TheOlogical Seminary, January 7, 1861.
My Dear Brother:
Your two letters have both been received; and I was delighted to find what, of
course, I was prepared to expect, that your heart and your sympathies are fully
with the people of your native State. Every day convinces me more and more that
we acted at the right time and in the right way. Georgia will be out of the
Union tomorrow, or the next day. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas will speedily
follow; and we shall soon have a consolidated South. The rumours about mob law
in this State are totally and meanly false. The internal condition of our
society never was sounder and healthier. The law never was so perfectly
supreme. Every right and interest of the citizen is completely protected; and
our people are bound together in ties of mutual confidence, so strong that even
private feuds are forgotten and buried. The whole State is like a family, in
which the members vie with each other in their zeal to promote the common good.
There is even little appearance of excitement. All is calm and steady
determination. It is really a blessing to live here now, to see how thoroughly
law and order reign in the midst of an intense and radical revolution. You need
not fear that our people will do anything rash. They will simply stand on the
defensive. They will permit no reinforcements to be sent to Charleston; and if
Fort Sumter is not soon delivered up to them, they will take it. In a few days
we shall be able to storm it successfully. We shall take the Fort, not as an
act of war, but in righteous self-defence. We do not want war. We prefer peace.
But we shall not decline the appeal to arms, if the North forces it upon us.
I have just concluded a defence of the secession of the
Southern States, which will soon be out in the Southern Presbyterian Review.
It is the last article, and is already advanced in printing. I shall have a
large edition in pamphlet form struck off. To me it appears to be conclusive;
you can judge for yourself, when you see it. Dr. Hodge's article has been
received with universal indignation. * * *
The contributions to Foreign Missions among us will
certainly fall off. We shall not be in a condition to contribute as we have
done.
SOURCE: Benjamin Morgan Palmer, The Life and Letters
of James Henley Thornwell, p. 486-7
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