em to pay an enormous price for the privilege.
Revolution is a troublesome luxury, and ought to be made expensive. That
is the way people talk at the North and at Washington. They reason thus,
you see, because they believe that this is not a league, but a nation."

"And our people believe that the States are independent and have a right
to recede from the Confederation without asking its leave. With few
exceptions, all agree on that; it is honest, common public opinion. The
South Carolinians sincerely think that they are exercising a right, and
you may depend that they will not be reasoned nor frightened out of it;
and if the North tries coercion, there will be war. I don't say this
defiantly, but sadly, and merely because I want you to know the truth.
War is abhorrent to my feelings,--especially a war with our own
brethren: and then _we_ are so poorly prepared for it!"

Such was the substance of several conversations. The reader may rely, I
think, on the justness of my friend's opinions, founded as they are on
his honesty of intellect, his moderation, and his opportunities for
studying his fellow-citizens. All told me the same story, but generally
with more passion, sometimes with defiance; defiance toward the
Government, I mean, and not toward me personally; for the better classes
of Charleston are eminently courteous. South Carolina had seceded
forever, defying all the hazards; she would accept nothing but
independence or destruction; she did not desire any supposable
compromise; she had altogether done with the Union. Yet her desire was
not for war; it was simply and solely for escape. She would forget all
her wrongs and insults, she would seek no revenge for the injurious
past, provided she were allowed to depart without a conflict. Nearly
every man with whom I talked began the conversation by asking if the
North meant coercion, and closed it by deprecating hostilities and
affirming the universal wish for _peaceable_ secession. In case of
compulsion, however, the State would accept the gage of battle; her
sister communities of the South would side with her, the moment they saw
her blood flow; Northern commerce would be devoured by privateers of all
nations under the Southern flag; Northern manufactures would perish for
lack of Southern raw material and Southern consumers; Northern banks
would suspend, and Northern finances go into universal insolvency; the
Southern ports would be opened forcibly by England and Fran