Surely nothing more could the conspirators have desired. On the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina claims to secede--Government forts and arsenals are seized, and placed under the protection of the flag of the State. Georgia’s Governor lays hand on the United States forts on the coast of that State, on the 3d of January, 1861; as did the Executive of Alabama on the following day. Events of a startling nature follow in rapid succession. On the 9th of January, hostile shots are fired upon a vessel bringing tardy reinforcements to Fort Sumter, and Mississippi assumes to put herself out of the Union. Alabama, Florida, and Georgia are not laggard; nor are Texas and Louisiana found wanting. Cabinet officers from the slave States either resigned, after having aided the fell work to their utmost, or remained only to hasten its consummation. A new constitution, “temporary” in its nature, was declared by delegates from the seven States then in rebellion, and a President and Vice-President appointed. Meanwhile a convention, composed of delegates from most of the Free States, and from all the border Slave States, was striving, at Washington, to heal existing difficulties by compromise. Of its members some were acting in good faith, others were using it as a breakwater for the States already in overt rebellion. A series of resolutions, however, aiming at peace on the basis of a preserved Union was agreed to by a majority, and the body adjourned on the 1st of March. On the 11th of February, moreover, the National House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution--shortly afterward concurred in by the Senate--providing for an amendment to the Constitution, forever prohibiting any Congressional legislation interfering with slavery in any State. Some there were, too, who were willing to concede almost every thing and surrender the long mooted question of slavery in the territories by the adoption of the so-called Crittenden resolutions, which were killed in cold blood by Southern Senators. But no concession, short of actual national degradation, would satisfy the recusants. Jefferson Davis, the head of the “Confederacy,” on placing himself at the head of the rebellion, at Montgomery, Alabama, February 18th, modestly defined the position of himself and his co-conspirators thus: “If a just perception of neutral interest shall permit us peaceably to pursue our separate political career, my most earnest desire will have been fulfilled. But if this be denied us, and the integrity of our territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us with firm resolve to appeal to arms, and invoke the blessing of Providence on a just cause.” This was at once clinched by a recommendation that “a well-instructed, disciplined army, more numerous than would usually be required, on a peace establishment,” should be at once organized and put in training for the emergency. CHAPTER V. TO WASHINGTON.