one o'clock
This of itself would have been enough to throw the United States into a panic ; but , worse than all , the presence of the air-ships , holding at their mercy the arsenals and the richest cities in the Eastern States , proved that tremendous and all as it was , this was only a phase of some vast and mysterious cataclysm which might as easily involve the whole civilised world as it could overwhelm the United States of America . By noon , almost without striking a blow , every dynamite cruiser and warship on the eastern coast had been seized and manned by the Terrorists . To the dismay of the authorities , it was found that more than half the army and navy , officers and men alike , had obeyed the mysterious summons that had gone throughout the land the night before ; and matters reached a climax when , as the clocks of Washington were striking twelve , the President himself was arrested in the White House . All the streets of Washington were in the hands of the Terrorists , and at one o'clock Tremayne , after posting guards at all the approaches , entered the Senate , and in the name of Natas proclaimed the Constitution of the United States null and void , and the Government dissolved . Then with a copy of the Constitution in his hand he proceeded to the steps of the Capitol , and , in the presence of a vast throng of the armed members of the American Section , he proclaimed the Federation of the English-speaking races of the world , in virtue of their bonds of kindred blood and speech and common interests ; and amidst a scene of the wildest enthusiasm called upon all who owned those bonds to forget the artificial divisions that had separated them into hostile nations and communities , and to follow the leadership of the Brotherhood to the conquest of the earth . Then in a few strong and simple phrases he exposed the subservience of the Government to the capitalist Ring , and described the inhuman compact that it had entered into with the arch-enemies of national freedom and personal liberty to crush the motherland of the Anglo-Saxon nations , and for the sake of sordid gain to rivet the fetters of oppression upon the limbs of the race which for a thousand years had stood in the forefront of the battle for freedom . As he concluded his appeal , one mighty shout of wrath and execration rose up to heaven from a million throats .