From the very commencement of this long three-months debate, it was the policy of the Southern leaders to make it appear that the Southern States were in an attitude of injured innocence and defensiveness against Northern aggression. Hence, it was that, as early as December 5th, on the floor of the Senate, through Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, they declared: "All we ask is to be allowed to depart in Peace. Submit we will not; and if, because we will not submit to your domination, you choose to make War upon us, let God defend the Right!" At the same time it was esteemed necessary to try and frighten the North into acquiescence with this demand to be "let alone." Hence such utterances as those of Clingman and Iverson, to which reference has already been made, and the especially defiant close of the latter's speech, when--replying to the temperate but firm Union utterances of Mr. Hale--the Georgia Senator said: "Sir, I do not believe there will be any War; but if War is to come, let it come; we will meet the Senator from New Hampshire and all the myrmidons of Abolitionism and Black Republicanism everywhere upon our own soil; and, in the language of a distinguished member from Ohio in relation to the Mexican War, we will 'welcome you with bloody hands to hospitable graves.'" On the other hand, in order to encourage the revolting States to the speedy commission of overt acts of Rebellion and violence, that would precipitate War without a peradventure, utterances fell from Southern lips, in the National Senate Chamber, like those of Mr. Wigfall, when he said, during this first day of the debate: "Frederick the Great, on one occasion, when he had trumped up an old title to some of the adjacent territory, quietly put himself in possession and then offered to treat. Were I a South Carolinian, as I am a Texan, and I knew that my State was going out of the Union, and that this Government would attempt to use force, I would, at the first moment that that fact became manifest, seize upon the Forts and the arms and the munitions of war, and raise the cry 'To your tents, O Israel, and to the God of battles be this issue!" And, as we have already seen, the Rebels of the South were not slow in following the baleful advice to the letter. But it was not many days after this utterance when the Conspirators against the Union evidently began to fear that the ground for Rebellion, upon which they had planted themselves, would be taken from under their feet by the impulse of Compromise and Concession which stirred so strongly the fraternal spirit of the North. That peaceful impulse must be checked and exasperated by sneers and impossible demands. Hence, on December 12th we find one of the most active and favorite mouthpieces of Treason, Mr. Wigfall, putting forth such demands, in his most offensive manner.