Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[218] was confirmed by the letter written by Senator Yulee (already referred to¹), on the 14th of January, in which he inclosed a copy of the resolutions passed at that meeting, in one of which they resolved to ask for instructions, whether the delegations from “seceding States” were to remain in Congress until the 4th of March, “for the purpose of defeating hostile legislation.” The other, and last, resolved “That a committee be, and are hereby, appointed, consisting of Messrs. Davis, Slidell, and Mallory, to carry out the objects of the meeting.” It was also stated, in a dispatch from Washington to the Baltimore press, dated the day after “Eaton's” revelations appeared, that “the leaders of the Southern movement are consulting as to the best mode of consolidating their interests in a confederacy under a provisional government. The plan is to make Senator Hunter, of Virginia, Provisional President, and Jefferson Davis Commander-in-chief of the Army of Defense. Mr. Hunter possesses, in a more eminent degree, the philosophical character of Jefferson than any other statesman now living.”

These revelations; the defiant attitude of the traitors in Congress, in speech and action; the revolutionary movements at Charleston; the startling picture of the perilous condition of the country, given in a Special Message of the President on the 8th,

January, 1861.

and the roar of the tornado of secession, then sweeping fearfully over the Gulf States, produced the most intense and painful excitement in the public mind. That Message of the 8th, under the circumstances, seemed like a cry of despair or a plea for mercy from the President, who seemed painfully conscious, after the departure of the South Carolina Commissioners and the disruption of his Cabinet, that faith in the promises of the conspirators, which had lured him all along into a fatal conciliatory policy, could no longer be entertained or acted upon without imminent peril to the nation and his own reputation. He perceived that the golden moment, when vigorous action on his part might have crushed the serpent of secession, had passed, and that the reptile had become a fearful dragon; and now he earnestly entreated Congress to appease the voracious appetite of the monster, and still the turbulence that alarmed the Executive, by concessions equivalent to the Crittenden Compromise. He assured that body that he considered secession a crime, and that he should attempt to collect the public revenue everywhere, so far as practicable under existing laws; at the same time he declared that his executive powers were exhausted, or were wholly inadequate to meet existing difficulties. To Congress alone, he said, “belongs the power to declare war, or to authorize the power to employ military force, in all cases contemplated by the Constitution,” and on it “alone rests the responsibility.” And yet he did not ask that body to delegate powers to him for the purpose of protecting the life of the nation. “It cannot be denied,” he said, “that we are in the midst of a great revolution ;” but instead of imploring Congress, and his political friends in it, with the spirit of a vigilant and determined patriot, to give him the means to stay its progress, he contented himself with offering insufficient reasons why he had not already done so, by re-enforcing and provisioning the garrison in Fort Sumter before it was too late, and also by urging Congress to submit to the demands of the revolutionists.