The Day of the Confederacy | Page 5

use

Anderson's coup as an excuse for resigning. See Rhodes, "History of
the United States," vol. II pp. 225, 236 (note).
The Georgia Governor, who had not hitherto been in the front rank of
the aggressives, now struck a great blow. Senator Toombs had
telegraphed from Washington that Fort Pulaski, guarding the Savannah
River, was "in danger." The Governor had reached the same conclusion.
He mustered the state militia and seized Fort Pulaski. Early in the
morning on January 3,1861, the fort was occupied by Georgia troops.
Shortly afterward, Brown wrote to a commissioner sent by the
Governor of Alabama to confer with him: "While many of our most
patriotic and intelligent citizens in both States have doubted the
propriety of immediate secession, I feel quite confident that recent
events have dispelled those doubts from the minds of most men who
have, till within the past few days, honestly sustained them." The first
stage of the secession movement was at an end; the second had begun.
A belief that Washington had entered upon a policy of aggression
swept the lower South. The state conventions assembling about this
time passed ordinances of secession--Mississippi, January 9; Florida,
January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, January 19; Louisiana,
January 26; Texas, February 1. But this result was not achieved without
considerable opposition. In Georgia the Unionists put up a stout fight.
The issue was not upon the right to secede--virtually no one denied the
right--but upon the wisdom of invoking the right. Stephens, gloomy
and pessimistic, led the opposition. Toombs came down from
Washington to take part with the secessionists. From South Carolina
and Alabama, both ceaselessly active for secession, commissioners
appeared to lobby at Milledgeville, as commissioners of Alabama and
Mississippi had lobbied at Columbia. Besides the out-and-out Unionists,
there were those who wanted to temporize, to threaten the North, and to
wait for developments. The motion on which these men and the
Unionists made their last stand together went against them 164 to 133.
Then at last came the square question: Shall we secede? Even on this
question, the minority was dangerously large. Though the temporizers
came over to the secessionists, and with them came Stephens, there was
still a minority of 89 irreconcilables against the majority numbering

208.
"My allegiance," said Stephens afterwards, "was, as I considered it, not
due to the United States, or to the people of the United States, but to
Georgia, in her sovereign capacity. Georgia had never parted with her
right to demand the ultimate allegiance of her citizens."
The attempt in Georgia to restrain impetuosity and advance with
deliberation was paralleled in Alabama, where also the aggressives
were determined not to permit delay. In the Alabama convention, the
conservatives brought forward a plan for a general Southern convention
to be held at Nashville in February. It was rejected by a vote of 54 to 45.
An attempt to delay secession until after the 4th of March was defeated
by the same vote.
The determination of the radicals to precipitate the issue received
interesting criticism from the Governor of Texas, old Sam Houston. To
a commissioner from Alabama who was sent out to preach the cause in
Texas the Governor wrote, in substance, that since Alabama would not
wait to consult the people of Texas he saw nothing to discuss at that
time, and he went on to say:
Recognizing as I do the fact that the sectional tendencies of the Black
Republican party call for determined constitutional resistance at the
hands of the united South, I also feel that the million and a half of
noble-hearted, conservative men who have stood by the South, even to
this hour, deserve some sympathy and support. Although we have lost
the day, we have to recollect that our conservative Northern friends cast
over a quarter of a million more votes against the Black Republicans
than we of the entire South. I cannot declare myself ready to desert
them as well as our Southern brethren of the border (and such, I believe,
will be the sentiment of Texas) until at least one firm attempt has been
made to preserve our constitutional rights within the Union.
Nevertheless, Houston was not able to control his State. Delegates from
Texas attended the later sessions of a general Congress of the seceding
States which, on the invitation of Alabama, met at Montgomery on the
4th of February. A contemporary document of singular interest today is

the series of resolutions adopted by the Legislature of North Carolina,
setting forth that, as the State was a member of the Federal Union, it
could not accept the invitation of Alabama but should send delegates
for the purpose of persuading the South to effect a readjustment on the
basis of the Crittenden Compromise as modified by the Legislature of
Virginia.