minent men of the city came
forth and seated themselves on platforms to witness and countenance a
formal ceremony of insurrection. A white flag, bearing a palmetto tree
and the legend _Animis opibusque parati_ (one of the mottoes on the
State seal), was, after solemn prayer, displayed from a pole of
Carolina pine. Music, salutes, and huzzahs filled the air. Speeches
were addressed to "citizens of the Southern Republic." Orations and
processions completed the day, and illuminations and bonfires occupied
the night. The preparations were without stint. The proceedings and
ceremonies were conducted with spirit and abandon. The rejoicings were
deep and earnest. And yet there was a skeleton at the feast; the
Federal flag, invisible among the city banners, and absent from the
gay bunting and decorations of the harbor shipping, still floated far
down the bay over a faithful commander and loyal garrison in Fort
Moultrie.

CHAPTER XX

MAJOR ANDERSON

President Buchanan and his Administration could not, if they would,
shut their eyes to the treasonable utterances and preparations at
Charleston and elsewhere in the South; but so far neither the speeches
nor bonfires nor palmetto flags, nor even the secession message of
Governor Gist or the Convention bill of the South Carolina
Legislature, constituted a statutory offense. For twelve years the
threat of disunion had been in the mouths of the Southern slavery
extremists and their Northern allies the most potent and formidable
weapon of national politics. It was declaimed on the stump, elaborated
in Congressional speeches, set out in national platforms, and paraded
as a solemn warning in executive messages.

Mr. Buchanan had profited by the disunion cry both as politician and
functionary; and now when disunion came in a practical and undisguised
shape he was to a degree powerless to oppose it, because he was
disarmed by his own words and his own acts. The disunionists were his
partisans, his friends, and confidential counselors; they constituted
a remnant of the once proud and successful party which, by his
compliance and cooeperation in their interest, he had disrupted and
defeated. Their programme hitherto had been the policy upon which he
had staked the success or failure of his Administration, so that in
addition to every other tie he was bound to them by the common sorrow
of political disaster.

[Illustration: GENERAL ROBERT ANDERSON.]

Being in such intimate rel