opposed to the Republican party, the belief that the South was
justified in taking steps to break up the government, if what they
termed a war on Southern institutions should be continued. This
feeling had in turn a most injurious influence in the South, and
stimulated thousands in that section to a point of rashness which
they would never have reached but for the sympathy and support
constantly extended to them from the North. Even if a conflict of
arms should be the ultimate result of the Secession movement, its
authors and its deluded followers were made to believe that, against
a South entirely united, there would be opposed a North hopelessly
divided. They were confident that the Democratic party in the free
States held the views expressed in Mr. Buchanan's message. They
had conclusively persuaded themselves that the Democrats, together
with a large proportion of the conservative men in the North who
had supported Mr. Bell for the Presidency, would oppose an "abolition
war," and would prove a distracting and destructive force in the
rear of the Union army if it should ever commence its march
Southward.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE RESIGNS.

The most alarming feature of the situation to reflecting men in
the North was that, so far as known, all the members of Mr. Buchanan's
Cabinet approved the destructive doctrines of the message. But as
the position of the President was subjected to examination and
criticism by the Northern press, uneasiness was manifested in
Administration circles. It was seen that if the course foreshadowed
by Mr. Buchanan should be followed, the authority of the Union
would be compelled to retreat before the usurpations of seceding
States, and that a powerful government might be quietly overthrown,
without striking one blow of resistance, or uttering one word of
protest. General Cass was the first of the Cabinet to feel the
pressure of loyalty from the North. The venerable Secretary of
State, whose whole life had been one of patriotic devotion to his
country, suddenly realized that he was in a false position. When
it became known that the President would not insist upon the
collection of the national revenue in South Carolina, or upon the
strengthening of the United-States forts in the harbor of Charleston,
General Cass concluded that justice to his own reputation required
him to separate from the Administration. He resigned on the twelfth
of