A most gloomy day in Wall Street. Everything at a deadlock. First-class paper not negotiable; demand for money greater than in October, 1857. Stocks falling. It's said the banks resolved today to buy three millions of exchange on London. This may probably see the machine going again, for the time at least, and enable the West and South to begin moving their grain and cotton. . . .
Very few now deny the probability of secession by the Cotton States, and South Carolina is given up as hopeless. Our national mottoes must be changed to “e pluribus duo” (at least) and “United we stand, divided we stand easier.” It is generally conceded, moreover, that if federal coercion be applied to a single seceding state, the whole South will range itself against the government.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 63-4
No comments:
Post a Comment