Failing in this, they still exerted
themselves to prevent the commission of any act that might result in
bloodshed.
Invention has busied itself, to the exhaustion of its resources, in the
creation of imaginary "cabals," "conspiracies," and "intrigues," among
the Senators and Representatives of the South on duty in Washington at
that time. The idle gossip of the public hotels, the sensational rumors
of the streets, the _canards_ of newspaper correspondents--whatever was
floating through the atmosphere of that anxious period--however lightly
regarded at the moment by the more intelligent, has since been drawn
upon for materials to be used in the construction of what has been
widely accepted as authentic history. Nothing would seem to be too
absurd for such uses. Thus, it has been gravely stated that a caucus of
Southern Senators, held in the early part of January, "resolved to
assume to themselves the political power of the South"; that they took
entire control of all political and military operations; that they
issued instructions for the passage of ordinances of secession, and for
the seizure of forts, arsenals, and custom-houses; with much more of the
like groundless fiction. A foreign prince, who served for a time in the
Federal Army, and has since undertaken to write a history of "The Civil
War in America"--a history the incomparable blunders of which are
redeemed from suspicion of willful misstatement only by the writer's
ignorance of the subject--speaks of the Southern representatives as
having "kept their seats in Congress in order to be able to paralyze its
action, forming, at the same time, a center whence they issued
directions to their friends in the South to complete the dismemberment
of the republic.
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