Nov. 27.-Gov. Hicks, of Maryland, refuses to convene the Legislature. He writes a letter, taking strong ground against secession, and says his purpose is to avoid any precipitation in action on the part of the secessionists in the State.

to convene the Legislature; directing that a State Convention be called, and telling the Southern States that Tennessee will stand by the action of the Southern Convention for weal or woe.

Dec. 3. Preamble and resolutions adopted in the

votes

-The Vermont Legislature 125 to 58 against a repeal of its Personal Liberty bill. -Day of Thanksgiving observed in most of the States. Sermons were preached by eminent divines, generally urging a policy of peace, concession, and fraternization in the great questions of the times.

-The Mississippi Legislature authorizes the Governor to appoint as many Commissioners as he may deem necessary, to visit each of the slave-holding States, to inform them that the Mississippi Legislature had authorized a Convention to consider the necessary steps for meeting the crisis. The Commissioners were to solicit the co-operation of Legislatures to devise means "for their common defence and safety." The following gentlemen were afterward named by the Governor: Virginia, C. P. Smith; Georgia, W. L. Harris; Maryland, A. H. Handy; Tennessee, T. J. Wharton; South Carolina, C. E. Hooker; Alabama, J. W. Matthews; Kentucky, W. S. Featherston; Louisiana, Wirt Adams; Arkansas, Geo. R. Fall; Texas, H. H. Miller; Florida, E. M. Yerger; Delaware, Henry Dickinson; North Carolina, Jacob Thompson.

-Dispatches from New Orleans state: " Abolitionists are daily arrested. There is immense excitement, and the secession feeling momentarily increasing. Disunion is inevitable."

Nov. 30. The North Carolina Legislature refuses to go into an election for United States Senator, in place of Mr. Clingman.

The Bank bill to suspend specie payment of banks in Georgia re-passed over the Governor's veto.

-Bill introduced into the Georgia Legislature (House) prohibiting the levying of any execution from the Courts of the United States on the property of citizens of Georgia prior to December, 1861-all sales under such process to be void.

Dec 1.-A committee of citizens of Texas, comprised of leading men, petitioned Gov. Houston to convene the Legislature. The Governor responded, that, viewing the proposed measure unwise, he could not call the Legislature; but if a majority of the citizens of the State petitioned for it, he could not stand in the way. The secession feeling largely predominates in the Southern and Eastern portion

of the State.

-Florida Legislature passed the Convention Bill unanimously. The Convention to meet Jan. 3d. --Banks in Georgia generally suspend specie pay

ment.

-Immense secession meeting at Memphis, Tennessee. Resolutions were passed accepting the "irrepressible conflict;" calling upon the Governor

ence of the Southern States, åt Atlanta, on the 20th of February, to counsel and advise as to the mode and manner of resistance to the North in the exist ing exigency, was made the special order for tomorrow. The preamble and resolutions take strong grounds in favor of having all sectional questions finally settled, and objects to separate action.

-Meeting in Boston, to commemorate the anniversary of John Brown's execution broken up. Considerable violence shown to its participators. Full repre

-Congress meets at Washington. sentation from most of the States. South Carolina representatives in their seats, except Mr. Bonham.

Her Senators absent.

-President's Message read to the two Houses, and the Department reports sent in. The Message takes strong grounds for conciliation; blames the North for its aggressions on Slavery proposes plans of compromise; denies the right of secession, yet disparages coercion. Message was attacked fiercely in the Senate by Clingman, of North Carolina, and defended by Crittenden, of Kentucky. In the House, Mr. Boteler, of Virginia, offered a resolution to appoint a Special Committee of one from each State, to whom should be referred so much of the President's Message as "relates to the present perilous condition of the country."

Dec. 4.-The President dispatches a messenger (Mr. Trescott) to South Carolina, to urge a postponement of action in regard to secession or nullifi cation, until Congress could act on compromises and remedies.

Dec. 5.-Meeting of the State Electoral Colleges. Abraham Lincoln for President, and Hannibal Hamlin for Vice-President, receive the votes of seventeen States or one hundred and eighty electoral votes.

-Exciting speeches in the United States Senate by Southern Senators looking to secession as their duly relief from Northern domination.

Dec. 6.-Great Union meeting and oration in Richmond, Va.

-The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives announced the Committee of one from each State, called for under Mr. Boteler's resolution, (Dec. 4,) to consider so minch of the President's Message as relates to the present perilous condi tion of the country." The names are as follows:Ohio, Mr. Corwin, Chairman; Virginia, Mr. Millson; Massachusetts, Mr. Adams; North Carolina, Mr. Winslow; New York, Mr. Humphreys; South Carolina, Mr. Boyce; Pennsylvania, Mr. Campbell ; Georgia, Mr. Love; Connecticut, Mr. Ferry; Mary. land, Mr. Davis; Rhode Island, Mr. Robinson; Delaware, Mr. Whiteley; New Hampshire, Mr. Tappan; New Jersey, Mr. Stratton; Kentucky, Mr. Bristow ; Vermont, Mr. Morrill; Tennessee, Mr. Nelson; Indiana, Mr. Dunn; Louisiana, Mr. Taylor; Mississippi, Mr. Davis; Illinois, Mr. Kellogg; Alabama, Mr. Houston; Maine, Mr. Morse; Missouri, Mr. Phelps; Arkansas, Mr. Rust; Michigan, Mr. Howard; Florida, Mr. Hawkins; Texas, Mr. Hamilton: Wisconsin, Mr. Washburne; Iowa, Mr. Curtis; California, Mr. Burch; Minnesota, Mr. Windom; Oregon, Mr. Stout.

HISTORICAL

Dec. 7.-A circular is issued in iting the members of the Texas Legislature to assemble in Austin on the third Monday in December, for the purpose of holding an extra, session, and to take the necessary steps for calling a State Convention. Gov. Houston promises to resign if the people of the State demand the convoking of the Legislature. The hoisting of Lone Star flags in the towns of Texas continues, and the people throughout the State appear to be united in their feeling of resistance to the administration of Mr. Lincoln.

-The President to-day explicitly expressed his determination to send no more troops to the forts near Charleston, and said everything would be done on his part to avoid a collision. Major Anderson has made no request for re-enforcements.

-A dispatch from Washington states that the Secetary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb, has had repeated interviews with Mr. Hunter, Chairman of the Com mittee on Finance in the Senate, and finds himself unable to extricate the Treasury from its present bankrupt condition; consequently he proposes to resign at once.

Dec. 8.-The Kentucky banks resolve to continue specie payment, as a suspension can afford no commercial relief.

-Governor of Tennessee calls an extra session of the Legislature, to convene Jan. 7th, to "consider the present condition of the country."

Dec. 9.-Gov. Brown of Georgia publishes a letter favoring immediate secession.

Dec. 10.-Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury, resigns his seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Toucey, Secretary of the Navy, acts in his stead, ad interim.

-United States Senator Clay, of Alabama, resigns his seat in the United States Senate after March 4th, 1861.

-It is divulged that the Democratic members of Congress from the North-Western States have held several conferences. They take the position that the Union cannot be dissolved peaceably; that the North-West will, under no circumstances, consent to be cut off from the Gulf of Mexico and the City of New York; that the Government, whatever may be its faults, is of inestimable value.

-Extra Session of Louisiana Legislature meets. The Governor recommends a State Convention. Convention ordered--an election of delegates to be held Jan. 23. Legislature adjourned Dec. 12th. A military bill was passed, appropriating $500,000 to arm the State for defence, and provisions made for military organization and administration.

Dec. 12.-Assistant Secretary of State, Trescott, resigns.

urged the policy of strengthening Major Anderson fully. Mr. Cass, it was understood, made that policy a sine qua non of his stay in the Cabinet.

Dec. 14.-Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, resigns his seat in the Cabinet. His resignation causes much feeling and comment. It was owing to his disapproval of the President's inaction in regard to re-enforcing Southern forts, arsenals, navy yards, &c.

Dec. 15.-Attorney-General Black nominated Secretary of State in place of Lewis Cass, resigned.

-A meeting of members of the Georgia Legislature favoring co-operation, and urging a Convention of Southern States desirous of co-operating. An address issued to the people of South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, signed by 52 members of the Legislature.

Dec. 17.-South Carolina Convention of Delegates assembles in Convention. General Jamison elected President. Adjourned to Charleston.

Governor of South Carolina. His Inaugural was -Mr. Pickens inaugurated by the Legislature as decidedly for secession.

Dec. 18.-Mr. Crittenden introduces into the United States Senate, Resolutions of Compromise and settlement of differences between the Slave and Free States. The bill, as introduced, proposes: To renew the Missouri Compromise Line; prohibiting Slavery in the Territory north of 36 deg. 30 min., and protecting it South of that latitude; and for the admission of new States with or without Slavery, as their Constitutions shall provide: to prohibit the abolition of Slavery by Congress in the States: to prohibit its abolition in the District of Columbia so long as it exists either in Virginia or Maryland: to permit the transportation of slaves in any of the States by land or water: to provide for the payment of fugitive slaves, when rescued: to repeal one obnoxious feature of the Fugitive Slave Law-the inequality of the fee to the Commissioner-and also to ask the repeal of all the Personal Liberty bills in the Northern States. These concessions are to be submitted to the people in the form of amendments to the Constitution, and if they are carried they are to be changed by no future amendments.

Dec. 18-19.-Andrew Johnson, United States Senator from Tennessee, speaks on the resolutions propos ing amendments to the Constitution. He denies the right of secession, and calls upon the President to enforce the laws regardless of consequences. Taking up arms to resist the Federal laws he pronounces

treason.

Dec. 13.-Immense Union demonstration in Philadelphia, by proclamation of the Mayor.

-Exciting session of the Cabinet in regard to the re-enforcement of Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. The President opposed its re-enforcement as impolitic, saying he had assurances that the fort would not be attacked if no re-enforcements were attempted. Mr. Cass, Secretary of State, and Mr. Toucey, Secretary of the Navy, both strenuously

operation on the part of the people of Maryland in the secession movement.

Dec. 20.-The Ordinance of Secession passes the South Carolina Convention of Delegates unanimously. The announcement is received by the people of Charleston with exciting manifestations of delight. The news throughout the North excites comparatively little remark.

-The Methodist Conference of South Carolina passes resolutions favoring secession.

-Immense receipts of specie in New York. Nearly

Dec. 21,-As indicative of the course the Republican members of Congress are to pursue in regard to compromise measures, the speech of Senator Wade, of Ohio, before the Senate Select Committee of Thirteen, on the Crisis, is the first declaratory expression. It took ground against any amendments of the Constitution. and generally expressed opposition to compromises which looked to giving slavery any constitutional protection or recognition. He said Mr. Lincoln was constitutionally elected and should be constitutionally inaugurated.

-Judge Douglas made important statements before the Senate Select Committee of Thirteen. He is reported as saying, "that he was ready now to unite in recommending such amendments to the Constitution as will take the Slavery question out of Congress. In view of the dangers which threaten the Repuplic with disunion, revolution, and civil war, he was prepared to act upon the matters in controversy without any regard to his previous action, and as if he had never made a speech or given a vote on the subject."

Dec. 22. The North Carolina Legislature adjourned to January 7th. The bill to arm the State failed to pass the House.

--Caleb Cushing, special messenger of the President to South Carolina, to induce the postponement of the adoption of the ordinance of secession, returns and reports the passage of the ordinance, and reports no hopes of any arrangement of the pending differences. A Cabinet meeting was called.

Dec. 23.-Intense excitement in Washington, consequent upon the discovery of a heavy defalcation in the Department of the Interior, by abstraction of bonds and coupons belonging to the Indian Trust Fund. The amount abstracted is confessed by Godard Bailey, the guilty clerk, to have been $830,000. Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War, is said to be deeply implicated by the revelations made.

Dec. 24.--The Speaker of the House directs the names of the "withdrawn" South Carolina members

to be retained on the roll and to be regularly called.

-Great excitement in Pittsburg in consequence of orders being given to ship, from the Alleghany Arsenal, 78 ten and eight-inch columbiads to Fort Newport, near Galveston, and 48 to Ship Island, near Balize, at the mouth of the Mississippi-both unfinished forts. The people regard the order as designed to strip the Arsenal in order to place the heavy guns in the hands of the enemies of the Government and will oppose their removal by force.

-The South Carolina Convention adopts a "Declaration of Immediate Causes which Justified the Secession of South Carolina from the Union."

-The Special Commissioners, appointed by the South Carolina Convention to negotiate a settlement of differences and a treaty of amity and commerce

with the United States, leave Charleston for Washington.

-Gov. Moore convenes the Legislature of Alabama for January 14th, to provide for any emergency that may arise from the action of the Convention, which meets January 7th.

Dec. 25. Among other important transactions of the South Carolina Convention was the reception of three resolutions from the Committee on Relations with the Slaveholding States of North America. The first resolution provides that the Convention appoint Commissioners to proceed to each Slaveholding State that may assemble in Convention, for the purpose of laying before them the ordinance of secession and respectfully to invite their co-operation in forming a Southern Confederacy. The second resolution authorises the said Commissioners to submit the Federal Constitution as the basis for a provisional Government for such States as shall have withdrawn from the connection with the Government of the United States of North America. The third resolution provides that the said Commissioners be authorized to invite seceding States to meet in convention at such a time and place as may be agreed upon for the purpose of forming a permanent Government for these States. All of which were acted upon affirmatively, after considerable discussion. They are regarded as having been arranged by the secession leaders, long since, and look to a co-operative union among the slave seceding States.

Dec. 26. -The three South Carolina Commissioners, viz.: Messrs. R. W. Barnwell, James L. Orr, and ExGov. Adams arrive in Washington.

-A resolution offered in the South Carolina Convention, that the Governor be requested to communicate to the Convention in secret session, any information he possesses in reference to the condition of Forts Moultrie and Sumter, and Castle Pinckney, the number of guns in each, the number of workmen and kind of labor employed, the number of soldiers in each, and what additions, if any, have been made since the 20th inst.; also, whether any assurance has been given that the forts will not be re-enforced, and if so, to what extent; also, what police or other regulations have been made, if any, in reference to the defenses of the harbor of Charleston, the coast and the State.

Gov. Houston will convene an extra session of the

-It is now announced by advices from Texas, that

Texas Legislature on the 21st of January, to consider the present crisis. The Convention of the people will be held on the 28th of January. The secession element is rapidly gaining the ascendancy. It will carry all before it in the Convention.

-Major Anderson commences the evacuation of Fort Moultrie at night.

Dec. 27.-Gov. Magoffin calls an extra session of the Kentucky State Legislature to assemble Jan. 17th, to consider the distracted state of the country.

-It is ascertained at Charleston that Fort Moultrie is evacuated. The evacuation took place during the night, Major Anderson transferring his entire force (about eighty men) with stores, munitions, movable arms, &c., to Fort Sumter. Most intense excitement in consequence throughout the entire country. The military in Charleston ordered out. Troops tendered by Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.

The True Reason.

THE Secession movement, which took form and consistency by the action of South Carolina, immediately after the election of Mr. Lincoln, was not the conception of an hour. It was not the result of the election of a "sectional" President. It was not the result of wrongs inflicted upon the South by the Free States. It was not because the North had perverted | the Constitution from its original intent and purposes.

It is urged, by the leaders of the movement, that these were their reasons for the attempt to dissolve the Union, and the mass of our people doubtless have regarded these as the true grounds of complaint; but, it is the merest surface view of the question. Were these the only excuses to offer for the Rebellion and all its train of blood, what a miserable pretence of justification the movement would have!

The motive which underlies all is the numerical preponderance of the North, and, under the Constitution, its ability hereafter to control the legislation of Congress by virtue of its resistless majority.

Purchases of new Territory.

Each census, since 1800, has shown that the increase of population in the Northern, or Free States, was in a ratio soon to snatch from the Slave States their almost unbroken control of the Government; hence from that time the study has been to avert the impending minority by the introduction of new Slave States to the Union. Louisiana was purchased at an enormous price, not more to open the mouths of the Mississippi than to send to Congress two Slave Senators and her due quota of Representatives. Mississippi was purchased from Geor

gia and the Indians for the same purpose. Alabama was made out of Georgia and Mississippi territory, to increase the representation. Tennessee was cut out of Kentucky territory for the same purpose. Florida was purchased of Spain, at great expense, to the same end. Then followed a step over the Mississippi river, to appropriate territory lying to the west of the territory given to free labor by the ordinance of Mr. Jefferson; and Missouri, with her lines running as far North as the centres of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, was given up to Slavery and a Slave representation in Congress. Arkansas, ere long, was added. Then the soil fitted for Slave labor, and accessible for Slave settlement, seemed exhausted, and the South, for a while, stood still to witness the onward march of the North. Even these enormous accessions of domain scarcely served to maintain the Southern preponderance in the Government, so rapidly had the Free States grown in population, both in the old and the three new States added.

Schemes of Conquest

Thus matters stood in 1840. The census of that year aroused the South to renewed efforts for further extension of the "peculiar institution." To the North they could not go, for soil, climate and sentiment were alike inimical to the existence of slaves in the territory of Iowa. To the West they could not proceed, for Government had pledged that section to the Indians. Conquest alone must come to the rescue. Texas, an immense domain, fitted to make five States, must be won. The scheme of its "annexation" was soon conceived and perfected. War was declared upon a flimsy pretext against a weak and distracted neighbor.-One

hundred millions of dollars were spent, and Texas was given over to the Slave power to be made into States, as emergencies should require; while New Mexico, with her boundless plains, lay to the West, to await the necessity for her introduction to a Slave proprietary.

But, even this absorbtion of an empire did not suffice. The census of 1850 again sent consternation into the "balance of power" ranks, and excited their leaders to renewed zeal. More territory must be had, at any sacrifice. Kansas and Nebraska alone offered the soil, but there stood the Gibraltar of Henry Clay's "Compromise Act" of 1821, guaranteeing all that region to Freedom forever. Still, the emergency was imperative. Kansas at least must be represented on the floors of Congress by a Slave delegation. The tremendous strides of the North, in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, threatened, by their very growth, to leap at once into an uncontrolled majority. Kansas lost, all was lost, since Texas could not, for years, gain population enough to allow of her subdivision into several States.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act alone would open the Territory for Slave incursion. That repeal was made, through the co-operation of the Northern Democratic party with the South. But, the hand of Destiny seemed to interfere. The entire scheme of Southern settlement miscarried, and Kansas not only became a Free State, but the struggle to make it such called into existence the Republican party, which, in a brief period, elected its candidate to the Chief Magistracy-so fatally were the tables turned.

Dismayed at the storm created by the effort to secure Kansas, mortified at their defeat, cut off from any further extension of Slave representation, the Southern States saw before them their long-apprehended disaster of a minority in the Government. If they remained in the Union it must be as the weaker half. At this not only their pride revolted, but, as it appeared to them, their material interests forbade submission. With some hesitancy, as if feeling the way, the long contemplated scheme of Southern independence was revived and its agitation determinedly entered upon.

Fictitious Causes.

But, the love of the Union was so strong in the hearts of a majority in the Southern States-the disinclination to encounter the hazards of a revolution was so apparent— that it became necessary for the leaders to act with great circumspection in setting on foot their movement for disunion. The old themes of wrongs endured-of slaves stolen— of unjust imposition of taxes by way of tariff levies—of unconstitutional Personal Liberty acts by Northern States--were augmented in force by the evident fact that the institution of Slavery was to be excluded from the Territories in the West, thus seemingly denying the rights of the South in the unsettled and common domain; while, to crown the list of motives for non-submission, the North had become so far estranged and inimical to the South as to elect a "sectional" President. This catalogue of indignities, if properly represented to the excitable and sensitive people of the South, could not fail to answer the ends designed; hence, separately and collectively, they have been put forward as the real causes of the uprising and of the abjuration of the Constitution, and have been so often and variously repeated that the original and prime cause of the movement is almost ignored.

In contemplating the events which have transpired in the attempt to dismember the Union, it is necessary to accept the bill of complaint preferred in the various resolutions, ordinances and declarations of the seceded States' Conventions and Legislatures; but, a comprehensive understanding of the revolution can only be had by striking at the ultimate causes which originated the desire for a separate Confederacy. Even though those first causes may not be confessed nor set forth by any of the parties implicated-a confession which would concede defeat in the struggle for power-they nevertheless are readily demonstrable.