Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE PARTING The breathless galleries leaned forward to catch the slightest sound from the arena below. One by one the Senators from the seceding Southern States rose and renounced their allegiance to the United States in obedience to the voice of their people. With each solemn exit the women of the galleries grew hysterical, waved their perfumed handkerchiefs and shouted their approval with cries of sympathy and admiration. David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory and Benjamin Fitz- patrick had each closed his portfolio and with slow measured tread marched down the crowded aisle and out of the Chamber never again to enter its doors. All eyes were focused now on the brilliant young Senator from Alabama, Clement C. Clay, Jr. It was understood that he had prepared an eloquent defense of his action and would voice the passionate feeling of the masses of the Southern people in this his last utterance in the crumbling temple of the old Republic. He rose in his place, lifted his strong head with its leonine locks and broad, high forehead, paused a moment and began his speech in the clear steady tones of the trained orator, master of himself, his theme and his audience. The Northern Senators met his gaze with scorn and he answered with a look of bold defiance. The formal announcement of the secession of his State he made in brief sharp sentences and plunged at once into the reasons for their solemn act. " Forty-two years ago, Alabama was admitted into the Union," he declared in ringing tones. " She entered it as she goes out, with the Republic convulsed by the hostility of the North to her domestic institutions. Not a decade has passed, not a year has elapsed since, her birth as a State that has not been marked by the steady and insolent growth of the mob viol...