“You secede, then, solely because you think his election proves that the mass of the Northern people is adverse to you and your interests?”

“Yes.”

“So Mr. Wigfall of Texas hit the nail on the head, when he said substantially that the South cannot be at peace with the North until the latter concedes that slavery is right?”

“Well,—­I admit it; that is precisely it.”

I desire the reader to note the loyal frankness, the unshrinking honesty of these avowals, so characteristic of the South Carolina morale.  Whenever the native of that State does an act or holds an opinion, it is his nature to confess it and avow the motives thereof, without quibbling or hesitation.  It is a persuaded, self-poised community, strikingly like its negative pole on the Slavery Question, Massachusetts.  All those Charlestonians whom I talked with I found open-hearted in their secession, and patient of my open-heartedness as an advocate of the Union, although often astonished, I suspect, that any creature capable of drawing a conclusion from two premises should think so differently from themselves.

“But have you looked at the platform of the Republicans?” I proceeded.  “It is not adverse to slavery in the States; it only objects to its entrance into the Territories; it is not an Abolition platform.”

“We don’t trust in the platform; we believe that it is an incomplete expression of the party creed,—­that it suppresses more than it utters.  The spirit which keeps the Republicans together is enmity to slavery, and that spirit will never be satisfied until the system is extinct.”

“Finally,—­yes; gradually and quietly and safely,—­that is possible.  I suppose that the secret and generally unconscious animus of the party is one which will abolitionize it after a long while.”

“When will it begin to act in an abolition sense, do you think?”

“I can’t say:  perhaps a hundred years from now; perhaps two hundred.”

There was a general laugh from the half-dozen persons who formed the group.

“What time do you fix?” I inquired.

“Two years.  But for this secession of ours, there would have been bills before Congress within two years, looking to the abolition of slavery in the navy-yards, the District of Columbia, etc.  That would be only the point of the wedge, which would soon assume the dimensions of an attack on slavery in the States.  Look how aggressive the party has been in the question of the Territories.”

“The questions are different.  When Congress makes local laws for Utah, it does not follow that it will do likewise for South Carolina.  You might as well infer, that, because a vessel sails from Liverpool to New York in ten days, therefore it will sail overland to St. Louis in five more.”