g the guns and burning the gun-carriages and cutting
down the flag-staff of an adjacent fort, which was then
abandoned. South Carolina had not taken Fort Sumter into her own
possession, only because of her misplaced confidence in a
Government which deceived her."

Thus, during the remainder of Mr. Buchanan's Administration, matters
went rapidly from bad to worse. The old statesman, who, with all his
defects, had long possessed, and was entitled still to retain, the
confidence due to extensive political knowledge and love of his country
in all its parts--who had, in his earlier career, looked steadily to the
Constitution, as the mariner looks to the compass, for guidance--retired
to private life at the expiration of his term of office, having effected
nothing to allay the storm which had been steadily gathering during his
administration.

Timid vacillation was then succeeded by unscrupulous cunning; and, for
futile efforts, without hostile collision, to impose a claim of
authority upon people who repudiated it, were substituted measures which
could be sustained only by force.

[Footnote 111: "Revised Statutes of Massachusetts," 1836, p. 56.]

[Footnote 112: See "Revised Statutes of Virginia."]

[Footnote 113: "Buchanan's Administration," chap. ix, p. 165, and chap.
xi, pp. 212-214.]

[Footnote 114: "Buchanan's Administration," chap. ix, p. 166.]

[Footnote 115: Ibid.]

[Footnote 116: Ibid., chap. x, p. 180.]

[Footnote 117: See Appendix G.]

[Footnote 118: "Buchanan's Administration," chap. x, pp. 187, 188.]

[Footnote 119: "Buchanan's Administration," chap. x, p. 184.]

[Footnote 120: See "Congressional Globe," second session, Thirty-fifth
Congress, Part I, p. 284, _et seq._]

[Footnote 121: See Appendix I.]

[Footnote 122: Ibid.]

CHAPTER III.

Secession of Mississippi and Other States.--Withdrawal of
Senators.--Address of the Author on taking Leave of the
Senate.--Answer to Certain Objections.

Mississippi was the second State to withdraw from the Union, her
ordinance of secession being adopted on the 9th of January, 1861. She
was quickly followed by Florida on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, and,
in the course of the same month, by Georgia on the 18th, and Louisiana
on the 26th. The Conventions of these States (together with that of
South Carolina) agreed in designating Montgomery, Alabama, as the place,
and the 4th of February as the day, for the assembling