Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury in the Buchanan Cabinet, stated in his letter of resignation that he must now look to the needs of his home state of Georgia and told President Buchanan that once his views on that were known, his further service to the United States Government would be impossible. He told Buchanan that the "evil has now passed beyond control, and must be met by each and all of us, under our responsibility to God and our country..."  (By John Osborne)  

Howell Cobb, Secretary of State in the Buchanan Cabinet, wrote an open letter to the people of his home state of Georgia from his office in Washington, D.C.. He concluded that after the new Republican Administration took power "in my honest judgement, each hour that Georgia remains thereafter a member of the Union will be an hour of degradation, to be followed by certain and speedy ruin."  Cobb resigned from the Government two days later. (By John Osborne)