cutives, for obvious reasons.

This should be done as early as possible before the Presidential
election, and I would suggest Monday, the 13th of October next.
Will you please give me an early answer, and oblige,

Yours most truly and respectfully,

HENRY A. WISE.

His Excellency Thomas W. Ligon,
Governor of Maryland.

If any explanation were needed of the evident purpose of this letter,
or of the proposed meeting, it may be found in the following from
Senator Mason, of Virginia, to Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, who
was at the time Secretary of War under President Pierce:

[Sidenote] O.J. Victor, "American Conspiracies," p. 520.

SELMA, NEAR WINCHESTER, Va., Sept. 30, 1856.

MY DEAR SIR: I have a letter from Wise, of the 27th, full of
spirit. He says the Governors of North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Louisiana have already agreed to rendezvous at Raleigh, and
others will--this in your most private ear. He says, further, that
he had officially requested you to exchange with Virginia, on fair
terms of difference, percussion for flint muskets. I don't know
the usage or power of the department In such cases, but if it can
be done, even by liberal construction, I hope you will accede. Was
there not an appropriation at the last session for converting
flint into percussion arms? If so, would it not furnish good
reason for extending such facilities to the States? Virginia
probably has more arms than the other Southern States, and would
divide, in case of need. In a letter yesterday to a committee in
South Carolina, I give it as my judgment, in the event of
Fremont's election, the South should not pause, but proceed at
once to "immediate, absolute, and eternal separation." So I am a
candidate for the first halter.

Wise says his accounts from Philadelphia are cheering for old Buck
in Pennsylvania. I hope they be not delusive. _Vale et Salute_
[sic].

J.M. MASON.

Colonel Davis.

In these letters we have an exact counterpart of the later and
successful efforts of these identical conspirators, conjointly with
others, to initiate rebellion. When the Senatorial campaign of 1858
between Lincoln and Douglas was at its height, there was printed in
the public journals of the Southern States the following extraordinary
letter, which at once challenged the attention of the whole reading
public of