The militia and fire departments of the District of Columbia were modest affairs then, but their members were alert to the growing possibilities of trouble. Some who were secession sympathizers formed themselves into rifle clubs and drilled privately at night; while the Unionists built up a little body of minutemen, who elected their own officers and secreted stands of arms at the Capitol and other convenient points, so that they could respond instantly, wherever they chanced to be, to a summons for emergency service. Day after day brought its budget of news from the South, saddening or thrilling. Thomas and Floyd quitted the Cabinet, Dix became Secretary of the Treasury, and Holt Secretary of War. In January, 1861, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi seceded, seizing all the forts, vessels, and other Government property on which they could lay hands; and Dix put upon the wire his historic despatch to his special agent at New Orleans, “If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot,” but it was intercepted and never reached its destination. February witnessed the secession of Texas, the election of Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander H. Stephens as Vice-president of the Confederate States of America, and the withdrawal of several Senators and Representatives from the United States Congress. The only cheering news of the month was the refusal of Tennessee and Missouri to secede, though both States contained a multitude of citizens who would have preferred to do so. Daily the galleries of Congress were crowded with spectators representing all shades of opinion and at times uncontrollable in their expressions of approval or disapproval. When the House voted to submit a Constitutional amendment forbidding the interference of Congress with slavery or any other State institution, one element in the gallery burst into deafening applause; the opposing element in the Senate became equally boisterous in applauding a speech by Andrew Johnson, denouncing as a traitor any man who should fire upon the flag or conspire to take over Government property for the Confederacy. The difference in the treatment of the two outbreaks was significant: that in the House was merely rebuked in words, but in the Senate the gallery was cleared and closed to spectators for the rest of the day.