[
80]
revealed to the country, in bold outlines, the plans and intentions of the plotters against the life of the nation, in speeches marked by a superciliousness of tone and manner exceedingly offensive at that time, but perfectly ridiculous when viewed in the light of history to-day.
They evidently felt confident of success in all their treasonable undertakings.
They knew how well their people were prepared for military operations, by means of the teachings of their State military schools for years, their drillings during the past year, and the wealth of the arsenals in the Slave-labor States, made so by the impoverishment of those of the
North, by the
Secretary of War.
They had arranged deep plans, which were afterward carried out, for the subjugation of the
people of the Slave-labor States to their will; and they felt well assured that the great party in the Free-labor States which had been in political sympathy with them would keep the sword of the
Republic in its scabbard, while commerce, ever sensitive to the least disturbance of its peace and quiet, would join hands with the politicians in keeping bound in triple chains the fierce dogs of war.
Senator Iverson, a man over sixty years of age, and a member of the Military Committee of the Senate, startled that body by his boldness in seditious speech.
He admitted that a State had no constitutional right to secede, but he claimed for all the right of revolution.
He then announced that the Slave-labor States intended to revolt.
“We intend to go out of this Union,” he said.
“I speak what I believe, that, before the 4th of March, five of the Southern States, at least, will have declared their independence. . . . Although there is a clog in the way of the lone-star State of Texas, in the person of her Governor (Houston), who will not consent to call her Legislature together, and give the people of that State an opportunity to act, yet the public sentiment there is so decided in favor of this movement, that even the Governor will be overridden; and if he does not yield to public sentiment, some Texan Brutus
will arise to rid his country of the hoary-headed incubus that stands between the people and their sovereign will.
We intend to go out peaceably, if we can; forcibly, if we must.
I do not believe there is going to be war.. . If five or eight States go out of this Union, I would like to see the man who would propose a declaration of war against them, or attempt to force them into obedience to the
Federal Government at the point of the bayonet or the sword. . . We shall, in the next twelve months, have a Confederacy of the
Southern States, and a government, inaugurated and in successful operation, which, in my opinion, will be a government of the greatest prosperity and power that the world has ever seen.
There will be no war, in my opinion. . . . The fifteen Slave States, or the five of them now moving, banded together in one government, and united as they are soon to be, would defy the world in arms, much less the
Northern States of this Confederacy.
Fighting on our own soil, in defense of our own sacred rights and honor, we could not be conquered, even by the combined forces of all the other States*; and sagacious, sensible men in the ”
