a sectional Southern party. It had for the moment fallen into line
with the Toombs faction because, like the Whigs, it had not the courage
to do otherwise. The question now was whether it would continue fearful,
and whether political evasion would continue to reign.

The key to the history of the next four years is in the growth of this
positive Southern party, which had the inevitable result of forcing the
Whig remainder to choose, not as in 1856 between a positive sectional
policy and an evasive nonsectional policy, but in 1860 between two
policies both of which were at once positive and sectional.

CHAPTER III. THE POLITICIANS AND THE NEW DAY

The South had thus far been kept in line with the cause of political
evasion by a small group of able politicians, chief among whom were
Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and Alexander H. Stephens. Curiously enough
all three were Georgians, and this might indeed be called the day of
Georgia in the history of the South.

A different type of man, however, and one significant of a divergent
point of view, had long endeavored to shake the leadership of the
Georgian group. Rhett in South Carolina, Jefferson Davis in Mississippi,
and above all Yancey in Alabama, together with the interests and
sentiment which they represented, were almost ready to contest the
orthodoxy of the policy of "nothing doing." To consolidate the interests
behind them, to arouse and fire the sentiment on which they relied, was
now the confessed purpose of these determined men. So little attention
has hitherto been given to motive in American politics that the modern
student still lacks a clear-cut and intelligent perception of these
various factions. In spite of this fact, however, these men may safely
be regarded as being distinctly more intellectual, and as having
distinctly deeper natures, than the men who came together under
the leadership of Toombs and Cobb, and who had the true provincial
enthusiasm for politics as the great American sport.

The factions of both Toombs and Yancey were intensely Southern and,
whenever a crisis might come, neither meant to hesitate an instant over
striking hard for the South. Toombs, however, wanted to prevent such a
situation, while Yancey was anxious to force one. The former conceived
felicity as the joy of playing politics on the biggest stage, and he
therefore bent all his strength to preserving the so-called national
parties; the latter, scornful of all such union