February 11, 1861; The Charleston Mercury
Washington, February 8, 1861
If proof were needed of South Carolina’s wisdom and foresight in seceding promptly, it is to be found in the present attitude of the Border States. Virginia has acted irresolutely, and the other States have done worse. In the face of actual dissolution, we find the Northern Slave States clinging to the Union, and two of them refusing to call a Convention. How plain it now is, that if the deliverance of the Gulf States from Abolition oppression had been dependent on a Convention of all the States, or even of all the Southern States, no such deliverance would or could have occurred.
Virginia secessionists console themselves with the hope that the recent election is the best thing that could possibly have happened – as it encourages the uncompromising Republicans, and thus, in the end, will result in the union of all parties in Virginia in favor of secession before the 4th of March. It is a wretched self deception….
SEVEN.