“Southern political leaders were threatening to take their states out of the Union if a Republican president was elected on a platform restricting slavery.”

— James M. McPherson

James M. McPhersonThis Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War (2007), Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 188
2000s

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James M. McPherson27

American historian 1936

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“So the repeal of the Missouri Compromise opened that whole territory to the ingress of slavery. That sparked the greatest political revolution in American History. In the spring of 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, there was no Republican Party; there were no Republican congressmen. In the four elections of 1854, 100 Republican Congressmen were returned to the Congress. At that moment, Stephen A. Douglas was looked upon as the antichrist from the point of view of the anti-slavery movement.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

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“But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Cooper Union speech (1860)
Context: But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!" To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my money — was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

“The Republican Party was organized in 1854-55, upon the platform of liberty and independence, to maintain the union of the States and the rights of the States; freedom of speech and the press; to resist the spread of slavery and the aggressions of the slave power; the equal rights of all persona to impartial protection at home and abroad, and in the enjoyment of religious freedom; and of all American citizens, whether native or naturalized, to the free exercise of the elective franchise and the enjoyment of its benefits; and requiring no test for office except honesty, capacity, and devotion to American institutions.”

Elbridge G. Spaulding (1809–1897) American politician

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“When people speak about the results of the 1860 Presidential election, it’s usually given out that Lincoln had, I think, 39 percent of the popular vote in that election. But, of course, there were 10 states in the South who formed part of the ten or the eleven states of the Confederacy, in which no Republican electors were on the ballots. And since we know that at least 100,000 men from those states came north to join the Union Army, there were at least 100,000 votes that weren't counted.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The South was a Closed Society

“The attempt by eleven southern—and slaveholding—states to secede from the Union in the winter and spring of 1860-61 presented the United States with the greatest internal political challenge it had ever faced. Because the Constitution had created a federal Union, secession (which broke the ties of Union) was a dagger at the heart of the American polity. The fact that this secession was motivated by Southerners' determination to protect their investment in human slavery added a cruel twist of the blade. Not only did secession fracture the Union, it did so on behalf of a practice which obliterated the fundamental natural right to liberty, which the federal Constitution was supposed to protect.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2000s, States' Rights and Wrongs (2008)

“If Senator Kennedy is elected President of the United States, the government of Chile will take the necessary measures.”

Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile

Speech (11 September 1979), quoted in "Las frases para el bronce de Pinochet."
1970s

“The peaceful and orderly inauguration of George W. Bush, as 43rd President of the United States, after the closest election in American history, is an event deserving thoughtful and thankful reflection. There were present on the inaugural platform former presidents of both parties, as well as the gracious loser in the contest just ended. They were testimony to the prizing above all political differences, of the rule of law under the Constitution. We are accustomed, now, to resolving our differences with ballots and not bullets. We are accustomed, now, when we lose an election to look to the next election to advance our political fortunes. But few of us today are aware of how recent in human experience, and how fragile, is this phenomenon.”

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“Now, the issue of the Civil War as Lincoln presented it, in both his inaugural address on March 4th, and in the message to Congress in Special Session on July 4th, four months later, was in essence this. In ratifying the Constitution, each state had committed itself to accepting the results of elections conducted under the rules of the Constitution. The election of 1860 had been conducted under the rules of the Constitution. If there were any violations of those rules, it was by the Southern states in refusing to allow Republican electors on the ballot. But there was nothing that the Republican Party had done. There was nothing in the electoral procedures of the free states, or, for that matter, of the slave states with this exception which justified anyone in saying that the results of this election were not Constitutional results.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

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“As much as I value a union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

June 17
Addresses to the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)

“Southern political leaders were threatening to take their states out of the Union if a Republican president was elected on a platform restricting slavery.”

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James M. McPherson27

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