and its hopes--with every thought bent, every nerve strained to
the one vital point--preparation! One could only have expected measures
simple as energetic; laws clear, concise and comprehensive; care only
for the arming, organizing and maintenance of the people.

Blessed are they who expect nothing! One glance at the "Congress of the
Confederate States of America," as it sat in the Capitol at Montgomery,
told the whole story of its organization and of its future usefulness.

The states went out of the union, separately and at different periods,
by the action of conventions. These were naturally composed of men who
had long been prominently before the people, urging the measures of
secession. As a matter of course, the old political workers of each
section, by fair means and foul, were enabled to secure election to
these conventions; and, once there, they so fevered and worked upon the
public mind, amid rapidly succeeding events, that its after-thought
could neither be reasonable nor deliberate. The act of secession once
consummated, the state connected itself with the Confederacy and
representatives had to be sent to Montgomery. Small wonder that the men
most prominent in the secession conventions should secure their own
election, as little regard to fitness as ability being had by the
excited electors.

The House of Representatives at Montgomery looked like the Washington
Congress, viewed through a reversed opera-glass. The same want of
dignity and serious work; the same position of ease, with feet on desk
and hat on head; the same buzzing talk on indifferent subjects; often
the very same men in the lobbies--taking dry smokes from unlit cigars;
all these elements were there in duplicate, if somewhat smaller and
more concentrated. No point in Montgomery was remote enough--no
assemblage dignified enough--to escape the swoop of the lobby vulture.
His beak was as sharp and his unclean talons as strong as those of the
traditional bird, which had blinked and battened so long on the eaves
of the Washington edifice. When "the old concern" had been dismembered,
limbs had been dragged whole to aid in the construction of the new
giant; and scenting these from afar, he hastened hither fierce for his
fresh banquet.

Glancing down from the gallery of the House, many were the familiar
faces peering over the desks; and, even where one did not know the
individual, it was easy to recognize the politician by trade among the
rosy and