violation of the Constitution, nor to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme." The reflection of this advice appeared a few days afterwards in the President's message, which was materially modified from the first draft. This extraordinary document was referred to by the London Times as "a greater blow to the American people than all the rants of the Georgian Governor or the ordinances of the Charleston Convention. The President has dissipated the idea that the states which elected him constitute one people." In the message Mr. Buchanan first spoke of the discontent which extensively prevailed and charged it to the "long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern states," and said that on this account the time had arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country when hostile geographical parties had been formed. He continued: "I have long foreseen, and often forewarned my countrymen of the now impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claims on the part of Congress or the Territorial Legislatures to exclude slavery from the territories, nor from the efforts of different states to defeat the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union, as others have been, in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy. The immediate peril arises, not so much from these causes, as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question, throughout the North for the last quarter of a century, has, at length, produced its malign influence on the slaves, and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence, a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrection. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and her children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable."

Mr. Buchanan's long argument is fairly summed up in the following paragraph, though a similar conclusion is reached in various forms: "The question fairly stated, is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce into submission a State which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn, from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle, that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to

make war against a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest, upon an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress; and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not necessary and proper for carrying into execution any one of these powers."

The result of this message was not what the conspirators hoped. Its first effect was to bring about the resignation of Lewis Cass, Secretary of State. General Cass was a patriotic man, of large public experience. But he was well advanced in years, had no knowledge of the secret movements of the conspirators, and if he had understood them would not have been able to cope with them. He felt that he was placed in a false position by the new drift of the Administration, as disclosed in the message, and when it became known that the Government would not insist upon the collection of the revenue in South Carolina, nor strengthen the forts in Charleston harbor, he resigned, and Attorney General Black was appointed to succeed him.

Judge Black was of a rugged, positive character, a warm friend of President Buchanan, but subservient to no one. He was appointed the day when the Disunion Convention met in Charleston. Three days later the Ordinance of Secession was passed, and Governor Pickens proclaimed South Carolina a separate, free and sovereign State. This independent and sovereign State sent an "embassy" to Washington to arrange a treaty with the United States, and to negotiate for the peaceful surrender of the armed fortresses of the United States within the limits of the new sovereignty. The "embassy" took a house in Washington from which it floated the flag of the Legation, and was actually received by the President, who was undecided what to do, when Judge Black came upon the scene. The impudence of the demand amazed and angered him. He had questioned the right of the Government to coerce a State, but to his mind it did not follow that the Government did not have the right to defend its own property. He persuaded Buchanan to cease his temporizing policy, and the "embassy" was dismissed. The conspirators in the Cabinet soon perceived that a new force had entered into the Government councils, and that their usefulness in Washington had ended, and speedily resigned. Edwin M. Stanton was appointed Attorney General; Horatio King, of Maine, was appointed Postmaster General, and John A. Dix, of New York, Secretary of the Treasury.

Meantime the Secession movement was going on, and continued until after the Republican party came into power. The dates at which the various states went out were as follows: South Carolina, December 20, 1860; Mississippi, January 9, 1861; Florida, January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, January 19; Louisiana, January 26; Texas, February 1; Virginia, April 17; Arkansas, May 6; North Caro lina, May 26; Tennessee, June 8. The Senators and Representatives in Congress withdrew as their states went out.

While the Southerners were thus becoming more and more aggressive the old spirit of conciliation, compromise and submission seized the North. Many of those who had voted for Lincoln, who in the campaign had applauded the most extreme Anti-Slavery sentiments, and some of the speakers who had uttered such sentiments, before election, were ready to mob the men who uttered the same sentiments after election. Even after the states had begun to secede Union meetings were held in many places, and the South was implored to come back, with offers of concessions that were absolutely servile. This sudden reaction doubtless had much to do with the Southerners' opinion that the Northerners were cowards, and that "one Southerner could lick ten Yankees." These conciliatory and faint-hearted men were not roused from their dream of peace until they heard of the shots fired on Fort Sumter in April following.

One of the largest of the Union meetings was held at Philadel phia at the call of the Mayor, on request of the City Councils. This was on the 10th of December, before any State had actually seceded. The Mayor, Alexander Henry, had this to say in his speech: "The misplaced teachings of the pulpit, the unwise rhapsodies of the lecture room, the exciting appeals of the press, on the subject of slavery, must be frowned down. Thus and thus only may you hope to avoid the sectional discord, agitation and animosity, which, at fre quently recurring periods, have shaken your political fabric to the center, and, at last, have undermined its very foundation." This was the burden of many speeches at the Union meetings. The South was sensitive, and its favorite institution must not even be talked about.

Charles F. Lex, who had voted for Lincoln, also admonished his hearers to "discountenance any denunciation of slavery, or of those who maintain that institution, as intemperate and wrong, whether they are promulgated in the lecture room, at the political gathering, or from the sacred desk." He also advocated the elimination of the Personal Liberty Laws from the statute books, and the execution of

the Fugitive Slave Law in its full extent and spirit. Rev. Theodore Cuyler went further yet, for in addition to an appeal for the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the repeal of the Personal Liberty Laws, he added: "Let us receive our brother of the South if he will come among us, for a little time, attended by his servant, and permit him thus to come."

A long series of resolutions adopted by the meeting, pledged the people of Philadelphia to the carrying out of all the most extreme concessions made in these speeches. A fitting climax to this cowardly meeting was this; George William Curtis had been engaged by the People's Literary Bureau to lecture on the evening after the great meeting, and had announced as his subject, "The Policy of Honesty," a subject which was not apparently calculated to grate upon the nerves of our sensitive Southern brethren. But the Mayor addressed a note to the proprietor of the hall in which the lecture was to be given, in which he said: "The appearance of George W. Curtis, Esq., as a lecturer before the People's Literary Institute, on Thursday evening next, will be extremely unwise. If I possessed the lawful power I would not permit his presence on that occasion." To this the humble reply was made: "I have been officially informed that in the event of G. W. Curtis' lecturing in this hall, on Thursday evening next, a riot is anticipated. Under these circumstances, I cannot permit the hall to be used on that occasion."

Some of the newspapers which had been influential in building up the Republican party, either anticipated or followed these meetings, in advising concessions. The second day after Mr. Lincoln's election Horace Greeley, who was the author of the phrase, “Erring sisters go in peace," had a long editorial in the Tribune, under the headline, "Going to Go.” In this he said: "If the Cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless, and we do not see how one party has a right to do what another party has a right to prevent. We must ever resist the asserted right of any State to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof. To withdraw from the Union is quite another matter. And whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a Republic whereof one section is pinned to another by bayonets."

Several other papers took substantially the same ground as the Tribune, while Thurlow Weed, in the Albany Evening Journal,

declared that there was imminent danger of a dissolution of the Union, and that the danger originated in the ambition and cupidity of men who desire a Southern despotism, and in the fanatical zeal of Northern Abolitionists who seek the emancipation of slaves, regardless of consequences. He proposed as a remedy a Convention of the people, with delegates appointed by the states, to discuss the subject in an amicable manner.

With this change of sentiment among the people, and in the Republican press, it is not surprising that the Republicans in Congress

were also willing to make some concessions. The movement in the Senate took the form of a committee of thirteen, consisting of seven Democrats, five Republicans and one Independent, John J. Crittenden. The latter introduced what was afterwards known as the Crittenden Compromise, proposing a series of amendments to the Constitution, in substance as follows:

1. Prohibiting slavery in all the territory of the United States North of 36 degrees 30 minutes, and protect

ing it as property in all territory South of that line; and, admitting into the Union, with or without slavery, as its Constitution might provide, any State that might be formed out of such territory, whenever its population should be sufficient to entitle it to a Member of Congress.

2. Prohibiting Congress from abolishing slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction within Slave States.

3. Prohibiting Congress from abolishing slavery within the District of Columbia, so long as slavery should exist in Virginia or