This incident caused the withdrawal from the Cabinet of
the last opposition members--Thompson, of Mississippi, the
Secretary of the Interior, and Thomas, of Maryland, the Secretary
of the Treasury. In the course of the month five Southern States
followed South Carolina out of the Union, and their Senators and
Representatives resigned from the Congress of the United States.
The resignation of Jefferson Davis was communicated to the Senate
in a speech of farewell which even now holds the imagination of
the student, and which to the men of that day, with the Union
crumbling around them, seemed one of the most mournful and
dramatic of orations. Davis possessed a beautiful, melodious
voice; he had a noble presence, tall, erect, spare, even ascetic,
with a flashing blue eye. He was deeply moved by the occasion;
his address was a requiem. That he withdrew in sorrow but with
fixed determination, no one who listened to him could doubt.
Early in February, the Southern Confederacy was formed with Davis
as its provisional President. With the prophetic vision of a
logical mind, he saw that war was inevitable, and he boldly
proclaimed his vision. In various speeches on his way South, he
had assured the Southern people that war was coming, and that it
would be long and bloody.
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