This movement gave offense to the Southern men who still remained in Congress, and Mr.Branch of North Carolina offered a resolution declaring that "the quartering of troops around the capital was impolitic and offensive," and that, "if permitted, it would be destructive of civil liberty, and therefore the troops should be forthwith removed." The House laid the resolution on the table by a vote of 125 to 35.

Ex-President Tyler had formally complained to the President from the Peace Congress, that United- States troops were to march in the procession which was to celebrate the 22d of February.

When so many of the Southern people were engaged in seizing the forts and other property of the government, it was curious to witness their uneasiness at the least display of power on the part of the National Government.
The tone of Secretary Holt's report to the President in regard to the marshaling of troops in the National Capital was a manifestation of courage in refreshing contrast with the surrounding timidity.
He stated in very plain language that "a revolution had been in progress for the preceding three months in several of the Southern States;" that its history was one of "surprise, treacheries, and ruthless spoliations;" that forts of the United States had been captured and garrisoned, and "hostile flags unfurled from the ramparts;" that arsenals had been seized, and the arms which they contained appropriated to the use of the captors; that more than half a million of dollars, found in the mint of New Orleans, had been unscrupulously applied to replenish the treasury of Louisiana; that a conspiracy had been entered into for the armed occupation of Washington as part of the revolutionary programme; and that he could not fail to remember that, if the early admonitions in regard to the designs of lawless men in Charleston Harbor had been acted on, and "adequate re-enforcements sent there before the revolution began, the disastrous political complications which ensued might not have occurred." The inauguration of Mr.Lincoln was an immense relief to the country.
There had been an undefined dread throughout the Northern States, colored and heightened by imagination, that Mr.Lincoln would in some way, by some act of violence or of treachery, be deprived of the Presidency, and the government thrown into anarchy.

Mr.
Breckinridge was the Vice-President, and there had been a vague fear that the count of the electoral votes, over which he presided, would in some way be obstructed or tampered with, and that the regularity of the succession might be interrupted, and its legitimacy stained.

But Mr.Breckinridge had performed his official duty with scrupulous fidelity, and Mr.Lincoln had been declared by him, in the presence of the two Houses of Congress, to be lawfully and constitutionally elected President of the United States.