The secession of Georgia had for a time been delayed by
the influence of Alexander H. Stephens who, on the 14th of November, had
made a great argument for the maintenance of the Union. His chief local
opponent at the time was Robert Toombs, the Southern leader who proposed
in the near future to "call the roll-call of his slaves on Bunker Hill."
Lincoln was still hopeful of saving to the cause of the Union the Border
States and the more conservative divisions of States, like North
Carolina, which had supported the Whig party.
In December, we find correspondence between Lincoln and Gilmer of North
Carolina, whom he had known in Washington. "The essential difference,"
says Lincoln, "between your group and mine is that you hold slavery to
be in itself desirable and as something to be extended. I hold it to be
an essential evil which, with due regard to existing rights, must be
restricted and in the near future exterminated."
On the 23d of February, 1861, Lincoln reaches Washington where he is to
spend a weary and anxious two weeks of waiting for the burden of his new
responsibilities. He is at this time fifty-two years of age. In one of
his brief addresses on the way to Washington he says:
"It is but little to a man of my age, but a great deal to thirty
millions of the citizens of the United States, and to posterity in
all coming time, if the Union of the States and the liberties of the
people are to be lost.
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