For Jefferson Davis, like Yancey, only not so constantly, and like so many others of that secession coterie, blew hot and cold about disunion as occasion demanded.

This same debate of May 17 furnished an instructive example.
[Sidenote] "Globe," May 17, 1860, p.

2151.
In the beginning of the day's discussion Davis indulged in a repetition of the old alarm-cry: "And so, sir, when we declare our tenacious adherence to the Union, it is the Union of the Constitution.
If the compact between the States is to be trampled into the dust; if anarchy is to be substituted for the usurpation which threatened the Government at an earlier period; if the Union is to become powerless for the purposes for which it was established, and we are vainly to appeal to it for protection--then, sir, conscious of the rectitude of our course, and self-reliant within ourselves, we look beyond the confines of the Union for the maintenance of our rights." [Sidenote] "Globe," May 17, 1860, p.

2156.
But after Douglas had made a damaging exposure of Yancey's disunion intrigues, which had come to light, and had charged their animus on the Charleston seceders, Davis changed his tone.

He said there were not more than seventy-five men in the lodges of the Southern Leagues.
He did not think the Union was in danger from them.