flag--inciting the
people to demand instant hostilities against Fort Sumter--and to cross a
Rubicon of blood, over which there could be no return.

Many of the Rebel leaders seemed to be haunted by the fear (no doubt
well founded) that unless blood was shed--unless an impassable barrier,
crimsoned with human gore, was raised between the new Confederacy and
the old Union--there would surely be an ever-present danger of that
Confederacy falling to pieces. Hence they were now active in working
the people up to the required point of frenzy.

As a specimen of their speeches, may be quoted that of Roger A. Pryor,
of Virginia, who, at Charleston, April 10, 1861, replying to a serenade,
said:--[Charleston Mercury's report.]

'Gentlemen, I thank you, especially that you have at last annihilated
this accursed Union [Applause] reeking with corruption, and insolent
with excess of tyranny. Thank God, it is at last blasted and riven by
the lightning wrath of an outraged and indignant people. [Loud
applause.] Not only is it gone, but gone forever. [Cries of, 'You're
right,' and applause.] In the expressive language of Scripture, it is
water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up. [Applause.]
Like Lucifer, son of the morning, it has fallen, never to rise again.
[Continued applause.]

"For my part, gentlemen," he continued, as soon as he could be heard,
"if Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to-morrow were to abdicate their
offices and were to give me a blank sheet of paper to write the
condition of re-annexation to the defunct Union, I would scornfully
spurn the overture. * * * I invoke you, and I make it in some sort a
personal appeal--personal so far as it tends to our assistance in
Virginia--I do invoke you, in your demonstrations of popular opinion, in
your exhibitions of official intent, to give no countenance to this idea
of reconstruction. [Many voices, emphatically, 'never,' and applause.]

"In Virginia," resumed he, "they all say, if reduced to the dread
dilemma of this memorable alternative, they will espouse the cause of
the South as against the interest of the Northern Confederacy, but they
whisper of reconstruction, and they say Virginia must abide in the
Union, with the idea of reconstructing the Union which you have
annihilated. I pray you, gentlemen, rob them of that idea. Proclaim to
the World that upon no condition, and under no circumstances, will South
Carolina ever again enter into poli