On the 13th of November, South Carolina called a Convention to consider the dangers incident to her position in the Federal Union which, on December 20th, unanimously adopted an ordinance of secession. Three weeks later Mississippi declared herself out of the Union and was promptly followed by Florida, Alabama and Georgia. By the 20th of May eleven States had seceded. The President looked on it as a lawsuit between the States and exhausted his very respectable legal learning and ingenuity in proving that he had no power to raise his hand in defense of the country. It may be that the lawyer, with his quiddits and quillets, had survived the man. It may be that he had so long breathed the atmosphere of treason in the Cabinet counsels that he was tinctured with the widely prevalent pestilence. It is much more likely that the timorous old man, finding his term of office ending amid universal ruin, his friends and masters rushing into mad rebellion against his Government, weakly adopted that famous sentiment of the French King: "It will outlast my time." Congress met on the third of December. In his message the President charged the entire trouble to the aggressive anti-slavery activity of the North, which had at last driven the South to open rebellion. He protested that he was powerless to act and referred the whole matter to Congress. Three of the Cabinet were serving the enemy and many seats in the House and Senate were held by unblushing traitors. The forts in Charleston harbor were besieged by South Carolina. The Government at first dared not and later could not relieve them. Congress, if not as completely palsied as the President, was without remedy for the fearful evils of the time. Besides its quota of positive traitors, many of its members were infected with the mild, moonshiny political philosophy which had been currently in Washington for a quarter of a century. Many were about to retire to private life, and, like Buchanan, thought the Government would outlast their time. A famous Senate Committee of Thirteen, and a corresponding House Committee of Thirty-three, were appointed to consider the state of the Nation; both of which toiled much and accomplished nothing.