nominated is for secession unreservedly. South
Carolina alone can bring 60,000 men into the field,
sixty Palmetto regiments; and we have already
50,000 volunteers from other States, should any
attempt be made at coercion. Such an attempt
will help us and force all the other Southern States
to take their places by our side. . . . The Union
had survived its uses, had got to be a mere shop [?]
of faction, fraud, and peculation, was no longer a
guardian of the feeble, was a bold, impudent ag-
gressor upon the rights of others, an usurper, wax-
ing fat and kicking in its lustihood, and needed to
be taken down and driven to short commons." ¹

In a word, he was thoroughly aroused. Ill
health and lassitude seemed to have left him. He
waited impatiently for the passage of the "Ordi-
nance of Secession," and soon after singing his
"Nunc Dimittis" wrote Miles a brief undated epis-
tle which concluded as follows: "I have been mak-
ing stump speeches. Everybody right in this re-
gion. Minute men in arms. Go to the convention
[at Montgomery] if you can. Of course, Congress
is nothing to you now. Identify yourself with the
movement. But do not fatigue yourself." ²

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