Lincoln and the British Empire

AENN

the United States was on the verge of dissolution on March 9th 1861 when Abraham Lincoln arrived in Washington DC for his first inaugural address. The states of South Carolina

Georgia Alabama Mississippi Louisiana and Florida had all voted to secede from

the union and Texas's Governor had been overthrown for refusing to secede.

The departing administration of President James Buchanan had bankrupted the treasury while his Secretary of War John Floyd had secretly shifted Union armaments to Point South to arm the intended Insurrection. Fort Sumter South Carolina was surrounded by armed secessionists ready to strike and an assassination plot against Lincoln was planned along with a plot to disrupt the official counting of the Electoral College ballots in the capital.

General Winfield Scott a hero in the war of 1821 took measures to secure the capital with thousands of federal troops any man who attempted by force to obstruct or interfere with the lawful count of the electoral vote should be lashed to the muzzle of a 12lb gun and fired out of a window of the capital. "I would manure the hills of Arlington with fragments of his body for he a senator or chief magistrate of my native state it is my duty to suppress Insurrection". My duty this Siege of the capital and coming war was for Lincoln not merely a conflict between the North and the South but a world war against the British Empire.

1st Lincoln Inauguration March 1, 1861