For the senators, representatives, and agents in Washington
confidentially report that the code of honor is needed to restrain
the Northerners under personal dragooning. Yankee self-assertion
comes at last.

Around the real leaders of thought their vassals are ranged. Davis,
Toombs, Breckinridge, Yancey, Pryor, Wigfall, Wise, and others
direct. Herbert, Keith, Lamar, Brooks, and a host of cavaliers are
ready with trigger and cartel. The tone at Washington gives the
keynote to the Californian agents of the Southern Rights movement.
There are not enough Potters, Wades, and Landers, as yet. The
Northern mind needs time to realize the deliberation of Secession.

The great leaders of the free States are dead or in the gloomy
retirement of age. Webster and Clay are no more. There are yet men
of might to fight under the banners streaming with the northern
lights of freedom. Douglas, Bell, Sumner, Seward, and Wade are drawing
together. Grave-faced Abraham Lincoln moves out of the background
of Western woods into the sunrise glow of Liberty's brightest day.

On the Pacific coast, restraint has never availed. Here, ancestry
and rank go for naught. Here, men meet without class pride. The
struggle is more equal.

California's Senator, David C. Broderick, was the son of an humble
New York stone-cutter. He grapples with his wily colleague, Senator
Gwin.

It is hammer against rapier. Richard and Saladin. Beneath the