Their confidence was based on the declarations and admissions of Mr.Buchanan's message; but they had, in effect, constructed that document themselves, and the slightest reflection should have warned them that, with the change of administration to occur in a few weeks, there would be a different understanding of Executive duty, and a different appeal to the reason of the South.
The senators from the seceding States were more outspoken than the representatives.

They took the opportunity of their retirement to say many things which, even for their own personal fame, should have been left unsaid.

A clear analysis of these harangues is impossible.

They lacked the unity and directness of the simple notifications with which the seceding representatives had withdrawn from the House.

The valedictories in the Senate were a singular compound of defiance and pity, of justification and recrimination.
Some of the speeches have an insincere and mock-heroic tone to the reader twenty years after the event.