No material change in .the complexion of Southern news. Unless writers of telegraph items lie loudly, secession is inevitable. There is uneasiness here, but mainly as to the possibility of a tight money market from the financial crisis Southern folly is bringing upon the South, which must inevitably react on us more or less. People generally treat the political peril with what seems to me unaccountable indifference. This financial crisis is already beginning in Charleston and Mobile. Suspension of specie payments seems close at hand. They have overtraded, and their crops are short, and they would have been hard up had Lincoln been defeated, and obliged to do their uttermost to get the hogs and housing they need to carry them through the winter. But now that Lincoln is elected and their terrorists are roving about confiscating Northern property and repudiating Northern debts, their credit is paralyzed and they are in danger of a general smash. It would injure us, of course; it may bring them to their senses, or it may make them desperate and reckless.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 62
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