February 8, 1861; The Charleston Mercury
It is evident, to those who have watched events, that the future of the Cotton States is now in the balance, and will go up or down according to the course pursued by the members of the Cotton States Convention, now assembled at Montgomery. A Southern Confederacy, or a reconstruction of the old Union, are the alternatives. And, as the policy of that body tends to one or other of these results, so good or evil remain in store for our peoples.
For ourselves, we look upon a reconstruction of the Union as inevitable destruction – in the language of SEWARD, the of slavery. ‘New guarantees – with a people like those of the North, hostile in feeling, regardless of law, and through the fostering care of the Washington Government, increasing continually in power – would be giving the lamb to the wolf – the Southern States to emancipation and ruin as certain as the seasons run their course. Taught by experience, Black Republicanism, with a better knowledge of our people, would content itself now to hem us in, cut us off by detachment, and undermine our institutions, until becoming confessedly too weak to make efficient resistance, we should fall an easy prey to their fanaticism, ambition and rapacity.
This being our conclusion, we look upon a Southern Confederacy as the thing to be desired. Thus separately organized, we are fully masters of the position, and can control events by our great productive power, our importance to the civilized world, and our capacity for self defence in the game of war. With little on the part of any people to be made by assaulting us, in the shape of either honor or profit, and much to lose, especially in the matter of gain, we can command friendly relations. If we be but true to ourselves, our destiny is to be great and prosperous beyond example, for no peoples ever existed having the resources and advantages that we have.
The peoples of the Cotton States are fully prepared for a Southern Confederacy, and expect nothing else. But there are public men who hope, by postponement and delay, to toll them back into the Union, step by step – and the first step by putting off the organization and establishment of a permanent Government of the seceding States. We warn the public in time, that their eyes may be open to the danger. We trust that if such an effort is made at Montgomery, as there is reason to believe will be made, there will yet be sufficient sincerity, manhood and statesmanship in that body to put down the insidious proposition, under whatever plausible pretext it is professedly proposed. A Provisional Government, if it be deemed necessary for the military exigencies of the times, but a permanent Government also as soon as practicable.