Except in Georgia the opposition to the seces- CHAP. XII. sionists' programme was either hopelessly feeble or entirely wanting. The Bell and Douglas factions had bitterly denounced Lincoln and the Republicans during the Presidential campaign. Disarmed by their own words, they could not now defend them. The seaboard towns and cities of the South, jealous of the commercial supremacy of the North, anticipated in independence and free trade a new growth and a rich prosperity. Over all floated the constant dream of Southern Utopias-an indefinite expansion southward into a great slave empire. Under these various causes the election in most instances went by default.

Three special agencies coöperated with marked effect to stimulate the movement. Very early each Cotton State sent commissioners to each of the other Southern States, and in every case the most active and zealous secessionists were of course appointed. These commissioners attended, harangued, and intrigued with the various deliberative assemblies, and thus constituted a network of most industrious propagandism. Another potent influence was the assembling of military conventions, that is, convocations of the militia captains, majors, colonels, and would-be generals, to spur on or intimidate lagging Legislatures and conventions. Finally, the third and most effective piece of machinery was the State delegations in Congress assembled in Washington City at the beginning of December, and sending a running fire of encouragement or orders home to the capitals of their States.

Even with all this organization acting intelligently and persistently for a common end, from two VOL. III.-12

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CHAP. XII. to three months were required to work up the people of the Cotton States to an acquiescence in the rebellion the conspirators had for years been planning. Without being exactly of contemporaneous date, it happened that in general the month of November witnessed the assembling of the Legislatures and the making of necessary laws and appropriations. The month of December was mainly occupied by the election of delegates to the State conventions. In this stage the voice of central authority from Washington was begun to be utilized.

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While the election excitement was at its highest ferment, there came from Washington, under date of the 14th of December, the revolutionary circular, signed by about one-half the Southern Senators and Representatives in Congress, quoted elsewhere. This circular announced that argument was exhausted, that hope was extinguished, that the Republicans would grant nothing which would or ought to satisfy the South, and that the honor, safety, and independence of the Southern people required immediate separate State secession, and the organization of a Southern Confederacy.

The effect of a Congressional firebrand of such dimensions thrown upon the inflammable temper of the Cotton States at such a juncture may be easily imagined. Their people could not know that no single assertion in this circular was warranted by the facts; that Congress had not deliberated; that the compromise committees had not reported, and that the Republicans had in no shape presented or declared an ultimatum. The circular had been issued for a purpose, and served that end com

pletely. Few Southern voters or speakers could CHAP. XIL dare to stand up and deny in Georgia or Alabama the accusation made by these "honorable" signers in Washington.

But the central cabal did not stop with this single pronunciamiento. By this time the revolution, both local and central, had gained an accelerated momentum, and was rushing to its climax. Noncoercion was promised, Cass was driven from the Cabinet, the President was overawed, Congress was demoralized. Secession had secured a free path, and counted on an easy victory. The programme seems to have been to attain separation by easy stages during the remainder of Mr. Buchanan's term, and not to organize the new Confederacy till after the 4th of March.

But about New Year's the central conspiracy received a serious check. There was a Cabinet crisis. Buchanan momentarily asserted himself. Floyd was in turn driven from the Cabinet, the Unionists gained control of it, and Holt was made Secretary of War. This portended loyalty, decision, energy, reënforcements. Immediately there came a shower of telegrams and orders from the Washington fire-eaters to the Cotton-State leaders, proclaiming danger and urging action. The central cabal was called together, deliberated earnestly, and perfected and hastened the plot. At a caucus held on January 5 (in one of the rooms of the Capitol building itself, it is said), the decisive and final revolutionary programme committed itself to the following distinct points and plan: First. Immediate secession. Second. A convention at Montgomery, Alabama, not later than the

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