“States Rights--The ark of our safety; every attempt to violate them should be regarded as highly obnoxious to the holy spirit of the Constitution.” Nor was their zest for politics a mere fondness for empty debate or idle personalities. It was an innate love for public affairs, a desire to discuss and to take part in whatever touched the public welfare. Now it was a question of State versus national power in the Creek region, and they with other Alabamians took such a lively hand in it that Francis S. Key, the author of _The Star Spangled Banner_, had to be sent down as special commissioner to smooth matters over. A year later it was Texas struggling against the absolutism of Santa Anna, and so keen was the interest felt at Montgomery that a mass-meeting was held in the theatre, funds were contributed, and a company of forty men under Captain Ticknor was raised in the immediate neighborhood. In addition to the princely pay of $8 a month, there was the uncertain promise of a square mile of land out there. They got just six feet of it; for they were massacred after surrender at Goliad. In 1840, their attention was engrossed by the picturesque “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” campaign. Log cabins, coon-skins, and hard cider were seen on every hand, and the “Great ball,” which the Whig enthusiasts rolled through so many cities as a spectacular admonition to “keep the ball rolling,” passed through the streets inscribed with denunciations of the Nullifiers. [Illustration: ALABAMA STATE CAPITOL WHERE PRESIDENT DAVIS WAS INAUGURATED.] But, after all, the event which made politics a prominent feature of life at Montgomery was the removal thither of the State capital. Tuscaloosa, its location at that time, not being accessible enough, a constitutional amendment was adopted providing for its removal, and on January 28, 1846, the Legislature, after a hot contest, selected Montgomery as the site. Two days later, the Selma stage brought the news to the city. Next day there was a grand procession, and at night there were bonfires and a jollification that would have gladdened the soul of old Andrew Dexter. His desire was to be fulfilled, and the capitol was to stand on the very lot he had reserved for it on Goat Hill nearly thirty years before. The new building, erected by the city, was ready in the fall of ’47; the archives in one hundred and thirteen boxes were laboriously brought from Tuscaloosa in thirteen wagons, at a cost of $1325--figures as significant of poor transportation facilities as they are full of the magical number thirteen--and all was ready for the Legislature, which met in December. The effect on the city is vividly described in Garrett’s _Public Men_: