ave States.

Throughout the North the feeling was strong against all efforts at
coercion. Most democratic papers and many republican ones insisted
loudly that use of arms was not to be mentioned, and that the South must
be conciliated. A democratic convention met at Albany in January, to
protest against forcible measures. The sentiment that if force were to
be used it should be "inaugurated at home," here evoked hearty response.
There were signs of even a deeper disaffection. An ex-governor of New
Jersey declared that his State would join the Confederacy. Mayor Wood,
of New York, proposed that if the Union were broken up, his city should
announce herself an independent republic.

At Washington matters were still worse. President Buchanan, loyal but
weak, feared to lift a finger. In his December message to Congress, he
insisted that a State had no right to secede, but that the United States
had no power to coerce a State which should secede. A majority of his
cabinet were southern men, three of them zealous secessionists. His most
intimate friends in Congress were southerners. These surrounded the
vacillating Chief Magistrate, and paralyzed what little energy was in
him, meanwhile taking advantage of his inaction to launch the
Confederacy. Now and then, spurred on by loyal old General Scott and by
the Union members of his cabinet, the President tried to break away from
the toils which the conspirators had spun around him. The Star of the
West was secretly sent with supplies and recruits to re-enforce Fort
Sumter. But Secretary Thompson warned South Carolina, and when the
vessel arrived off Charleston, January 9th, hostile batteries fired upon
her and forced her out to sea again. Another plan to relieve the fort
was half formed, but came to nothing. Buchanan's term was on the point
of expiring, and he sat supinely looking on while the disruption of the
Union proceeded apace.

The northern side in Congress showed little wisdom or spirit. Most
northern congressmen truckled to the South or wasted their energies in
fruitless attempts at compromise. Both houses, each by more than a
two-thirds majority, recommended a constitutional amendment depriving
Congress forever of the power to touch slavery in any State without the
consent of all the States. In December the venerable Crittenden, of
Kentucky, laid before the Senate his famous Suggestions for Compromise.
These, besides embodying the above amendment, restored the Missouri