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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English by theVoice of America.

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Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election held in November,eighteen-sixty. When he took office several months later, he facedthe most serious crisis in American history. For the southern stateshad finally acted on their earlier threats. They had begun to leavethe Union over the issue of slavery.

I'm Kay Gallant. Today, Harry Monroe and I tell about thiscritical time in the United States.

VOICE TWO:

The southern states did not wantAbraham Lincoln to win the election of eighteen-sixty. Lincoln was aRepublican. And the Republican Party opposed slavery. Lincoln neversaid he wanted to end slavery in the south. He did not believeanyone had the right to do so. Yet he did not want to see slaveryspread to other parts of the United States.

Lincoln told southerners: "You think slavery is right and shouldbe extended. While we think it is wrong and should be limited. That,I suppose, is the trouble. It surely is the only importantdifference between us."

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Pro-slavery extremists felt this difference was enough. And theywere sure Lincoln and his Republicans would soon win control ofCongress and the Supreme Court. Before long, they thought, theConstitution would be changed. Slavery would become illegaleverywhere.

Even if this did not happen, southerners were worried. Unlessslavery could spread, they said, the slave population in the southwould become too large. In time, blacks and whites would battle forcontrol. One or the other would be destroyed.

So even before the presidential election, southerners begandiscussing what they would do if Abraham Lincoln won.

VOICE TWO:

Early in October, the governor of South Carolina, William Gist,wrote letters to the governors of other southern states. He saidthey should agree on what action to take if Lincoln becamepresident.

Gist said South Carolina would call a state convention as soon asthe election results were made official. If any state decided toleave the Union, he said, South Carolina would follow. If no otherstate decided to leave, then South Carolina would secede by itself.

Governor Gist received mixed answers.

Two states -- Alabama and Mississippi -- said they would notsecede alone. But they said they would join others that made thisdecision. Two more states -- Louisiana and Georgia -- said theywould not secede unless the north acted against them. And one state-- North Carolina -- said it had not yet decided what to do.

No southern governor, except William Gist of South Carolina,seemed willing to lead the south out of the Union.

VOICE ONE:

Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November sixth,eighteen-sixty. South Carolina exploded with excitement at the news.To many of the people there, Lincoln's victory was a signal thatended the state's ties to the Union. To them, it was the beginningof southern independence.

Both United States Senators from South Carolina resigned. So dida federal judge and the collector of federal taxes. United Statesflags were lowered. State flags were raised in their place.

The state legislature agreed to open a convention on Decemberseventeenth. The convention would make the final decision on leavingthe Union. Several other southern states did the same.

VOICE TWO:

This idea of leaving the Union -- secession -- split north andsouth just as much as slavery. Southerners claimed they had theright to secede peacefully. Northerners disagreed. They saidsecession was treason. They said it would lead to civil war.

In the months before Lincoln'sinauguration, President James Buchanan tried to deal with thesituation. First he proposed a convention of all the states. Thepurpose of the convention would be to work out differences betweennorth and south. The southern members of Buchanan's cabinet rejectedthis idea.

The second proposal was a strong policy statement on secession.The statement would include an opinion by the attorney general. Itsaid the government could use force, if necessary, to keep states inthe Union. The southern cabinet members rejected this idea, too.

VOICE ONE:

President Buchanan had to settle for a moderate policy statementon secession.

It said the president could send troops into a state to helpfederal marshals enforce the rulings of federal courts. But iffederal judges resigned, there would be no federal court rulings toenforce. Therefore, to send troops to a state where federal officershad resigned -- such as South Carolina -- would be an act of waragainst the state. And only Congress had the constitutional power todeclare war.

Buchanan accepted this statement. He was only too happy to letCongress decide what to do.

VOICE TWO:

There was little chance that Congress could do anything.Congressmen from both north and south already had made decisionsthat could not, and would not, be changed easily.

Most of the congressmen from states in the deep south supportedsecession. They did not want to remain in the Union. Manycongressmen from states in the north had been elected because theypromised to keep slavery from spreading to the western territories.They did not plan to break their promises.

A few lawmakers hoped President Buchanan, in his yearly messageto Congress, might propose a compromise.

VOICE ONE:

Buchanan began by denouncing northern Abolitionists. He said theywere responsible for the present problem. Their interference, hesaid, had created a great fear of slave rebellions in the south.

Then Buchanan called on the south to accept the election ofAbraham Lincoln. He said the election of a citizen to the office ofpresident should not be a reason for dissolving the Union. Buchanandeclared that the constitution gave no state the right to leave.But, he admitted, if a state did secede, there was little thefederal government could do.

"The fact is," Buchanan said, "that our Union rests upon publicopinion. It can never be held together by the blood of its citizensin civil war. If it cannot live in the hearts of its people, then itmust one day die."

VOICE TWO:

Buchanan proposed to Congress that it offer a constitutionalamendment on the question of slavery.

He said the amendment should recognize the right to own slaves asproperty in states where slavery was permitted. It should protectthis right in all territories until the territories became states.And it should end all state laws that interfered with the return ofescaped slaves to their owners.

No one liked President Buchanan's message to Congress.Northerners did not like his declaration of federal weakness in theface of secession. Southerners did not like his declaration thatsecession was unconstitutional.

The message did nothing to change the situation. Soon after itwas read to Congress, South Carolina opened its secessionconvention.

VOICE ONE:

Delegates to the convention would make the final decision ifSouth Carolina would remain in the Union or secede. There was littlequestion how they would vote.

A committee wrote a secession resolution. The resolution saidsimply that the people of South Carolina were ending the agreementof seventeen-eighty-eight in which the state had approved theconstitution of the United States.

It said the Union existing between South Carolina and the UnitedStates of America was being dissolved.

The committee offered the resolution to the convention onDecember twentieth, eighteen-sixty. There was no debate. Thedelegates voted immediately. No one voted against it.

VOICE TWO:

South Carolina had seceded. But what must it do now. There wasthe problem of property in South Carolina owned by the federalgovernment. The convention continued to meet to work out details ofSouth Carolina's new position in the world. That will be our storynext week.

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VOICE ONE:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THEMAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Kay Gallant and HarryMonroe. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley.