nan adhered to the doctrine that there was
no power to coerce a seceding State. Under this baleful doctrine,
secession had secured, apparently, a free and bloodless right of
way in its mad rush to dissolve the Union and to establish a slave
empire. It was at first thought by Southern leaders wise to postpone
the formation of a "Confederacy" until Lincoln was inaugurated.
But about January 1st there came a Cabinet rupture. Floyd was
driven from it, and Joseph Holt of Kentucky, a most able and patriotic
Union man, succeeded him. Later, Edwin M. Stanton and Jeremiah
Black came into the Cabinet, Buchanan yielding to more patriotic
influences and adopting more decided Union measures, though not
based wholly on a coercive policy.

But, on January 5, 1861, a "Central Cabal," consisting of "Southern
Statesmen," who still lingered at Washington, where they could best
promote and direct the secession of the States and keep the
administration in check, if not control it, met in one of the rooms
of the _Capitol_ to devise an ultimate programme for the future.
It agreed on these propositions:

First. Immediate secession of States.

Second. A convention to meet at Montgomery, Alabama, not later
than February 15th, to organize a Confederacy.

To prevent hostile legislation under the changed and more loyal
impulses of the President and his reconstructed Cabinet, the cotton
States Senators should remain awhile in their places, to "keep the
hands of Buchanan tied."(107)

This cabal appointed Senators Jefferson Davis, Slidell, and Mallory
"to carry out the objects of the meeting."

Thus, beneath the "Dome of the Capitol," treason was plotted by
Senators and Representatives who still held their seats and official
places, and still received their pay from the United States Treasury,
for the sole purpose of enabling them the better to accomplish the
end sought. Think of the prospective President of the "Confederate
States of America," their future Minister to the Court of France,
and their future Secretary of the Navy, plotting secretly in the
Capitol at Washington to destroy the Union! But these were
treasonable times.

Through resolution of the Mississippi Legislature, the Montgomery
Convention was hastened, and it met February 4, instead of February
15, 1861, as suggested by the Washington caucus of Southern
Congressmen. The delegates from the six seceded States east of
the Mississippi assembled, and a little later (Mar