usly aloof from the insurrectionary ranks--that calm, conservative
class, which is recognized by all as the basis of every society which
has acquired, or having acquired, hopes to retain, stability of
government and security of morals. The sentiments of the speaker were
too well known to admit of any doubts as to the probable character of
his address. He appeared as the undisguised advocate of secession. No
form of appeal or argument was neglected which could have had weight
with a people peculiarly susceptible to the influence of oratory.
Setting aside the question of the approaching election, to which he
scarcely alluded, the orator strove only to show that it was an
imperative social necessity that the South should have a vast and
constantly increasing slave territory; that in the path of this
necessity the only obstacle was the Federal Union, and that the time for
its destruction had now come. These were the representative arguments of
his party before the election, and he did not speak to an unsympathizing
audience. For when toward the close, raising his voice until it broke
almost in a scream, he exclaimed, 'Let the night which decides the
election of Mr. Lincoln be ushered in by the booming of the hostile
cannon of the South,' the hall rang again and again with the shouts of
his excited hearers. But _nemo repente turpissimus semper fuit_. These
were not the sentiments of all. There was a large class present who did
not applaud--but neither did they hiss. They seemed for the time
overawed by the energy of the spirit which had suddenly sprung up among
them.

In the following week, however, a singular, though, unfortunately, but
momentary check was given to the progress of insurrectionary sentiments
in the vicinity of the city. Senator DOUGLAS, who had been slowly
advancing, in his oratorical tour, down the coast, was about this time
announced to speak in Montgomery. Since his speech in Norfolk, where he
was thought to have expressed himself too clearly against secession, a
strong prejudice had grown up in the South against him, and it now
threatened to manifest itself in acts of positive violence. Such was the
state of popular feeling, that for a time it seemed uncertain whether it
would be desirable for him to attempt to speak. Hints of peculiar
personal outrages were thrown out by men of a certain class; and
threats were made of something still more ominous in case he should
attempt to repeat the sentiments of hi