March 6, 1861; The Charleston Mercury
It is now night. But the last day of this eventful session is not over yet; for both Houses are still in squabbling turmoil at the Capitol, with every probability of keeping at it till morning. As to their proceedings during the last forty eight hours, a long dash, a large zero, would be the best report. A man of spirit loses all patience even in running over the newspaper abstracts. What must be his feeling, then, if constrained to witness the tiresome farce, hour after hour? Truly, the fundamental principle of this government is hopelessly lost. It is rotten at its very core. All parties, alike, lapsing from bad to worse in the natural progress of Republican institutions, have spewed up into public life a set of men as incompetent to meet the grand exigencies of the present crisis, as unfit for anything save petty intrigues and plunder, as so many semi idiotic dwarfs from Terra del Fuego.
It sounds monstrous, but is only the plain truth, that hardly a man in either House seems to realize, even at this last moment, the imminent and terrible calamities with which the country is threatened. It is but the bald, unadorned fact that every one here, from the highest to the lowest, is far less exited, far less apprehensive of danger, than they were at the beginning of the session. This apathy may be traced to a number of circumstances. First: the constant presence of danger has made men accustomed to its form and lineaments. They are no longer frightful. Second: the long delay at Sumter and Pickens has led people to believe that there never will be any fighting. I say this with pain, and with no earthly desire to hasten hostilities; but it is the simple truth. Your own reason will tell you that is must and can be no otherwise. Third: the delusion of Reconstruction tends to allay excitement. Thousands will swear, if need be, that the majority of the people of the Confederate States are already heartily sick of secession, and anxious to get back into the Union. All that is needed is aid and comfort from the Federal Government to enable the Reconstructionists to carry things before them like a whirlwind. Men of all sides honestly believe this, for they have been assured of the fact by papers like the True Delta, by travellers just returned from Georgia and Alabama, and by forged or real letters from wealthy planters to ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Fourth: the coalition formed between the Whigs and Douglasites in the Border States and the Republicans, has inclined the former, for the sake of the spoils, and with the view of keeping the new party united and permanent, to admit that the recapture of the forts and the forcible collection of the revenue shall not be considered coercion. Besides, the natural proclivity of the Old Line Federalists is to maintain the central authority at all hazards and to the last extremity. Fatal as this may be to the peace of the country, justice demands that, in very many instance, the merit of sincerity be granted to these Federalists. But that makes the matter all the worse.
I have been thus lengthy in summing up the causes which produced the exisiting apathy here, in order that your readers may see how little chance there is of a peaceful solution of the national trouble. It is thought there will be no fight. If there should be, no one cares; because all hands have agreed that the odds against you are so great, that the fight will be a very brief one. As to civil war, the idea is hooted at. Some collisions may take place between the “Rebels” and their neighbors and kinsmen, the Reconstructionists. But what of that? The war will be too far off to bother us here. And supposing the Rebels do get the better of the Reconstructionists, why then it will only be necessary for THE GOVERNMENT to assist the latter, and the “will be ground to powder in the twinkling of an eye, and the Union restored completely in less than three months. Such is the reasoning of many, very many (apparently) sensible men, both in this city and in Baltimore – men who have always warred, and are still warring against the Republicans. These men who lean to the North, but are by no means bitterly hostile to the South, will laugh at you when you tell them the Union is permanently dissolved. They say it has never been dissolved at all. It is the force of Federalism, which cannot realize the breaking up of the centralized despotism.
Now, when LINCOLN is encouraged by his infatuation on the part of men in the slave States, how is it possible for him to prevent war? He cannot. Whigs in Virginia and Maryland tell him that he has no authority under the Constitution to recognise the independence of the Confederate States. That must be left to the conventions of the people in all the States which are parties to the Federal Compact. Thus you are expected to wait one, two or three years, until the whole people have pronounced sentence for or against you. This will never do.
Pardon me for dwelling so tediously on this solitary subject. I have just awakened to the appalling fact that the Whigs in the Border States are aiding and abetting coercion in a manner which leaves no room to doubt that it will be the policy of the Administration which comes into power day after tomorrow. I can think of Nothing else, write of nothing else. Having placed what I believe–nay, almost know to be the facts of the case before you, my duty is done.