Not one of them deemed it necessary to justify his conduct by a recital of the grounds on which so momentous a step could bear the test of historic examination.

They dealt wholly in generalities as to the past, and apparently based their action on something that was to happen in the future.

Mr.John Slidell sought to give a strong reason for the movement, in the statement that, if Lincoln should be inaugurated with Southern assent, the 4th of March would witness, in various quarters, outbreaks among the slaves which, although they would be promptly suppressed, would carry ruin and devastation to many a Southern home.

It was from Mr.Slidell that Mr.Buchanan received the information which induced him to dwell at length in his annual message on this painful feature of the situation.

But it was probably an invention of Mr.Slidell's fertile brain--imposed upon the President and intended to influence public sentiment in the North.