it is instructive to read
an extract from a hitherto unpublished letter from Governor Henry A.
Wise, of Virginia, to a gentleman in Philadelphia, for a copy of which
we are indebted to General Duncan S. Walker. The other letter of
Wise--previously quoted--shows us his part and interest in the proposed
conspiracy against Fremont; but the erratic Governor had, after the
lapse of nearly two years, become an anti-Lecompton-Douglasite, and was
ready to give confidential warning of designs with which he was only
too familiar. As this was written nearly three weeks before Yancey's
"Scarlet Letter," its concurrent testimony is of special significance
as proof of the chronic conspiracy:

"RICHMOND, VA., "May 28, 1858.
"To WM. SERGEANT, ESQ.:

"... The truth is that there is in the South an organized,
active, and dangerous faction, embracing most of the Federal
politicians, who are bent upon bringing about causes of a
dissolution of the Union. They desire a united South, "but not a
united country. Their hope of embodying a sectional antagonism is
to secure a sectional defeat. At heart, they do not wish the
Democracy to be any longer national, united, or successful. In
the name of Democracy they propose to make a nomination for 1860,
at Charleston; but an ultra nomination of an extremist on the
slavery issue alone, to unite the South on that one idea, and on
that to have it defeated by a line of sectionalism which will
inevitably draw swords between fanatics on one side and
fire-eaters on the other. Bear it in mind, then, that they desire
to control a nomination for no other purpose than to have it
defeated by a line of sections. They desire defeat, for no other
end than to make a pretext for the clamor of dissolution....

"Yours truly,

"HENRY A. WISE." MS.

[2] "I am a secessionist and not a revolutionist, and would not
'precipitate,' but carefully prepare to meet an inevitable dissolution."
--Yancey to Pryor, "Richmond South," copied in "National Intelligencer,"
September 4, 1858.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CABINET CABAL

Very soon after the effort to unite the Cotton-State governors in the
revolutionary plot, we find the local conspiracy at Charleston in
communication with the central secession cabal at Washington. James
Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, was still President of the United States,
and his Cabinet consisted of the following members: Lewis Cass, of
Michigan, Secretar