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[321] was disturbed, investments ceased and general commerce was restrained. Money was hoarded and a cloud of financial distress began to rise. The banks of the South, being in close correspondence with those of the North, gathered in their resources and looked forward to necessitated suspension.. The South had cherished an idea that Lincoln could not be elected. The possibility was at first contemplated, and urged as a ground of opposition to him, by all lovers of fraternal Union throughout the United States. His party was regarded awhile by all political bodies South as their common enemy. But divisions having taken place, and the sectional hostility developing more and more, the possibility grew rapidly during the canvass into a saddening probability, ending at last in a despairing certainty. The extreme Southern States especially were shocked by the news of the disastrous defeat of all conservative candidates by the one sectional candidate. Indignation and fears expressed by individuals, were taken up by the crowds which met in the streets of towns and cities. Public meetings were called to consider the situation. Legislatures in session at the time took up the dreadful question. Governors of States either sent special messages to the assembled legislators, or in States where the legislature was not in session, the governors took other official notice of the event. Governor Brown, of Georgia, advised a restraining course of legislation against such States in the North as had enacted laws hostile to the South, and also a discrimination against the manufactures or other products of such States. The election of Lincoln was held even by Union men in the South to be a violation of national comity that should be submitted to only temporarily. The election was conceded to be constitutional, although effected by scarcely more than one-third of the popular vote, and hence could not be resisted on the plea of illegality. They agreed, that inasmuch as the whole South was not united on secession,
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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