On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln, one of the most obscure candidates, was elected as the sixteenth president of the United States and Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins, a slave owner in Columbia, SC was worried. Very worried. In her diary she wrote.
I have never been opposed to giveing up slavery if we could send them out of our country — I have often wished I had been born in just such a country — with all our religious previleges & liberties with none of them in our midst — if the North had let us alone — the Master & the servant were happy with out advantages — but we had had vile wretches ever making the restless worse than they would have been & from my experience my own negroes are as happy as I am: [A Slaveholder’s Diary]
If you have not educated yourselves about the American Civil War by watching Ken Burns’ excellent series, then you can follow the events of the war by subscribing to the Disunion blog. The latest entry describes the events of Nov 16-22 when Georgians were deciding the course of action.
In other civil war related news, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln movie now has a start date and Daniel Day-Lewis is starring as the President.
