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from Davis: “Resolution for alliance received. Proposition cordially accepted. Commissioner will be sent by next train.” 1 In fulfilment of this promise Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederate States, went to Richmond. Although he wrote of the “embarrassments and difficulties” in getting the arrangement effected, the common aim and sympathy were so certain that he negotiated a military alliance between the Confederate States and Virginia, giving the control and direction of her military force to Davis. 2 On May 7, the Confederate Congress admitted her into the Confederacy and, accepting the offer of her convention (April 27), made Richmond their capital (May 21). 3 26 The governor of North Carolina replied to the Secretary of War: “I regard the levy of troops made by the administration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South as in violation of the Constitution and a gross usurpation of power. I can be no party … to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina.” 4 Before Lincoln’s call for troops two-thirds of the people of North Carolina were opposed to secession; 5 now, however, as speedily as a convention could be assembled, an ordinance of secession was adopted by a unanimous vote, and North Carolina became one of the Confederate States. 6 27 On May 6, Arkansas, through her convention, passed an ordinance of secession with only one dissenting vote; soon afterwards she joined the Southern Confederacy. 28 In answer to Lincoln’s requisition for troops, Tennessee’s

Note 1. O. R., LI, Pt. II, 18. [back]

Note 2. All based on ratification by the popular vote. O. R., IV, I, 242 et seq.; III, 379. [back]

Note 3. III, 396; O. R., IV, I, 255. [back]

Note 4. O. R., III, I, 72. [back]

Note 5. O. R., LI, Pt. II, 831. [back]

Note 6. III, 383. [back]

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