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"What fault has there been on the part of the General Government of the United States? Why break up this Union? Will any gentleman be so kind as to particularize a single instance worthy of debate, in which the Federal Government has been derelict [negligent] in the discharge of its duty, or has failed to accomplish the purposes of its organization? . . ."I am not here . . . to defend the election of Abraham Lincoln. I believe that his election was virtually a fraud upon the people of the United States . . . nominated, as he was, by a sectional party, and upon a sectional platform, with no representation in the body which nominated him from the South; but he was nominated and elected according to the forms of law. . . ."Let us look . . . at the evils that must result from secession. The first, in my opinion, would be that our country would not only be divided into a Northern Confederacy and into Southern Confederacy, but, soon or later it would be divided into sundry [several] petty Confederacies. We would have a Central Confederacy, a Confederacy of the States of the Mississippi Valley, a Pacific Confederacy, a Western Confederacy, an Eastern Confederacy, a Northern and a Southern Confederacy.". . . It is easy perhaps to break down this Government; but, sir, when we break it down it will not be so easy a matter to build it up. . . . Gentlemen cry out against the tyranny of their own government, and yet denounce [those opposed to secession] because we hesitate to allow ourselves to be thrust into the embraces of such a military dictatorship."Waitman T. Willey, addressing the Virginia State Secession Convention, March 4, 1861The excerpt best serves as evidence that, in 1861,Acitizens in the Northern states did not want Abraham Lincoln as presidentBcitizens in the Southern states were deeply divided over secessionCcitizens in the Northern states were prepared to accommodate slaveryDcitizens in the Northern states would not accept a Confederate government

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