for the
formation of a government perfectly friendly to the North, with which,
indeed, a board of commissioners would soon arrange the terms of a
peaceful international trade. After the passage of this ordinance,
however, a slight modification of this argument became necessary. Peace
was conditioned upon unanimity. Unionists were now called upon to render
their support to the new government in order to secure peace. If it was
clear that the State was united in favor of the changed condition of
things, there would be no difficulty, it was said, to procure, amid the
divisions of the North, a peaceful recognition of the confederacy. The
factions of the Northern States would never allow the Federal Government
to attempt to coerce a united people. Thus the very weapons which
loyalty had used to arm herself were here wrested to her own
destruction. To insure peace, men became insurrectionists.

It is useless now to surmise what would have been the result if the
action of the Federal Government in reference to the question of
secession at the beginning of the rebellion, had been less ambiguous. It
is enough to know, what was for many weeks so painfully realized by
every Northerner in the South, that had the Southern people, by any
means, been brought to understand that Federal laws were protected by
sanctions, and that an attempt at disunion would certainly be followed
by war, the question of secession would never have become a formidable
issue. But while men believed, as many of the Unionists did, that
secession was an experiment, attended with no danger to themselves, and
which would more than likely result, after a few years, in a peaceful
reconstruction of the Union on terms more favorable to the South, there
is little occasion for wonder that the cause of disunion met with no
very earnest, or, at least, prolonged opposition.

The passage of the ordinance of secession gave to the disunionists an
incalculable advantage. It is true, the Union feeling was deep, and in
many places strongly aroused, but the State had seceded, the new
government was quietly and apparently solidly forming itself, profitable
offices were in its gift, and, added to all, the conservative spirit
whispered its old motto, _quieta non movere_, and the hands which had
been raised in weak resistance fell harmlessly back.

In the mean while, at the capitol, another work was going on. The
convention, having established by ordinance the independence of th