ecessity of an early secession, as the only
possible alternative left them.

It has already been shown that the calmness and deliberation, with which
the measures requisite for withdrawal were adopted and executed, afford
the best refutation of the charge that they were the result of haste,
passion, or precipitation. Still more contrary to truth is the
assertion, so often recklessly made and reiterated, that the people of
the South were led into secession, against their will and their better
judgment, by a few ambitious and discontented politicians.

The truth is, that the Southern people were in advance of their
representatives throughout, and that these latter were not agitators or
leaders in the popular movement. They were in harmony with its great
principles, but their influence, with very few exceptions, was exerted
to restrain rather than to accelerate their application, and to allay
rather than to stimulate excitement. As sentinels on the outer wall, the
people had a right to look to them for warning of approaching danger;
but, as we have seen, in that last session of the last Congress that
preceded the disruption, Southern Senators, of the class generally
considered extremists, served on a committee of pacification, and strove
earnestly to promote its objects. Failing in this, they still exerted
themselves to prevent the commission of any act that might result in
bloodshed.

Invention has busied itself, to the exhaustion of its resources, in the
creation of imaginary "cabals," "conspiracies," and "intrigues," among
the Senators and Representatives of the South on duty in Washington at
that time. The idle gossip of the public hotels, the sensational rumors
of the streets, the _canards_ of newspaper correspondents--whatever was
floating through the atmosphere of that anxious period--however lightly
regarded at the moment by the more intelligent, has since been drawn
upon for materials to be used in the construction of what has been
widely accepted as authentic history. Nothing would seem to be too
absurd for such uses. Thus, it has been gravely stated that a caucus of
Southern Senators, held in the early part of January, "resolved to
assume to themselves the political power of the South"; that they took
entire control of all political and military operations; that they
issued instructions for the passage of ordinances of secession, and for
the seizure of forts, arsenals, and custom-houses; with much more of the