The excitement over the Proclamation found Calhoun remote from the turmoil and in the midst of his family at Fort Hill. There he lingered to enjoy the Christmas festivities, and the day following he started to Washington to take his place in the Senate. There was much drama in this winter journey to the capital. One of his biographers has compared it to “that of Luther to attend the diet of Worms.”[570] The public was convinced of the temper of Jackson and realized the possibilities when the lion in him was aroused. To some Calhoun’s journey suggested a death march. Looked upon as the prime mover, the instigator, the leader of the seditious movement, many thought that he would be arrested on the charge of treason before he crossed the Virginia border. Interest in his progress was intense, and even among those who abhorred the new doctrine there was no little sympathy for the grim, impeccably pure statesman who had the courage to beard the lion in his den. New Year’s Day found him at Raleigh, where he rested. Here crowds gathered to welcome, or merely to observe him, and a public dinner was offered him by his admirers. This he politely declined. There was something of grandeur in the dignity of his demeanor. As he proceeded from town to town, his approach was announced and elaborate preparations were made for his reception, for both North Carolina and Virginia were devoted to State Rights, and not a few of their citizens sympathized with the Carolina doctrine, and looked upon secession as an inevitable result of the crisis. Unlike the case of Burr, nothing personally sinister clung to him. His worst enemies conceded his honesty, and this was in his favor. Mrs. Bayard Smith, echoing the sentiment of the Washington drawing-rooms, found herself wondering, on Christmas Day, if all the “high soarings” of “one of the noblest and most generous spirits” were to end “in disappointment or humiliation or in blood.”[571] That this friendly atmosphere, through which he moved, was reassuring to Calhoun, we may assume from his letter to his son on reaching the capital. Here he found “things better than anticipated” and that it was beginning to be “felt that we must succeed.”