“
[
99]
Union than of the world's turning round.
Every man that goes to the Convention will be a pledged man,” it said, “pledged for immediate separate State secession,
in any event whatever.”
This was before the members of the proposed convention had been chosen.
The
Southern Presbyterian, a theological work of wide and powerful influence, published at
Columbia, said, on the 15th of December, “It is well known that the members of the
Convention have been elected with the understanding and expectation that they will dissolve the relations of
South Carolina with the Federal Union, immediately and unconditionally.
This is a foregone conclusion in
South Carolina.
It is a matter for devout thankfulness that the
Convention will embody the very highest wisdom and character of the
State:
private gentlemen, judges of her highest legal tribunals, and ministers of the Gospel. . . .. Before we issue another number of this paper the deed may be done — the
Union may be dissolved — we may have ceased to be in the
United States.”
One of the most distinguished literary men of the
South (
William Gilmore Simms), in a letter to the author, dated December 13,
said: “In ten days more,
South Carolina will have certainly seceded; and in reasonable interval after that event, if the forts in our harbor are not surrendered to the
State, they will be taken.”
With equal confidence and precision all the politicians spoke in the ears of the people, and only a few men, like the noble and venerable
J. L. Pettigru of
Charleston, gladly doubted the success of the kindling revolt, and dared to say so. The conspirators had settled the question beforehand; the
people had nothing to do with it, excepting as instruments employed to give to the work of these men the appearance of its having been done “according to due forms of law.”
The Legislature of South Carolina met in regular session on the 26th of November; and on the 10th of December it chose Francis W. Pickens to be Governor of the State.
That body was greeted with the most cheering news of the spreading of secession sentiments, like a fierce conflagration, all over the Slave-labor States; and Governor Gist, in his farewell message, intended as much for the Convention as the Legislature, stimulated it to revolutionary action.
He urged the necessity of quickly arranged and efficient measures on the part of South Carolina.
He was afraid of the return of calm thought to the minds of the people.
“The delay of the Convention,” he said, “for a single week to pass the Ordinance of Secession will have a blighting and chilling influence upon the other States.”
He hoped that, by the 28th of December, “no flag but the Palmetto would float over any part of South Carolina.”
Pickens, who had been a member of the National Congress ten consecutive years,
and minister to the Russian Court by
Buchanan's appointment, was a worthy successor of
Gist;
