For one thing, Lincoln’s election and the apprehension leading up to it inflicted a direct cost on the financial well-being of the South’s leading citizens, its planters. Cotton prices fell, as did the market value of slaves, and this in turn limited the planters’ ability to use them as security for mortgages and other investments. An “Extra No. 1” male who sold for $1,625 in Richmond over the preceding summer now sold for only $1,000, or 38.5 percent less. South Carolina reacted with particular fury. The day after the election, the state’s most senior federal officials resigned their posts,
...more
