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| Secession Hall, Charleston, S. C. |
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This performance of South Carolina, applauded by several of the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States, suddenly and strongly foreshadowed to me certain consequences in the near future.
War appeared to me inevitable.
An incident will show how strongly I was impressed.
I took dinner at the Mills House with Governor Barry of the South Carolina delegation, at his invitation, given a day or two before.
After dinner we were pacing up and down the veranda of the Mills House, not in a very talkative mood, and I cast my eye over the building, counting its stories and looking at its extent.
Barry, to rally me, said: “Why, Butler, what are you examining this building so critically for?
Are you thinking of coming down here and setting up as a tavern-keeper?”
“ Oh, no, Governor,” I answered: “I was thinking of something very different from that, because of South Carolina's secession from the convention this morning.
I was making a mental calculation as to how many troops could be comfortably quartered in this hotel.”
“Oh,” said he, “it won't come to that.”
“God grant that it may not,” was my reply.
The friends of Mr. Douglas had not the least hope of carrying the convention if the two thirds rule of national Democratic conventions, established in 1844, under which Polk was nominated as against Van Buren, should be sustained.
I also learned that the Douglas leaders had formulated the plan that if they could get a majority vote for
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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