stration at Washington
would take, and the Democrats to determine what course they should
follow if the President should call for troops to put down the
insurrection.

Before we meet again, Mr. Lincoln's proclamation and call for
seventy-five thousand militia for three months' service were out,
and the great mass of the people of the North, forgetting all party
distinctions, answered with an enthusiastic patriotism that swept
politicians off their feet. When we met again on Tuesday morning,
Judge Key, taking my arm and pacing the floor outside the railing in
the Senate chamber, broke out impetuously, "Mr. Cox, the people have
gone stark mad!" "I knew they would if a blow was struck against the
flag," said I, reminding him of some previous conversations we had
had on the subject. He, with most of the politicians of the day,
partly by sympathy with the overwhelming current of public opinion,
and partly by reaction of their own hearts against the false
theories which had encouraged the secessionists, determined to
support the war measures of the government, and to make no factious
opposition to such state legislation as might be necessary to
sustain the federal administration.

The attitude of Mr. Key is only a type of many others, and makers
one of the most striking features of the time. On the 8th of January
the usual Democratic convention and celebration of the Battle of New
Orleans had taken place, and a series of resolutions had been
passed, which were drafted, as was understood, by Judge Thurman. In
these, professing to speak in the name of "two hundred thousand
Democrats of Ohio," the convention had very significantly intimated
that this vast organization of men would be found in the way of any
attempt to put down secession until the demands of the South in
respect to slavery were complied with. A few days afterward I was
returning to Columbus from my home in Trumbull County, and meeting
upon the railway train with David Tod, then an active Democratic
politician, but afterward one of our loyal "war governors," the
conversation turned on the action of the convention which had just
adjourned. Mr. Tod and I were personal friends and neighbors, and I
freely expressed my surprise that the convention should have
committed itself to what must be interpreted as a threat of
insurrection in the North if the administration should, in opposing
secession by force, follow the example of Andrew Jackson, in whose
honor they had