It must be
constantly borne in mind that the rebellion in the Southern
States with which Mr. Lincoln had to deal was not a sudden
revolution, but a conspiracy of slow growth and long planning. As
one of its actors frankly admitted, it was "not an event of a
day. It is not anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election. . . .
It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years."
Its main object, it must also be remembered, was the spread of
slavery. Alexander H. Stephens, in a speech made shortly after he
became the Confederate Vice-President, openly proclaimed slavery
to be the "corner-stone" of the new government. For years it had
been the dream of southern leaders to make the Ohio River the
northern boundary of a great slave empire, with everything lying
to the south of that, even the countries of South and Central
America, as parts of their system. Though this dream was never to
be realized, the Confederacy finally came to number eleven States
(Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia), and
to cover a territory of more than 750,000 square miles--larger
than England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany and
Switzerland put together, with a coast line 3,500 miles long, and
a land frontier of over 7,000 miles.
President Buchanan's timidity and want of spirit had alone made
this great rebellion possible, for although it had been
"gathering head for thirty years" it was only within the last few
months that it had come to acts of open treason and rebellion.
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