Seeds of Dissent

As time drew closer, Mason would work harder to make the Northern, Republican states look like the agressors. Claiming they were not interpreting the Constitution as it was meant, he again predicited a problem on the horizon, "where it will end, Heaven knows. I presume it will vibrate for a time through anarchy, and terminate in depotism." [1]

"The people of the North...have seperated themselves from the people of the South, and the government they thus inaugurate will be to us the government of a foreign power."[1]

On January 5th 1861, Mason introduces a request for military bases, forts, and weapons facilities in all of the southern states from the Senate, and later on President Buchannan. His real motives were far less noble. Mason already had begun working behind the scenes for Virginia's secession, and information on U.S. military preparations would be of immeasurable help to the South in planning for its uncertain future. Mason had become the equivalent of a SPY behind enemy lines, fighting obstinately against any attempt to preserve the Union.

 As Mason continued to agitate northern Senators, he was questioned if he was looking for an excuse to leave the Union, he responded by saying “to remain in the Union…an excuse to get out of the Union is not necessary.” [1]

Mason declined a seat on Virginia’s secession board, using the opportunity to remain in the Senate and gather intelligence, as well as thwart any northern plans. Murray traveled back and forth to Richmond in support of Jefferson Davis, a pro secession Democrat in Virginia, but much more moderate than fire-eater William Yancey.

In letters from Mason to Davis, he predicts the coming war, “I trust before the war comes in earnest, the Old Dominion will haul alongside.” [1]