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on a hateful, treacherous sea, whom a sudden breeze had swiftly wafted within sight of their longed — for haven, or like a seedy prodigal, just raised to affluence by the death of some far-off, unknown relative, and whose sense of decency is not strong enough to repress his exultation.
Thus stimulated, the Legislature did not hesitate nor falter in the course marked out for it by the magnates of the
State oligarchy.
Joint resolves, providing for the call of a Convention at some early day, with a view to unconditional secession from the
Union, were piled upon each other with great energy, as if nearly every member were anxious to distinguish himself by zeal in the work.
Among others,
Mr. Robert Barnwell Rhett, on the second day of the session, offered such resolves, calling for the choice of a Convention on the 22d of November; the delegates to meet at
Columbia on the 17th of December.
Mr. Moses and others offered similar resolves in the Senate; where
Mr. Lesesne, of
Charleston, attempted to stem, or, rather, to moderate, the roaring tide, by inserting the thinnest end of the wedge of “Cooperation.”
His resolves are, in terms, as follows:
1st. Resolved, That the ascendency of the hostile, sectional, anti-Slavery party, styling themselves the Republican party, would be sufficient and proper cause for the dissolution of the Union and formation of a Southern Confederacy.
2d. Resolved, That, in case of the election of the candidates of that party to the office of President and Vice-President of the United States, instead of providing unconditionally for a Convention, the better course will be to empower the Governor to take measures for assembling a Convention so soon as any one of the other Southern States shall, in his judgment, give satisfactory assurance or evidence of her determination to withdraw from the Union.
In support of this proposition,
Mr. Lesesne spoke ably and earnestly, but without effect.
“Cooperation” had been tried in 1850-1, and had signally failed to achieve the darling purpose of a dissolution of the
Union; so the rulers of
Carolina opinion would have none of it in 1860.
Still another effort was made in the
House (November 7th), by
Mr. Trenholm, of
Charleston — long conspicuous in the councils of the
State--who labored hard to make “Cooperation” look so much like Secession that one could with difficulty be distinguished from the other.
His proposition was couched in the following terms:
Resolved, That the Committee on the Military of the Senate and House of Representatives, be instructed to meet during the recess, and to prepare a plan for arming the State, and for organizing a permanent Military Bureau; and that the said Committee be instructed to report by bill to their respective Houses on the first day of the reassembling of the General Assembly.
Resolved, That the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives be instructed to sit during the recess, and prepare a bill for raising supplies necessary to carry into effect the measure recommended by the Military Committee, and to report by bill on the first day of the reassembling of the General Assembly.
Resolved, That the Governor be requested immediately to apply the one hundred thousand dollars, appropriated by the last General Assembly, to the purchase of arms.
Resolved, That immediately after the election of the Commissioner to the State of Georgia, this General Assembly do take a recess until the third Monday, being the nineteenth day, of November, instant, at 7 o'clock.
Resolved, As the sense of this General Assembly, that the election of a Black Republican to the Presidency of the United States, will be the triumph and practical application of principles incompatible with the peace and safety of the Southern States.
Resolved, That a Commissioner be elected, by joint ballot of the Senate and House of Representatives, whose duty it shall be, in the event of Mr. Lincoln's election, to proceed immediately to Milledgeville, the
