But an express law included all these seceders in the general proscription; alledging, with a candour not usual, that those who assumed rank were, in fact, more criminal than such as were guilty of being born to it.

Under an apparent plea for harmony lurked an insidious invitation to Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania to join the seceders, reconstruct the Democratic party, cut off all the "popular sovereignty" recusants, and secure perpetual ascendency in national politics through the consolidated South.