ely"
to Washington. This dispatch was laid before the Governor and the
members of Congress from the State who were in conference with him,
and it was decided that I should comply with, the summons ... On
arrival at Washington, I found, as had been anticipated, that my
presence there was desired on account of the influence which it was
supposed I might exercise with the President (Mr. Buchanan) in
relation to his forthcoming message to Congress. On paying my respects
to the President, he told me that he had finished the rough draft of
his message, but that it was still open to revision and amendment, and
that he would like to read it to me. He did so and very kindly
accepted all the modifications which I suggested. The message was,
however, afterwards somewhat changed.

In the documents we have presented, though they manifestly form but
the merest fragment of the secret correspondence which passed between
the chief conspirators, and of the written evidence recorded by them
in various forms, then and afterwards, we have a substantial unmasking
of the combined occult influences which presided over the initiatory
steps of the great American Rebellion--its central council--the master
wheel of its machinery--and the connecting relation which caused all
its subordinate parts to move in harmonious accord.

With the same mind to dictate a secession message to a Legislature and
a non-coercion message to Congress--to assemble insurrectionary troops
to seize Federal forts and withhold Government troops from their
protection--to incite governors to rebellion and overawe a weak
President to a virtual abdication of his rightful authority, history
need not wonder at the surprising unity and early success of the
conspiracy against the Union.

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[1] Printed on pages 791 to 794 in "The Life and Times of Robert E.
Lee," etc. By a distinguished Southern journalist. (E.A. Pollard,
author of "The Lost Cause.")

CHAPTER XIX

FROM THE BALLOT TO THE BULLET

The secret circular of Governor Gist, of South Carolina, heretofore
quoted, inaugurated the great American Rebellion a full month before a
single ballot had been cast for Abraham Lincoln. This was but
repeating in a bolder form the action taken by Governor Wise, of
Virginia, during the Fremont campaign four years before. But, instead,
as in that case, of confining himself to a proposed consultation among
slave-State executives, Governor Gist proceeded almost immediat