The South had always contended for the right of States to instruct their senators, but now the Southern senators proceeded to instruct their States.

In effect they sent out commands to the governing authorities and to the active political leaders, that South Carolina must be sustained; that the Cotton States must stand by her; and that the secession of each and all of them must be accomplished in season for a general convention to be held at Montgomery, not later than Feb.

15, and, in any event, before the inauguration of Mr.Lincoln.

The design was that the new President of the United States should find a Southern Confederacy in actual existence, with the ordinary departments of government in regular operation, with a name and a flag and a great seal, and all the insignia of national sovereignty visible.
It is a suggestive fact that, in carrying out these designs, the political leaders determined, as far as possible, to prevent the submission of the ordinances of Secession to the popular vote.

It is not indeed probable that, in the excited condition to which they had by this time brought the Southern mind, Secession would have been defeated; but the withholding of the question from popular decision is at least an indication that there was strong apprehension of such a result, and that care was taken to prevent the divisions and acrimonious contests which such submission might have caused.
In the Georgia convention the resolution declaring it to be her right and her duty to secede was adopted only by a vote of 165 to 130.