The enthusiastic devotion which these distant States showed to the Union was therefore a surprise to the South and a most welcome relief to the National Government.

The vote which Governor Stanford received in September, 1861, shows how rapid, radical, and complete was the political revolution caused in California by the Southern Rebellion.

The Bell and Everett campaign had been conducted upon the single and simple platform of the Union and the Constitution,--devotion to the Union, obedience to the Constitution.

A large share of the responsibility for the dangerous development of the Rebellion must therefore be attributed to John Bell and his half million Southern supporters, who were all of the old Whig party.

But they are responsible for permitting a party whose rank and file did not outnumber their own to lead captive the public opinion of the South, and for permitting themselves to be pressed into a disavowal of their political principles…

The precipitate manner in which the Southern men of the ancient Whig faith yielded their position as friends of the Union was an instructive illustration of the power which a compact and desperate minority can wield in a popular struggle.

In a secret ballot, where every man could have voted according to his own convictions and desires, the Secession scheme would have been defeated in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

In such a contest conservatism always goes down, and radicalism always triumphs.

By reckless daring a minority of Southern men raised a storm of sectional passion to which the friends of the Union bowed their heads and surrendered.

In the day of their strength the Whigs could not have been overborne in the South by the Secessionists, nor would the experiment have been tried.

In the South, though always resting under the imputation of not being so devoted to the support of Slavery as their opponents, they yet maintained themselves, by the power of intellect and by the prestige of chivalric leadership, in some…

In their training, in their habits of mind, in their pride and independence, in their lack of discipline and submission, they were perhaps specially fitted for opposition, and not so well adapted as men of less power, to the responsibility…

If their work cannot be traced in the National statute-books as prominently as that of their opponents, they will be credited by the discriminating reader of our political annals as the English of to-day credit Charles James Fox and his…

The very shock of arms in the harbor of Charleston, it was believed by many, might upon sober second thought induce Southern men to pause and consider and negotiate before taking the fatal plunge.

The situation was startling and serious, and for the first time people began to realize that we were to have a war with bloody fighting and much suffering, with limitless destruction of property, with costly sacrifice of life.

The Senate, though deprived by secession of many able men from the South, presented an imposing array of talent, statesmanship, and character.

He was brilliant from his youth upward; had led the Maine Legislature when but a few years beyond his majority; and, at a time when members of the legal profession are struggling for a first foot-hold, he had stepped to the front rank in…

He possessed that peculiar strength with the people--the most valuable and most enduring a public man can have--which comes from a sense of pride in the ability and character of the representative.

The general character of his mind was conservative, and he had the heartiest contempt of every thing that savored of the demagogue in the conduct of public affairs.

He was never swayed from his conclusion by the passion of the hour, and he met the gravest responsibilities with even mind.

He had a lofty disregard of personal danger, possessing both moral and physical courage in a high degree.

In the periods of excitement through which the party was about to pass, his judgment was sure to prove of highest value--influenced, as it always was, by patriotism, and guided by conscience.

Without power as an orator, he was listened to in the Senate with profound attention, as one who never offered counsel that was not needed.

He carried into the Senate the gravity, the dignity, the weight of character, which enabled him to control more ardent natures; and he brought to a later generation the wisdom and experience acquired in a long life devoted to the service…

He had abounding confidence in himself, possessed moral courage of a high order, and did not know the sensation of physical fear.