secession. Had the issue been pressed at the moment when the
excitement was at its highest point, an isolated and very serious
movement might have occurred, which South Carolina, without
doubt, would have promptly responded to."[18]

[18] Claiborne, Quitman, II. 52.


In Georgia, evidence as to "which way the wind blows" was
received by the Congressional trio, Alexander Stephens, Toombs,
and Cobb, from trusted observers at home. "The only safety of the
South from abolition universal is to be found in an early
dissolution of the Union." Only one democrat was found justifying
Cobb's opposition to Calhoun and the Southern Convention.[19]

[19] July 1, 1849. Corr., p. 170 (Amer. Hist. Assoc., Annual
Report, 1911, vol. II.).


Stephens himself, anxious to "stick to the Constitutional Union"
reveals in confidential letters to Southern Unionists the rapidly
growing danger of disunion. "The feeling among the Southern
members for a dissolution of the Union . . . is becoming much
more general." "Men are now [December, 1849] beginning to talk of
it seriously who twelve months ago hardly permitted themselves to
think of it." "Civil war in this country better be prevented if
it can be." After a month's "farther and broader view", he
concluded, "the crisis is not far ahead . . . a dismemberment of
this Republic I now consider inevitable."[20]