Incredulous laughter answered me again.  The South has labored under two delusions:  first, that the Republicans are Abolitionists; second, that the North can be frightened.  Back of these, rendering them fatally effective, lies that other delusion, the imagined right of peaceable secession, founded on a belief in the full and unresigned sovereignty of the States.  Let me tell a story illustrative of the depth to which this belief has penetrated.  Years ago, a friend of mine, talking to a Charleston boy about patriotism, asked him, “What is the name of your country?” “South Carolina!” responded the eight-year-old, promptly and proudly.  What Northern boy, what Massachusetts boy even, would not have replied, “The United States of America”?

South Carolina, I am inclined to think, has long been a disunionist community, or nearly so, deceived by the idea that the Confederation is a bar rather than a help to her prosperity, and waiting only for a good chance to quit it.  Up to the election of Lincoln all timid souls were against secession; now they are for it, because they think it less dangerous than submission.  For instance, when I asked one gentleman what the South expected to gain by going out, he replied, “First, safety.  Our slaves have heard of Lincoln,—­that he is a black man, or black Republican, or black something,—­that he is to become ruler of this country on the fourth of March,—­that he is a friend of theirs, and will free them.  We must establish our independence in order to make them believe that they are beyond his help.  We have had to hang some of them in Alabama,—­and we expect to be obliged to hang others, perhaps many.”

This was not the only statement of the sort which I heard in Charleston.  Other persons assured me of the perfect fidelity of the negroes, and declared that they would even fight against Northern invaders, if needful.  Skepticism in regard to this last comfortable belief is, however, not wanting.

“If it comes to a war, you have one great advantage over us,” said to me a military gentleman, lately in the service of the United States.  “Your working-class is a fighting-class, and will constitute the rank and file of your armies.  Our working-class is not a fighting-class.  Indeed, there is some reason to fear, that, if it take up arms at all, it will be on the wrong side.”

My impression is, that a prevalent, though not a universal fear, existed lest the negroes should rise in partial insurrections on or about the fourth of March.  A Northern man, who had lived for several years in the back-country of South Carolina, had married there, and had lately travelled through a considerable portion of the South, informed me that many of the villages were lately forming Home Guards, as a measure of defence against the slave population.  The Home Guard is frequently a cavalry corps, and is always composed of men who have passed the usual term of military service; for it is deemed necessary to reserve the