There are winters when history stands very still, almost as if the world is bracing for something it already knows it cannot avoid. The winter of 1860 felt like that. One can imagine the heavy December air in Washington settling over the capital like a thick blanket that even the most stubborn stove fires could not quite chase away. The legislators walked through the corridors with forced conversations and polite nods, but there was a hollow ring to every greeting. The nation had reached a point where its disagreements were no longer political quarrels but questions about the very structure of its future. Abraham Lincoln had been elected with a firm pledge that slavery would not expand into the territories. To the Deep South, this was something far beyond a routine policy dispute. It sounded like a warning bell. It sounded like a door closing. It sounded, to many, like the first quiet toll of a funeral.

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