Mr. Lincoln said during a discussion of the impending crisis:
"I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
"I have always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. I have always been an old-line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision I would vote that it should."
Notwithstanding the confident tone of Mr. Lincoln's statement that he did "not expect the house to fall," it did fall, and great was the fall thereof!
On Saturday, 9th of February, 1861, six seceding States met at Montgomery, Alabama, and organized an independent government. The ordinances of secession were passed by the States as follows:
| STATE. | DATE. | YEAS. | NAYS. |
| South Carolina | Dec. 20, 1860 | 169 | —— |
| Mississippi | Jan. 9, 1861 | 84 | 15 |
| Alabama | Jan. 11, 1861 | 61 | 39 |
| Florida | Jan. 11, 1861 | 62 | 7 |
| Georgia | Jan. 19, 1861 | 228 | 89 |
| Louisiana | Jan. 25, 1861 | 113 | 17 |
The following delegates presented their credentials and were admitted and represented their respective States:
Alabama.—R. W. Walker, R. H. Smith, J. L. M. Curry, W. P. Chilton, S. F. Hale Colon, J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, David P. Lewis, Thomas Fearn.
Florida.—James B. Owens, J. Patten Anderson, Jackson Morton (not present).
Georgia.—Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, F. S. Bartow, M. J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. Cobb, A. H. Kenan, A. H. Stephens.
Louisiana.—John Perkins, Jr., A. Declonet, Charles M. Conrad, D. F. Kenner, G. E. Sparrow, Henry Marshall.
Mississippi.—W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, N. S. Wilson, A. M. Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison.
South Carolina.—R. B. Rhett, R. W. Barnwell, L. M. Keitt, James Chestnut, Jr., C. G. Memminger, W. Porcher Miles, Thomas J. Withers, W. W. Boyce.
A president and vice-president were chosen by unanimous vote. President—Honorable Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. Vice-President—Honorable Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia. The following gentlemen composed the Cabinet:
Secretary of State, Robert Toombs; Secretary of Treasury, C. G. Memminger; Secretary of Interior (Vacancy); Secretary of War, L. P. Walker; Secretary of Navy, John Perkins, Jr.; Postmaster-General, H. T. Ebett; Attorney-General, J. P. Benjamin.
The Constitution of the Confederate Government did not differ so very radically from the Federal Constitution. The following were the chief points: