February 4, 1861; The Charleston Mercury
Today meets a body charged with the duty of constructing a Confederate Government for those States which have seceded from the Union of the late United States. It is a grave mission. Since the framing of the United States Constitution and Government, no work of such magnitude and importance has been imposed upon any statesmen in this country. The counsels now inaugurated are fraught with the destinies of the Southern people. Nor is it unlikely that the fate and practicability of Republican Government will be here settled. At the North this has proved a failure. The people there are ignorant of the theory of constitutional free government, and the public men, steeped in schemes of corruption and ambition and plunder, are the rankest of demagogues. Republicanism of Northern interpretation, is the vulgar and irresponsible tyranny of the majority of voters, overriding all law and all legal rights, and trampling the minority under their feet as opportunity and inclination urge. Higher law radicalism and lawless agrarianism have usurped the place of order and conservative justice. Society is given up to the selfish whims and festering isms of the licentious, the irreverent and the unscrupulous – a prey to political harpies – bloated and rotten throughout. It now remains to be seen whether, with slave institutions, the master race can establish and perpetuate free government. Shall the white man here enjoy liberty protected by law, and be free from impertinent interference with private rights – secure under his vine and fig tree. This is the problem to be solved – this the task of the Montgomery Convention. It is a question in the determination of which the human race is not indifferent – the civilized world is deeply interested – the North agitated. To us it is an issue of prosperity and success, or disaster and ultimate ruin – a question of life and death.
All eyes will be fixed upon the deliberations of that body. We trust they will be characterized by wisdom, promptness and efficiency; that a Southern Confederacy will be the aim of all; and the speedy establishment of a permanent Central Government for the South – the grand desideratum of our position and its necessities.