The Republicans had been taunting Southern men with the intention of using only bluster and bravado, and if they should now fail to take a decisive step in the direction of Disunion, they felt that it would be a humiliating retraction of all they had said in the long struggle over slavery.

It would be an invitation to the Abolitionists and fanatics of the North, to deal hereafter with the South, and with the question of slavery, in whatever manner might seem good in their sight.

No weapon of logic could have been more forcible; and, wielded as it was by Southern leaders with skill and courage, they were able to consolidate the public opinion and control the political action of their section.
The evil effects of Mr.Buchanan's message were not confined to the slave States.

It did incalculable harm in the free States.
It fixed in the minds of tens of thousands of Northern men who were opposed to the Republican party, the belief that the South was justified in taking steps to break up the government, if what they termed a war on Southern institutions should be continued.

This feeling had in turn a most injurious influence in the South, and stimulated thousands in that section to a point of rashness which they would never have reached but for the sympathy and support constantly extended to them from the North.