youth of the country to meet the “Northern masses,” the “Federal mercenaries,” on the field of possible battle.  By letters from Montgomery, Alabama, I learn that unusual precautions have been common during the last winter, many persons locking up their negroes over night in the quarters, and most sleeping with arms at hand, ready for nocturnal conflict.  Whoever considers the necessarily horrible nature of a servile insurrection will find in it some palliation for Southern violence toward suspected incendiaries and Southern precipitation in matters of secession, however strongly he may still maintain that lynch-law should not usurp the place of justice, nor revolution the place of regular government If you live in a powder-magazine, you positively must feel inhospitably inclined towards a man who presents himself with a cigar in his mouth.  Even if he shows you that it is but a tireless stump, it still makes you uneasy.  And if you catch sight of a multitude of smokers, distant as yet, but apparently intent on approaching, you will be very apt to rush toward them, deprecate their advance, forbid it, or possibly threaten armed resistance, even at the risk of being considered aggressive.

Are all the South Carolinians disunionists?  It seemed so when I was there in January, 1861, and yet it did not seem so when I was there in 1855 and ’56.  At that time you could find men in Charleston who held that the right of secession was but the right of revolution, of rebellion,—­well enough, if successful, but inductive to hanging, if unfortunate.  Now those same men nearly all argue for the right of peaceable secession, declaring that the State has a right to go out at will, and that the Federal Government has no right to coerce or punish it.  These turncoats are the sympathetic, who are carried away by a rush of popular enthusiasm, and the fearful or peaceable, who dread or dislike violence.  Let us see how a timid Unionist can be converted into an advocate of the right of secession.  Let us suppose a boat with three men on board, which is hailed by a revenue-cutter, with a threat of firing, if she does not come to.  Two of these men believe that the revenue-officer is performing a legal duty, and desire to obey him; but the third, a reckless, domineering fellow, seizes the helm, lets the sail fill, and attempts to run by, meantime declaring at the top of his voice that the cutter has no business to stop his progress.  The others dare not resist him and cannot persuade him.  Now, then, what position will they take as to the right of the revenue-officer to fire?  Ten to one they will join their comrade whom they lately opposed; they will cry out, that the pursuer was wrong in ordering them to stop, and ought not to punish them for disobedience; in short, they will be converted by the instinct of self-preservation into advocates of the right of peaceable secession.  I understand, indeed I know, that there are a few opponents of disunion remaining In South Carolina; but, although they are wealthy people and of good position, it is pretty certain that they have not an atom of political influence.