Though an emergency psychology certainly existed, the belief in a repressed unionist majority rests on a misunderstanding of southern unionism. As a Mississippi “unionist” explained after Lincoln’s election, he was no longer “a Union man in the sense in which the North is Union.” His unionism was conditional; the North had violated the condition by electing Lincoln. Cooperationists in Alabama who voted against secession cautioned outsiders not to “misconstrue” their action. “We scorn the Black Republicans,” they declared. “The State of Alabama cannot and will not submit to the Administration
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