Military preparation, though not on so extensive or definite a scale,
was also carried on in the other revolted States; and while Mr. Lincoln
was making his memorable journey from Springfield to Washington,
telegrams were printed in the newspapers, from day to day, showing that
their delegates had met at Montgomery, Alabama, formed a provisional
congress, and adopted a constitution and government under the title of
The Confederate States of America, of which they elected Jefferson Davis
of Mississippi President, and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia
Vice-President.
It needs to be constantly borne in mind that the beginning of this vast
movement was not a spontaneous revolution, but a chronic conspiracy.
"The secession of South Carolina," truly said one of the chief actors,
"is not an event of a day. It is not anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's
election, or by the non-execution of the fugitive-slave law. It is a
matter which has been gathering head for thirty years." The central
motive and dominating object of the revolution was frankly avowed by
Vice-President Stephens in a speech he made at Savannah a few weeks
after his inauguration:
"The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Jefferson] and most of the
leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution,
were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of
nature; that it was wrong in _principle_, socially, morally, and
politically.
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