Jenn+Y+Journal+Entry+5

Okay, this is it. Lincoln just got elected as the next US President. It’s over now. To tell the truth, this outcome was pretty predictable. The Democratic party was facing with the challenge of choosing someone who could appeal to all their factions. Indeed, the party split just as I worried. The Democrats elected Stephen Douglas for their candidate while the Southern Democrats, who wanted federal protection of slavery in the territories, elected John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Meanwhile, a group of southern moderates joined with former northern Whigs to form the Constitutional Union party and chose John Bell, a Tennessee slaveowner who opposed the Lecompton Constitution. It was awful. Each representative had different perspective in politics…somewhat similar but different. I could not even choose whom to support. To be honest, decision-making was not the hardest part. The most difficult part was just looking at Democrats splitting up within them.

Taking this advantage, the Republicans broadened their program to include a protective tariff, free 160-acre homesteads from the public domain, and a more moderate stand on slavery. I despised them. They just don’t understand how South works. Giving up slaves meant to give up our livelihood. They are insane.

On top of this situation, Lincoln is now the president. I heard that he wrote: "The tug has to come and better now, than any time hereafter," in response to the movements among Southerners toward making good their threat to remove themselves from the United States if he were elected. But who cares? On November 10, 1860, four days after the election, the legislature in South Carolina became the first of the Southern congresses to call for a convention to consider secession. The Southerners have been warning him numerous times! I sense people’s anger towards Lincoln. Maybe I should join a secret group that’s planning to assassinate Lincoln and become a hero.

One good news is that South Carolina quickly seceded and I totally understand it for a number of reasons. The doctrine of state's rights, the legality of secession, and the institution of black slavery had been issues of debate in the United States for decades before the election of Abraham Lincoln brought on the secession of the Southern states. Time after time the South had forced political compromises by threatening to dissolve the union, but by 1860 many Northern politicians had come to view the threat as a bluff and were sick of compromising when it came to slavery. To make it worse, Southerners were thoroughly indoctrinated in the issues, and their education emphasized the inviolability of the Constitution and honored such state's-rights leaders as Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun. Should the South and South Carolina be blamed for secession? Absolutely no!

One of my friend told me that convention passed unanimously the first ordinance of secession, which stated, "We, the people of the State of South Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain... that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'the United States of America,' is hereby dissolved," in Charleston on December 20, making South Carolina a free and independent country. I heard that the people of Charleston went wild with joy amid fireworks, booming cannon, and ringing bells.

I bet other Southern states will secede soon. That’s perfect! I guess we are divorced, North and South, because we have hated each other so.