The only bit of cheer that came to him and other Union men during
this anxious season of waiting, was in the conduct of Major
Robert Anderson at Charleston Harbor, who, instead of following
the example of other officers who were proving unfaithful, boldly
defied the Southern "secessionists," and moving his little
handful of soldiers into the harbor fort best fitted for defense,
prepared to hold out against them until help could reach him from
Washington.
In February the leaders of the Southern people met at Montgomery,
Alabama, adopted a Constitution, and set up a government which
they called the Confederate States of America, electing Jefferson
Davis, of Mississippi, President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of
Georgia, Vice-President. Stephens was the "little, slim
pale-faced consumptive man" whose speech in Congress had won
Lincoln's admiration years before. Davis had been the child who
began his schooling so near to Lincoln in Kentucky. He had had a
far different career. Good fortune had carried him to West Point,
into the Mexican War, into the cabinet of President Franklin
Pierce, and twice into the Senate. He had had money, high office,
the best education his country could give him--everything, it
seemed, that had been denied to Lincoln. Now the two men were the
chosen heads of two great opposing factions, one bent on
destroying the government that had treated him so kindly; the
other, for whom it had done so little, willing to lay down his
life in its defense.
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