default. But Cass replied, No; that the public feel- CH. XXV. ing and sentiment of his section would not tolerate such a policy on his part. "For you," he said, "coming from a border State, where a modified, perhaps a divided, public sentiment exists, that is not only a possible course, but it is a true one; it is your duty to remain, to sustain the Executive and counteract the plots of the traitors. But my duty is otherwise; I must adhere to my resignation."

In this honorable close of a long public career, General Cass gave evidence of the spirit which was to actuate many patriotic Democrats when the final ordeal came. It was to be regretted that he had not taken issue with his chief when his paradoxical message was read to the Cabinet, but much is to be allowed to the inertness of a man in his seventy-ninth year. Life-long placeman and unflinching partisan that he was, there was still so much of patriotic conscience in him that he could not stand by and see premeditated dishonor done to the flag he had followed in his youth and as Jackson's Secretary of War upheld in his maturer years. If Mr. Buchanan had been capable of amendment, he might have learned a salutary lesson from the manner in which this veteran politician ended his half century of public service.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SENATE COMMITTEE OF THIRTEEN

CH. XXVI.

THE

HE President's message provoked immediate and heated controversy in Congress. In the Senate the battle was begun by the radical secessionists, who at once avowed their main plans and purposes. Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, opening the debate, predicted that the same political organization which had elected Lincoln must soon control the entire Government, and being guided by a sentiment hostile to the Southern States would change the whole character of the Government without abolishing its forms. A number of States would secede within the next sixty days.

Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said the accumulating wrongs of years had finally culminated in the triumph of principles to which they could not and Iwould not submit. All they asked was to be allowed to depart in peace.

Mr. Iverson, of Georgia, invoking not only secession, but revolution and assassination, announced specifically the hopes of the conspirators. "I am satisfied that South Carolina will resolve herself into a separate sovereign and independent State before the Ides of January; that Florida and Mississippi, whose conventions are soon to meet, will

follow the example of South Carolina, and that CH. XXVI. Alabama . . . will go out of the Union on the 7th of January. Then the Georgia Convention follows on the 16th of that month; and if these other surrounding sisters shall take the step, Georgia will not be behind. . . I speak what I believe on this floor, that before the 4th of March five of the Southern States at least will have declared their independence; and I am satisfied that three others of the Cotton States will follow as soon as the action of the people can be had. Arkansas, whose Legislature is now in session, will in all probability call a convention at an early day. Louisiana will follow. Her Legislature is to meet; and although there is a clog in the way of the lone star State of Texas, in the person of her Governor, if he does not yield to public sentiment, some Texan Brutus will arise to rid his country of the hoaryheaded incubus that stands between the people and their sovereign will. We intend, Mr. Presi- "Globe." dent, to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."

Senator Wigfall, of Texas, took a high revolutionary attitude. "We simply say that a man who is distasteful to us has been elected and we choose to consider that as a sufficient ground for leaving the Union." He said he should "introduce a resolution at an early moment to ascertain what are the orders that have gone from the War Department to the officers in command of those forts" at Charleston. If the people of South Carolina believed that this Government would hold those forts, and collect the revenues from them, after they had ceased to be one of the States of this Union, his judgment VOL. II.-26

Dec. 5, 1860,

p. 11.