G. K. Smith.
Dooly--John S. Thomas, Elijah Butts.
Dougherty-Richard H. Clark, C. E. Mallary.
Early R. W. Sheffield, James Buchanan.
Echols Harris Tomlinson, J. B. Prescott.
Effingham-E. W. Solomons, A. G. Porter.
Elbert-J. C. Burch, L. H. O. Martin.

Emanuel-*A. L. Kirkland, *John Overstreet.
Fannin-*W. C. Fain, E. W. Chastain.

Fayette-M. M. Tidwell, J. L. Blalock.

Floyd-James Ward, Simpson Fouche, F. C. Shropshire.

Forsyth-Hardy Strickland, *H. P. Bell.

Franklin-John H. Patrick, *Samuel Knox.

Fulton J. P. Alexander, L. J. Glenn, J. P. Logan.
Glasscock-Joshua F. Usry, Calvin Logue.

Gilmer-*Joseph Pickett, *W. P. Milton.

Gordon-W. H. Dabney, *James Freeman, R. M. Young. Greene-N. M. Crawford, R. J. Willis, T. N. Poullain. Gwinnett-*R. D. Winn, *J. P. Simmons, *T. P. Hudson. Habersham-R. C. Ketchum, Singleton Sisk.

Hall-*E. M. Johnson, *P. M. Byrd, *Davis Whelchel. Hancock-*Linton Stephens, B. T. Harris, T. M. Turner. Haralson--W. J. Head, B. R. Walton.

Harris-D. P. Hill, W. J. Hudson, H. D. Williams.

Hart-R. S. Hill, J. E. Skelton.

Heard-R. P. Wood, *C. W. Mabry.

Henry F. E. Manson, *E. B. Arnold, J. H. Low.