Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1., page 262

The arrogance and folly of the conspirators, especially of the madmen of South Carolina, often took the most ludicrous forms and expression. They were so intent upon obliterating every trace of connection with the “Yankees,” as they derisively called the people of the Free-labor States, and upon showing to the world that South Carolina was an “independent nation,” that so early as the first of January,

1861.

when that “nation” was just nine days old — a “nine days wonder” --it was proposed to adopt for it a new system of civil time.¹ Whether it was to be that of Julius Caesar, in whose calendar the year began in March; or of the French Jacobins, whose year began in September, and had five sacred days called Sansculottides; or of the Eastern satrap

Who counted his years from the hour when he smote
His best friend to the earth, and usurped his control;
And measured his days and his weeks by false oaths,
And his months by the scars of black crimes on his soul,

is not recorded. Three days after the Montgomery Convention had formed a so-called government, by the adoption of a Provisional Constitution, and the election of Jefferson Davis to be the chief standard-bearer in the revolt, one of the organs of the conspirators said, in view of the dreamed — of power and grandeur of the new Empire :--“The South might, under the new Confederacy, treat the disorganized and demoralized Northern States as insurgents, and deny them recognition. But if peaceful division ensues, the South, after taking the .Federal Capital and archives, and being recognized by all foreign powers as the Government de facto, can, if they see proper, recognize the Northern Confederacy or Confederacies, and enter into treaty stipulations with them. Were this not done, .it would be difficult for the Northern States to take a place among nations, and their flag would not be respected or recognized.” ²

1 Charleston Correspondence of the Associated Press, January 1, 1861.

2 Charleston Courier, February 12, 1861. Only a week earlier than this (February 5th), the late Senator Hammond. one of the South Carolina conspirators, in a letter to a kinswoman in Schenectady, New York, after recommending her to read the sermon of a Presbyterian clergyman in Brooklyn, named Van Dyke, preached on the 9th of December, 1860, for proofs that the buying and selling of men, women, and children was no sin, said: “We dissolve the Union--and it is forever dissolved, be assured — to get clear of Yankee meddlesomeness and Puritanical bigotry. I say this, being half a Yankee and half a Puritan.” His father was a New England school-teacher. “We absolve you by this,” he continued, “from all the sins of Slavery, and take upon ourselves all its supposed sin and evil, openly before the world, and in the sight of God.” With a similar spirit, the revilers of the great Preacher of Righteousness cried: “Crucify him! Crucify him! His blood be on us, and on our children!” In the judgments which speedily fell upon the presumptuous Jew and the Slaveholder, do we not see a remarkable “historical parallel?”

The conspirator continued:--“Let us alone. Let me tell you, my dear cousin, that if there is any attempt at war on the part of the North, we can soundly thrash them on any field of battle; and not only that, we can give them over to Jean Jaques, and leave them to manage that. We know our strength. Why, we export over two hundred millions of produce, which the world eagerly seeks and cannot do without. A six months failure of our exports to Europe would revolutionize every existing government there, as well as at the North. All know it. The North exports some sixty millions, in competition with the European producers. Why the North, without our custom for manufactures, and our produce for its commerce and exchanges, is, neither more nor less, the poorest portion of the civilized world. To that it has come on an infidel and abstract idea.” --Letter of Jas. H. Hammond to Mrs. F. H. Pratt, published in the Albany Statesman.

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Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

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Chapter 11: the Montgomery Convention.--treason of General Twiggs.--Lincoln and Buchanan at the Capital.

1861.