prostrated by a distressing cough which
threatened pneumonia. But ever and anon his eagle eye assumed its wonted
brilliancy. He was surrounded by a number of his devoted friends, who
listened with rapt attention to his surpassing eloquence. A test
question, indicative of the purpose of the Convention to adjourn without
action, had that day been carried by a decided majority. The governor
once rose from his recumbent position on the sofa and said, whatever the
majority of Union men in the Convention might do, or leave undone,
Virginia must array herself on one side or the other. She must fight
either Lincoln or Davis. If the latter, he would renounce her, and
tender his sword and his life to the Southern Confederacy. And although
it was apparent that his _physique_ was reduced, as he said, to a mere
"bag of bones," yet it was evident that his spirit yet struggled with
all its native fire and animation.

Soon after President Tyler came in. I had not seen him for several
years, and was surprised to find him, under the weight of so many years,
unchanged in activity and energy of body and mind. He was quite as
ardent in his advocacy of prompt State action as Wise. Having recently
abandoned the presidency of the Peace Congress at Washington, in despair
of obtaining concessions or guarantees of safety from the rampant powers
then in the ascendency, he nevertheless believed, as did a majority of
the statesmen of the South, that, even then, in the event of the
secession of all the Southern States, presenting thus a united front, no
war of great magnitude would ensue. I know better, from my residence in
the North, and from the confessions of the Republicans with whom I have
been thrown in contact; but I will not dissent voluntarily from the
opinions of such statesmen. I can only, when my opinion is desired,
intimate my conviction that a great war of the sections might have been
averted, if the South had made an adequate _coup d'etat_ before the
inauguration of Lincoln, and while the Democratic party everywhere was
yet writhing under the sting and mortification of defeat. _Then_ the arm
of the Republican party would have been paralyzed, for the attitude of
the Democratic party would at least have been a menacing one; but _now_,
the Government has been suffered to fall into the possession of the
enemy, the sword and the purse have been seized, and it is _too late_ to
dream of peace--in or out of the Union. Submission will be dishono