n Congress than in the
country. Occasionally some irritated Northern Republican shot out words
of spirit; but the prevalent desire was for conciliation, compromise,
and concession, while some actually adopted secession doctrines. For
example, Daniel E. Sickles, in the House, threatened that the secession
of the Southern States should be followed by that of New York city; and
in fact the scheme had been recommended by the Democratic mayor,
Fernando Wood, in a message to the Common Council of the city on January
6; and General Dix conceived it to be a possibility. In the Senate Simon
Cameron declared himself desirous to preserve the Union "by any
sacrifice of feeling, and I may say of principle." A sacrifice of
political principle by Cameron was not, perhaps, a serious matter; but
he intended the phrase to be emphatic, and he was a leading Republican
politician, had been a candidate for the presidential nomination, and
was dictator in Pennsylvania. Even Seward, in the better days of the
middle of January, felt that he could "afford to meet prejudice with
conciliation, exaction with concession which surrenders no principle,
and violence with the right hand of peace;" and he was "willing, after
the excitement of rebellion and secession should have passed away, to
call a convention for amending the Constitution."

This message of Buchanan marked the lowest point to which the
temperature of his patriotism fell. Soon afterward, stimulated by heat
applied from outside, it began to rise. The first intimation which
impressed upon his anxious mind that he was being too acquiescent
towards the South came from General Cass. That steadfast Democrat, of
the old Jacksonian school, like many of his party at the North, was
fully as good a patriot and Union man as most of the Republicans were
approving themselves to be during these winter months of vacillation,
alarm, and compromise. In November he was strenuously in favor of
forcibly coercing a seceding State, but later assented to the tenor of
Mr. Buchanan's message. The frame of mind which induced this assent,
however, was transitory; for immediately he began to insist upon the
reinforcement of the garrisons of the Southern forts, and on December 13
he resigned because the President refused to accede to his views. A few
days earlier Howell Cobb had had the grace to resign from the Treasury,
which he left entirely empty. In the reorganization Philip F. Thomas of
Maryland, a Secessionist