Texan
Brutus will arise to rid his country of the hoary-headed incubus that
stands between the people and their sovereign will. We intend, Mr.
President, to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 14.

Senator Wigfall, of Texas, took a high revolutionary attitude. "We
simply say that a man who is distasteful to us has been elected and we
choose to consider that as a sufficient ground for leaving the Union."
He said he should "introduce a resolution at an early moment to
ascertain what are the orders that have gone from the War Department to
the officers in command of those forts" at Charleston. If the people of
South Carolina believed that this Government would hold those forts,
and collect the revenues from them, after they had ceased to be one of
the States of this Union, his judgment was that the moment they became
satisfied of that fact they would take the forts, and blood would then
begin to flow.

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 35.

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said he looked upon the evil as a war of
sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of
society. The remedy rested in the political society and State councils
of the several States and not in Congress. His State and a great many
others of the slaveholding States were going into convention with a
view to take up the subject for themselves, and as separate sovereign
communities to determine what was best for their safety.

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 5, 1860, p. 12.

Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was more reticent and politic,
though no less positive and significant in his brief expressions. As a
Senator of the United States he said he was there to perform his
functions as such; that before a declaration of war was made against
the State of which he was a citizen he expected to be out of the
Chamber; that when that declaration was made his State would be found
ready and quite willing to meet it.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 9.

The Republican Senators maintained for the greater part a discreet
silence. To exult in their triumph would be undignified; to hasten
forward officiously with offers of pacification or submission, and
barter away the substantial fruits of their victory, would not only
make them appear pusillanimous in the eyes of their own party, but
bring down upon them the increased contempt of their assailants. There
remained therefore nothing but