confederates, he thundered out his anathemas of hatred and vengeance on
what he was pleased to call 'Northern tyranny.' It was only when the
crisis came, that others unfolded together their base character and
their hypocrisy. Davis, who had been fondled by New-Englanders but a
year or two since, and Hunter, who had cried for peace and compromise,
standing forth at last in the true light of traitors, and thereby
proclaiming their past life a game of hypocrisy. Toombs, therefore, who
was an original fire-eater, and hence could not be called a hypocrite,
has become less an object of hatred to us of the loyal States, than
those who, while they sat at the cabinet councils, or were admitted to
the confidence of the Executive, or were sent to foreign courts, or
presided over the Upper House, were using the power of such high trusts
for the consummation of a conspiracy against their country, yet
retaining the cant of patriotism and feigning a devotion to the Union.
We have dwelt almost exclusively, in the present chapter, upon Senators
whose highest honors have been tarnished or obliterated by the gravest
of crimes, that of treason toward a vast community. But it has been
with the idea that the least should be presented first, and that the
greater should close the scene; as in royal processions, the monarch
always brings up the rear. We conceive that the great talents which we
have acknowledged, and which doubtless all will agree with us in
acknowledging, the leaders of the Southern rebellion to possess, only
enhance the magnitude of their offense, and serve to illustrate with
greater force the enormity of their purposes. That a brainless fanatic
like Lord George Gordon, or the Neapolitan fisherman, Massaniello,
should stir up tremendous agitation, may be matter for critical study,
but is hardly a subject of wonder. But that men gifted with exalted
ability, undoubted caution, well-balanced intellect, and apparently
refined reason, all of which have been appreciated and acknowledged,
should propound an erroneous doctrine of a chaotic system, and proceed