the army was
dispersed, the navy was scattered. The national prestige was humbled,
the national sentiment despondent, the national faith disturbed.

Meanwhile their intrigues had been successful beyond hope. The
Government was publicly committed to the fatal doctrine of
non-coercion, and was secretly pursuing the equally fatal policy of
concession. Reenforeements had been withheld from Charleston, and must,
from motives of consistency, be withheld from all other forts and
stations. An unofficial stipulation, with the President, and a
peremptory order to Anderson, secured beyond chance the safe and early
secession of South Carolina, and the easy seizure of the Government
property. The representatives of foreign governments were already
secretly coquetting for the favor of a free port and an advantageous
cotton-market. Friendly voices came to the South from the North, in
private correspondence, in the public press, even in the open debates
of Congress, promising that cities should go up in flames and the fair
country be laid waste before a single Northern bayonet should molest
them in their meditated secession.

Upon such a real or assumed state of facts the conspirators based their
theory, and risked their chances of success in dismembering the
republic,--and it must be admitted that they chose their opportunity
with a skill and foresight which for a considerable period of time gave
them immense advantages over the friends of the Union. One vital
condition of success, however, they strangely overlooked, or rather,
perhaps, deliberately crowded out of their problem--the chance of civil
war, without foreign intervention. For the present their whole plan
depended upon the assumption that they could accomplish their end by
means of the single instrumentality of peaceable secession; and with
this view they proceeded to put their scheme into prompt execution.

[Sidenote] Correspondence New York "Tribune", Dec. 10, 1860.

The House Committee of Thirty-three had been organized by the selection
of Thomas Corwin as its chairman, and had entered hopefully upon the
task confided to it. A caucus of active conspirators was said to have
been held the week previous, to intimidate the members from the Cotton
States and induce them to refuse to serve on the committee, but this
coercive movement only partly succeeded. The Committee of Thirty-three
held a long meeting on December 12, and now, on the morning of the
13th, was once more