The Southern wing of the Democratic Party met in Charleston, S, C" on June 28, and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice President, and they declared that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature had the right to prohibit slavery in a territory, and it was the duty of the Federal Government to protect slavery in a territory when necessary, or until its people could take a vote thereon.

The third .party who called themselves the Constitutional party met in Baltimore, on' May 9, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice-President, their platform was the "Union, the Constitution and the Enforcement of the Law."

The Republican or Abolition party met in National Convention in Chicago. on May 18. and nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois for President. and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Vice President, and they declared in favor of the abolition of slavery in the territories by congressional action.

Now the candidates of the four parties having been nominated and their platforms defined, a hot political contest followed.

The election was held on November 6, 1860, which elected Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamblin, who received 180 electoral votes out of a total of 313, and everyone of these 180 votes were cast by states north of the Mason and Dixon line. Breckinridge and Lane received 72 votes, all from the Southern states, including Maryland and Delaware.

Bell and Everett received 39 votes from Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia; while Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson received only 12 votes and these from the state of Missouri. So you will see that Lincoln and Hamlin received more votes in the electoral college than all three of the other candidates combined.

We will now investigate the popular vote: There was cast in this election 4,662, 170 votes. Of this number Lincoln and Hamlin received only 1,857,610 votes against 2,804,560 cast for the other three candidates, which showed that Lincoln did not get the popular vote by 946,950 votes, this also showed the manifest injustice of the electoral college. , Now the election of a sectional candidate by a purely sectional vote greatly alarmed the Southern people.

A number of Southern states soon called conventions to consult and determine what course they would pursue. Here is what Mr. Lincoln said after he was elected. "I believe this Government can not endure permanently, half slave and half free."

I do not expect the union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other, either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South."

Mr. Lincoln farther said, "I have always hated slavery as much as any abolitionist, I have always been an old time Whig. I have always hated it and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I was in Congress and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision I would vote that it should."

Now with the election of a president who entertained such sentiments as the above, by a party whose mission in life was to abolish .slavery, I again ask the question, If the South intended to protect and maintain her self-respect, could she have done otherwise than what she did ?

As the minds of the Southern people were pretty well made up, the different states began to hold secession conventions and to exercise their rights, according to the compact of 1787 , of withdrawing from the Union.

The first State to secede was South Carolina, her ordinance of secession was passed on December 20, 1860.

Mississippi, on January 9, 1861. Florida, January 10, 186r. Alabama, January II, 1861. Georgia January 19, 1861. Louisiana, January 26, 1861. Texas, February r, 1861. Virginia, April 17, 1861. Arkansas, May 6, 186r. North Carolina, May 26. 1861. Tennessee, June 8, 1861. Missouri, October 31, 1861, Kentucky, November 20, 1861. On the 4th day of February, 186r, the representatives of seven of these seceded States, that now belonged to no government, but were independent republics, met in Montgomery, Alabama, for the purpose of forming themselves into an allied power, or Confederate Government, for the mutual protection of themselves and their property. The states represented here were the states that had seceded before February 4, 1861.

The following were the seven states and the names of the delegates who represented them.

South Carolina, R. B. Rhett, James Chesnut, J r .W. P. Miles, T. J. Withers, R. J. Barnwell, C. G. Memminger, L. M. Keith and W. W. Boyce.

Mississippi, W. P. Harris, Walter Brooks, A. M. Clayton, W. L. Barry, T. J. Harrison, J. A. P. Campbell, and W. S. Wilson, Florida. Jackson Morton, James Powers, and J. P. Anderson. Alabama, Richard W. Walker , J. L. M. Curry, Robert H . Smith, C. J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, T. T. Hale, David P , Lewis, Thomas Fearn, and W. P. Chilton.

Georgia, Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, Benjamin J. Hill, A. H. Stephens, Francis Bartow, M. J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbett, A. R. Wright, T. R. R. Cobb, and A. H. Kenan.