After the secession of South Carolina the other Gulf States hesitated briefly.  Mississippi followed first; her convention assembled January 7, 1861, and on January 9 passed the ordinance, 84 yeas to 15 nays, subsequently making the vote unanimous.  The Florida convention met January 3, and on January 10 decreed the State to be “a sovereign and independent nation,” 62 yeas to 7 nays.  The Alabama convention passed its ordinance on January 11 by 61 yeas to 39 nays; the President announced that the idea of reconstruction must be forever “dismissed.”  Yet the northern part of the State appeared to be substantially anti-secession.  In Georgia the Secessionists doubted whether they could control a convention, yet felt obliged to call one.  Toombs, Cobb, and Iverson labored with tireless zeal throughout the State; but in spite of all their proselyting, Unionist feeling ran high and debate was hot.  The members from the southern part of the State ventured to menace and dragoon those from the northern part, who were largely Unionists.  The latter retorted angrily; a schism and personal collisions were narrowly avoided.  Alexander H. Stephens spoke for the Union with a warmth and logic not surpassed by anything that was said at the North.  He and Herschel V. Johnson both voted against secession; yet, on January 18, when the vote was taken, it showed 208 yeas against 89 nays.  On January 26 Louisiana followed, the vote of the convention being 113 yeas to 17 nays; but it refused to submit the ordinance to the people for ratification.  The action of Texas, the only other State which seceded prior to the inauguration of Lincoln, was delayed until February 1.  There Governor Houston was opposing secession with such vigor as remained to a broken old man, whereby he provoked Senator Iverson to utter the threat of assassination:  “Some Texan Brutus may arise to rid his country of this old hoary-headed traitor.”  But in the convention, when it came to voting, the yeas were 166, the nays only 7.

By the light that was in him Mr. Buchanan was a Unionist, but it was a sadly false and flickering light, and beneath its feeble illumination his steps staggered woefully.  For two months he diverged little from the path which the Secessionist leaders would have marked out for him, had they controlled his movements.  At the time of the election his cabinet was:—­

  Lewis Cass of Michigan, secretary of state. 
  Howell Cobb of Georgia, secretary of the treasury. 
  John B. Floyd of Virginia, secretary of war. 
  Isaac Toucey of Connecticut, secretary of the navy. 
  Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, secretary of the interior. 
  Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee, postmaster-general. 
  Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, attorney-general.

Of these men Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson were extreme Secessionists.  Many felt that Cobb should have been made President of the Southern Confederacy instead of Davis.  In December Thompson went as commissioner from Mississippi to North Carolina to persuade that State to secede, and did not resign his place in the cabinet because, as he said, Mr. Buchanan approved his mission.