tifying allegation in the document was notoriously
untrue.

Instead of the argument being exhausted, it was scarcely begun. So far
from Congressional or constitutional relief having been refused, the
Southern demand for them had not been formulated. Not only had no
committee denied hearing or action, but the Democratic Senate, at the
instance of a Southern State, had ordered the Committee of Thirteen,
which the Democratic and Southern Vice-President had not yet even
appointed; and when the names were announced a week later, Jefferson
Davis, one of the signers of this complaint of non-action, was the only
man who refused to serve on the committee--a refusal he withdrew when
persuaded by his co-conspirators that he could better aid their designs
by accepting. On the other hand, the Committee of Thirty-three, raised
by the Republican House, appointed by a Northern Speaker, and presided
over by a Northern chairman, had the day before by more than a
two-thirds vote distinctly tendered the Southern people "any reasonable,
proper, and constitutional remedies and effectual guarantees."

Outside of Congressional circles there was the same absence of any new
complications, any new threats, any new dangers from the North. Since
the day when Abraham Lincoln was elected President there had been
absolutely no change of word or act in the attitude and intention of
himself or his followers. By no possibility could they exert a particle
of adverse political power, executive, legislative, or judicial, for
nearly three months. Not only was executive authority in the hands of a
Democratic Administration, which had made itself the peculiar champion
of the Southern party, but it had yielded every successive demand of
administrative policy made by the conspirators themselves. The signers
of this address to their Southern constituents had not one single
excuse.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE FORTY MUSKETS

Like the commandant of Fort Moultrie, the other officers of the
garrison keenly watched the development of hostile public sentiment,
and the steady progress of the secession movement. Some had their wives
and families with them, and to the apprehensions for the honor of their
flag, and the welfare of their country, was added a tenderer solicitude
than even that which they felt for their own lives and persons.
Hostility from the constituted authorities of South Carolina or a
tumultuary outbreak of the Charleston rabble was liable to bring