![]() ![]() Eventually, 25 of the Senate’s 66 members left to support the Confederate cause. , a war is to be inaugurated the like of which men have not seen.” Six more senators were gone by the end of January, and three others left in February. “If you desire at this last moment to avert civil war, so be it,” he told his colleagues. When Mississippi voted to secede on January 9, Senator Jefferson Davis issued a warning. The secession crisis grew with each passing week, forcing the Senate to deal with vacant seats and diminishing quorums. , and heal our land.” The clerk then called the roll. not as partisans, but as brethren and patriots, seeking the highest welfare. “May all bitterness and wrath” be put away, and may senators “deliberate. “Hear our petitions, and send us an answer of peace,” he prayed. Vice President John Breckinridge presided as the Senate chaplain offered a benediction. In the wake of these dramatic events, the Senate convened the 2nd session of the 36th Congress on December 3, 1860. One day later, South Carolina’s James Hammond also pledged to support the Confederacy “with all the strength I have.” Four days later, on November 10, Senator James Chesnut resigned his Senate seat and returned home to South Carolina to draft an ordinance of secession. ![]() On November 6, 1860, in an election that brought the new Republican Party to national power, Abraham Lincoln was elected president by a strictly northern vote. In the Senate, however, the fall of Sumter was the latest in a series of events that culminated in war. ![]() Traditionally, this event has been used to mark the beginning of the Civil War. Less than 34 hours later, Union forces surrendered. on April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor. ![]()
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