GEORGIA SENATORS WITHDRAW.

Three weeks later the Georgia senators withdrew. Georgia had on
the 19th of January, after much dragooning, passed the Ordinance
of Secession, and on the 28th, Mr. Alfred Iverson, the colleague
of Mr. Toombs, communicated the fact to the Senate in a highly
inflammatory speech. He proclaimed that Georgia was the sixth
State to secede, that a seventh was about to follow, and that "a
confederacy of their own would soon be established." Provision
would be made "for the admission of other States," and Mr. Iverson
assured the Senate that within a few months "all the slave-holding
States of the late confederacy of the United States will be united
together in a bond of union far more homogenous, and therefore more
stable, than the one now being dissolved." His boasting was
unrestrained, but his conception of the contest which he and his
associates were inviting was pitiably inadequate. "Your conquest,"
said he, addressing the Union senators, "will cost you a hundred
thousand lives and a hundred millions of dollars."

The conclusion of Mr. Iverson's harangue disclosed his fear that
after all Georgia might prefer the old Union. "For myself," said
he, "unless my opinions greatly change, I shall never consent to
the reconstruction of the Federal Union. The Rubicon is passed,
and with my consent shall never be recrossed." But these bold
declarations were materially qualified by Mr. Iverson when he
reflected on the powerful minority of Union men in Georgia, and
the general feeling in that State against a conflict with the
National Government. "In this sentiment," said he, "I may be
overruled by the people of my State and of the other Southern
States." . . . "Nothing, however, will bring Georgia back except
a full and explicit recognition and guaranty of the safety and
protection of the institution of domestic slavery." This was the
final indication of the original weakness of the secession cause
in Georgia, and of the extraordinary means which were taken to
impress the people of that State with the belief that secession
would lead to reconstruction on a basis of more efficient protection
to the South and greater strength to the whole Union.

On the 4th of February Mr. Slidell and Mr. Benjamin delivered their
valedictories as senators from Louisiana. Mr. Slidell was aggressively
insolent. He informed the Senate that if any steps should be taken
to enforce the aut