[61] Council in 1852, and one of the city representatives in the State Legislature in 1862, having been elected as a Conservative Republican. During all this period he kept a diary; and a few extracts from this will show, better than anything else, the manner in which his whole nature was roused and stimulated by the gathering alarm of war. The extracts begin with the day of President Lincoln's first election.
November 7, 1860.—Was up until three o'clock, and came home with the assurance of a Republican victory. I have no fear of secession or revolution. The South will bluster and resolve, but cotton is seventeen and a half cents per pound, and all will be quiet. It is a great revolution, however, in one sense. Political power changes hands, and the most corrupt and degraded administration topples over, not, I hope, to be revived in my day. . . . .
November 10.—The last three days, talking over returns. Today we have accounts of terrible import from Charleston and Savannah. They will have to submit to the will of the majority in the Union, or go to everlasting smash out of it. My own idea is, that, however the South may fume, fret, and bluster, just now, they will be very calm before next March. . . . .
November 13.—Papers still full of Southern secession nonsense. . . . .
December 5.—I cannot feel that this great confederacy is to be destroyed just yet, and I don't like to contemplate the fearful ruin that must overtake the South if they pursue their mad scheme. . . . .
December 10.—Put on my skates this afternoon. Am aching all over. Two hundred and fifteen pounds is a heavy weight to be supported on two one-eighth-inch irons, but I love to mingle in these gay crowds. . . . .
December 17.—Wonder what South Carolina is doing. Skating. . . . .
December 28.—Great stir yesterday, owing to the despatch that Major Anderson had evacuated and destroyed Fort Moultrie. Some of the people talk blood and warfare, but this is easy talking far away from the probable scenes of danger. . . . .
January 25, 1861.—What a short-sighted babydom prevails in Boston. The Mayor fears W. Phillips and the Abolitionists will make a riot, and so closes the Anti-slavery Convention. Boston gentlemen, or rather, Boston snobbery, must stop the mouths of the radicals and fanatics, because, forsooth, the traitors of South Carolina won't like it.—Bah! the fools make one sick. . . . .
