Adding the total popular vote of all
these States (except the 1929), we get 854,775; deducting this from the
total popular vote leaves a balance of 3,825,418, of which one half is
1,912,709; so that even outside of the States of the Confederacy Lincoln
did not get one half of the popular vote. South Carolina is not included
in any calculation concerning the popular vote, because she chose
electors by her legislature.
[113] Letter of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, May 28, 1858, quoted N. and
H. ii. 302 n.
CHAPTER VII
INTERREGNUM
For a while now the people of the Northern States were compelled
passively to behold a spectacle which they could not easily reconcile
with the theory of the supreme excellence and wisdom of their system of
government. Abraham Lincoln was chosen President of the United States
November 6, 1860; he was to be inaugurated March 4, 1861. During the
intervening four months the government must be conducted by a chief
whose political creed was condemned by an overwhelming majority of the
nation.[114] The situation was as unfair for Mr. Buchanan as it was
hurtful for the people. As head of a republic, or, in the more popular
phrase, as the chief "servant of the people," he must respect the
popular will, yet he could not now administer the public business
according to that will without being untrue to all his own convictions,
and repudiating all his trusted counselors.
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