Toombs was the most commanding figure among the uncompromising advocates of secession in the South--an orator of consummate power, a man of wide learning and magnetic personality. William L. Yancey was as powerful an agitator as ever stirred the souls of an American audience since the foundation of our Republic. Barnwell Rhett of the Charleston _Mercury_ was the most influential editor the country had ever produced.
Yet the suddenness with which these fiery leaders were dropped in the hour of crisis was so amazing to the men themselves they had not yet recovered sufficient breath to begin complaints.
Toombs destroyed what chance he ever had by getting drunk at a banquet the night before the Convention met. William L. Yancey's turbulent history ruled him out of consideration. He had killed his father-in-law in a street brawl. Rhett's extreme views had been the bugle call to battle but something more than sound was needed now.
Toombs was dropped even for Vice-President for Alexander H. Stephens, the man who had pleaded in tears with his State not to secede.
The highest honor had been forced on the one man in all the South who most passionately wished to avoid it.
So acute was the consciousness of tragedy there was scarcely a ripple of applause at public functions where Socola had looked for mad enthusiasm.
The old Constitution had been reënacted with no essential change. The new President had even insisted that the Provisional Congress retain the old flag as their emblem of nationality with only a new battle flag for use in case of war. The Congress over-ruled him at this point with an emphasis which they meant as a rebuke to his tendency to cling to the hope of reconciliation.
It was exactly one o'clock on Monday, February 18, 1861, that Jefferson Davis rose between the towering pillars of the State Capitol in Montgomery and began his inaugural address. It was careful, moderate, statesmanlike, and a model of classic English. The closing sentence swept the crowd.
"It is joyous in the midst of perilous times to look thus upon a people united in heart, whose one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole; where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the balance against honor, and right, and liberty and equality."