Tonight I heard Lieber’s lecture at the Law School. Matter good and well arranged; manner bad—dreamy, dozy, and maundering. . . .
No material progress in the political crisis. Stocks have rallied a little here. Perhaps the febrile symptoms and cerebral disturbance of the South seem a shade easier. But the reign of terror in South Carolina continues unmitigated. Mrs. Sally Hampton, now in New York, wants to go home to Columbia, S. C., or thereabouts, and requires an escort, of course. Her husband can’t come North without exposing himself to a conviction of “incivisme,” and Mr. George Baxter, her papa, cannot go South without danger of being tarred and feathered as a Northerner and a possible Abolitionist. So Mrs. Sally Hampton and her three pretty babies still abide in Second Avenue. Willie Alston and Pringle meant to spend another month here, but their neighbors write them that they must come home. Their loyalty to the South will be suspected if they keep away. So they return, reluctantly. . . .
We are generally reconciling ourselves to the prospect of secession by South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, little Florida, and perhaps Mississippi, too. We shall be well rid of them. Perhaps the prevalence of this feeling— the cordial consent of the North—will keep them from seceding. I think these porcine communities incline to run out of the Union merely because they think we want to keep them in. One should never pull a pig in the direction one wants it to travel. They have long governed us and controlled our votes by the threat of secession. They naturally think secession will be a crushing calamity to the North and the severest punishment they can inflict on us for electing Lincoln.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 62-3
No comments:
Post a Comment