sident.

The streets were crowded to suffocation and tents were necessary to
accommodate the people who could not be housed.

He was surprised at the strange quiet which the spirit of the new
President had communicated to the people. There was no loud talk, no
braggadocio, no threats, no clamor for war. On the contrary there had
suddenly developed an overwhelming desire for a peaceful solution of the
crisis.

The Convention which had unanimously elected Jefferson Davis, President,
and Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President, had relegated the hot heads
and fire eaters to the rear.

Three great agitators had really created the new nation, William L.
Yancey of Alabama, Robert Toombs of Georgia and Barnwell Rhett of South
Carolina. And they were consumed with ambition for the Presidency.

Toombs was the most commanding figure among the uncompromising advocates
of secession in the South--an orator of consummate power, a man of wide
learning and magnetic personality. William L. Yancey was as powerful an
agitator as ever stirred the souls of an American audience since the
foundation of our Republic. Barnwell Rhett of the Charleston _Mercury_
was the most influential editor the country had ever produced.

Yet the suddenness with which these fiery leaders were dropped in the
hour of crisis was so amazing to the men themselves they had not yet
recovered sufficient breath to begin complaints.

Toombs destroyed what chance he ever had by getting drunk at a banquet
the night before the Convention met. William L. Yancey's turbulent
history ruled him out of consideration. He had killed his father-in-law
in a street brawl. Rhett's extreme views had been the bugle call to
battle but something more than sound was needed now.

Toombs was dropped even for Vice-President for Alexander H. Stephens,
the man who had pleaded in tears with his State not to secede.

The highest honor had been forced on the one man in all the South who
most passionately wished to avoid it.

So acute was the consciousness of tragedy there was scarcely a ripple of
applause at public functions where Socola had looked for mad enthusiasm.

The old Constitution had been reenacted with no essential change. The
new President had even insisted that the Provisional Congress retain the
old flag as their emblem of nationality with only a new battle flag for
use in case of war. The Congress over-ruled him at this point with an
emphasis which they meant as a rebuke t