Delaware, lying still farther than Maryland within the embrace of the Free-labor States, had but little to say on the subject of secession, and that little, officially spoken, was in the direction of loyalty. Its Governor, several of its Senators, its Representatives in the National Senate, and many leading politicians, sympathized with the secessionists, but the people were conservative and loyal. The Legislature convened at D]over, the capital, on the 2d of January, when the Governor (William Burton) declared that the cause of all the trouble was “the persistent war of the Abolitionists upon more than two billions of property; a war waged from pulpits, rostrums, and schools, by press and people — all teaching that slavery is a crime and a sin, until it had become the opinion of one section of the country. The only remedy,” he said, “for the evils now threatening, is a radical change of public sentiment in regard to the whole question. The North should retire from its untenable position immediately.” On the following day, Henry Dickinson, Commissioner from Mississippi, addressed them. He declared, with supporting arguments, that a State had a right to secede, and invited Delaware to join the Southern Confederacy about to be formed. He was applauded by some, and listened to courteously by. all. Then the House, by unanimous vote, adopted a resolution (concurred in by a majority of the Senate), saying, that they deemed it proper and due to themselves, and the people of Delaware, to express their unqualified disapproval of the remedy for existing evils proposed by Mr. Dickinson, in behalf of Mississippi. This ended his mission. Delaware maintained that position during the war that ensued; and it is a notable fact, that it was the only Slave-labor State whose soil was not moistened with the blood of the slain in battle. No insurgent soldier ever appeared within the limits of that State, except as a prisoner of war.
Great efforts were made to force North Carolina into revolution. The South Carolinians taunted them with cowardice; the Virginians treated them with coldness; and the Alabamians and Mississippians coaxed them by the lips of commissioners. These efforts were vain. Thompson, of Buchanan's Cabinet, went back to Washington,1 convinced that the radical secessionists of that State were but a handful. The Legislature did, indeed, authorize a convention; but directed that the people, when they elected delegates for it, should vote on the question of Convention or No Convention. The delegates were elected,
January 28, 1861. |
February 4. |
