“The novelty of the occasion, together with the greater facilities to reach the seat of government, brought together an immense concourse of people.... The hotels were crowded to inconvenience, private boarding-houses were increased and thronged, and every avenue to the capitol presented at all hours of the day a stirring multitude. Candidates for the various offices were as thick as blackbirds in a fresh plowed field in spring.” The new building was burned two years later, but was immediately rebuilt on substantially the same plan. Immediately on becoming the seat of government, Montgomery of course became the most important place politically in the State, and during the stirring years before the Civil War was the scene of many events which connected its history more and more closely with that of the country at large, and paved the way for the conspicuous part it was to play in ’61. The war with Mexico, like the struggle of Texas, aroused here more than a passing interest. In spite of the sad fate of Captain Ticknor’s men, its citizens enlisted again and went to the front under Captain Rush Elmore and Colonel J. J. Seibels; and during the first few weeks of its session in the new capitol the Legislature suspended routine work more than once to join in the enthusiastic receptions accorded such returning heroes as Generals Quitman and Shields. From that time until the Confederacy was born in its midst, the little city, like a mountain lake, bore on its ruffled surface traces of every storm that passed over the land. No other city reflected more vividly the heated debates in Congress over the fatal territorial problems thrust on us by the Mexican War. Nowhere else was the attitude of the South on these burning questions stated so promptly and so emphatically as in the once famous Alabama Platform, first presented by Mr. Yancey, February 14, 1848, to a great political convention assembled in the capitol. The scene was historic, and is thus described by his biographer, Mr. DuBose: “At this stage in the proceedings Mr. Yancey rose. The galleries were crowded with ladies and their escorts; the floor, lobbies, and rotunda were packed with men. He drew from his pocket his own resolutions and read them.... He spoke at length.... A vote was taken, and Yancey’s resolutions were adopted, without even one opposing voice, amidst the most enthusiastic cheering on the floor and in the lobbies, the ladies in the galleries waving their handkerchiefs in the contagion of joy.”