 By the time Benjamin returned to the East Coast , the Republican candidate , Lincoln , had been elected president , and there was talk , in Louisiana and elsewhere , of secession from the Union . The New Orleans Picayune reported that Benjamin favored secession only in the last resort . On December 23 , 1860 , another Louisiana periodical , the Delta , printed a letter from Benjamin dated the eighth stating that , as the people of the North were of unalterable hostility to their Southern brethren , the latter should depart from the government common to them . He also signed a joint letter from Southern congressmen to their constituents , urging the formation of a confederation of the seceding states . According to a letter reportedly written by Benjamin during the crisis , he saw secession as a means of obtaining more favorable terms in a reformed Union . 
