[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 35.

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said he looked upon the evil as a war of sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of society.  The remedy rested in the political society and State councils of the several States and not in Congress.  His State and a great many others of the slaveholding States were going into convention with a view to take up the subject for themselves, and as separate sovereign communities to determine what was best for their safety.

  [Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 5, 1860, p. 12.

Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was more reticent and politic, though no less positive and significant in his brief expressions.  As a Senator of the United States he said he was there to perform his functions as such; that before a declaration of war was made against the State of which he was a citizen he expected to be out of the Chamber; that when that declaration was made his State would be found ready and quite willing to meet it.

  [Sidenote] “Globe,” Dec. 5, 1860, p. 9.

The Republican Senators maintained for the greater part a discreet silence.  To exult in their triumph would be undignified; to hasten forward officiously with offers of pacification or submission, and barter away the substantial fruits of their victory, would not only make them appear pusillanimous in the eyes of their own party, but bring down upon them the increased contempt of their assailants.  There remained therefore nothing but silence and the feeble hope that this first fury of the disunion onset might spend itself in angry words, and be followed by calmer counsels.  Nevertheless, it was difficult to keep entirely still under the irritating provocation.  On the third day of the session, Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, replied to both the President’s message and Clingman’s speech.  Mr. Hale thought “this state of affairs looks to one of two things; it looks to absolute submission, not on the part of our Southern friends and the Southern States but of the North—­to the abandonment of their position; it looks to a surrender of that popular sentiment which has been uttered through the constituted forms of the ballot-box; or it looks to open war.  We need not shut our eyes to the fact.  It means war, and it means nothing else; and the State which has put herself in the attitude of secession so looks upon it....  If it is preannounced and determined that the voice of the majority expressed through the regular and constituted forms of the Constitution will not be submitted to, then, sir, this is not a Union of equals; it is a Union of a dictatorial oligarchy on the one side, and a herd of slaves and cowards on the other.  That is it, sir; nothing more, nothing less.”