CHAPTER XI.
Congress during the Winter of 1860-61 .-- Leave-taking of Senators and Representatives .-- South Carolina the First to secede .-- Her Delegation in the House publish a Card withdrawing .-- Other States follow .-- Mr.Lamar of Mississippi .-- Speeches of Seceding Senators.
-- Mr.Yulee and Mr.Mallory of Florida .-- Mr.Clay and Mr.Fitzpatrick of Alabama .-- Jefferson Davis .-- His Distinction between Secession and Nullification .-- Important Speech by Mr.Toombs .-- He defines Conditions on which the Union might be allowed to survive .-- Mr.
Iverson's Speech .-- Georgia Senators withdraw .-- Insolent Speech of Mr.Slidell of Louisiana .-- Mr.Judah P.Benjamin's Special Plea for his State .-- His Doctrine of "A Sovereignty held in Trust."-- Same Argument of Mr.Yulee for his State .-- Principle of State Sovereignty .-- Disproved by the Treaty of 1783 .-- Notable Omission by Secession Senators .-- Grievances not stated .-- Secession Conventions in States .-- Failure to state Justifying Grounds of Action .-- Confederate Government fail likewise to do it .-- Contrast with the Course of the Colonies .-- Congress had given no Cause .-- Had not disturbed Slavery by Adverse Legislation .-- List of Measures Favorable to Slavery .-- Policy of Federal Government steadily in that Direction.
-- Mr.Davis quoted Menaces, not Acts .-- Governing Class in the South.
-- Division of Society there .-- Republic ruled by an Oligarchy .-- Overthrown by Election of Lincoln .-- South refuses to acquiesce.
No feature of the extraordinary winter of 1860-61 is more singular in retrospect than the formal leave-taking of the Southern senators and representatives in their respective Houses.

Members of the House from the seceding States, with few exceptions, refrained from individual addresses, either of farewell or defiance, but adopted a less demonstrative and more becoming mode.

The South-Carolina representatives withdrew on the 24th of December (1860), in a brief card laid before the House by Speaker Pennington.

They announced that, as the people of their State had "in their sovereign capacity resumed the powers delegated by them to the Federal Government of the United States," their "connection with the House of Representatives was thereby dissolved." They "desired to take leave of those with whom they had been associated in a common agency, with mutual regard and respect for the rights of each other." They "cherished the hope" that in future relations they might "better enjoy the peace and harmony essential to the happiness of a free and enlightened people." SOUTHERN REPRESENTATIVES WITHDRAW.
Other delegations retired from the House in the order in which their States seceded.

The leave-taking, in the main, was not undignified.