"I say that all through last winter (that of 1860-61) War had been inaugurated in all those parts of the Country where disturbed elements could have efficient result. In January (1861), a year ago, I stood in the hall of the House of Representatives of my State, and there was War then, and angry faces and hostile men were gathered; and we knew then well that the Southern States had determined to withdraw themselves from the Federal Union.
"I happened to be one of those men who said, 'they shall not do it;' and it appears to me that the whole argument is between that class of men and the class of men who said they would let them do it. * * * When this doctrine was started here of disintegrating the Cotton States from the rest of the Confederacy, I opposed it at once. I saw immediately that War was to be invoked. * * *
"I will not say these things were understood by gentlemen of the Republican Party * * * but I, having been accepted and received as a Democrat of the old school from the olden time, and HAVING FAST SOUTHERN SYMPATHIES, I DID KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM. * * * I KNOW THAT SECESSION WAS A THING DETERMINED UPON. * * * I was advised of and understood the whole programme, KNEW HOW IT WAS TO BE DONE IN ITS DETAILS; and I being advised, made war against it. * * *
"War had been, in fact, inaugurated. What is War? Was it the firing on our flag at Sumter? Was that the first adversary passage? To say so, is trifling with men's judgments and information. No, sir; when they organized a Government, and set us at defiance, they commenced War; and the various steps they took afterwards, by organizing their troops, and forming their armies, and advancing upon Sumter; all these were merely acts of War; but War was inaugurated whenever they undertook to say they would maintain themselves as a separate and independent government; and, after that time, every man who gave his assistance to them was a Traitor, according to the highest Law."
The following letter, written by one of the most active of the Southern conspirators in 1858, during the great Douglas and Lincoln Debate of that year, to which extended reference has already been made, is of interest in this connection, not only as corroborative evidence of the fact that the Rebellion of the Cotton States had been determined on long before Mr. Lincoln was elected President, but as showing also that the machinery for "firing the Southern heart" and for making a "solid South" was being perfected even then. The subsequent split in the Democratic Party, and nomination of Breckinridge by the Southern wing of it, was managed by this same Yancey, simply as parts of the deliberate programme of Secession and Rebellion long before determined on by the Cotton Lords of the Cotton States.
"MONTGOMERY, June 15, 1858.
"DEAR SIR:—Your kind favor of the 13th is received.
"I hardly agree with you that a general movement can be made that will clean out the Augean Stable. If the Democracy were overthrown it would result in giving place to a greedier and hungrier swarm of flies.
"The remedy of the South is not in such a process. It is in a diligent organization of her true men for prompt resistance to the next aggression. It must come in the nature of things. No National Party can save us. No Sectional Party can ever do it. But if we could do as our fathers did—organize 'Committees of Safety' all over the Cotton States (and it is only in them that we can hope for any effective movement), we shall fire the Southern heart, instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and at the proper moment, by one organized, concerted action, we can precipitate the Cotton States into a revolution.
"The idea has been shadowed forth in the South by Mr. Ruffin; has been taken up and recommended in the Advertiser under the name of 'League of United Southerners,' who, keeping up their old relations on all other questions, will hold the Southern issues paramount, and influence parties, legislatures and statesmen. I have no time to enlarge, but to suggest merely.