150-Years-Ago -- THE REVOLUTION PROGRESSES

The Charleston Zouave Cadets occupied Castle Pinckney
December 26, 1860

(The Photographic History of The Civil War in Ten Volumes: Volume Three, The Decisive Battles. The Review of Reviews Co., New York. 1911. p. 171.)

The Charles Mercury
January 1, 1861

   Our readers will perceive, from our telegraphic despatches,that Governor Floyd has resigned his seat in the Cabinet as Secretary of War, and that General Scott has been appointed, ad interim, in his place, or Mr. Holt, who is equally in favor of coercion; and that the war steamer, Harriet Lane, has been ordered to this port; and that troops may also be expected. This looks very belligerent, and we confess, quite exceeds the folly we were prepared to attribute to the Administration. In twelve days three more States -- Florida, Alabama and Mississippi -- will most probably be out of the Union. In one month four more -- Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Georgia -- will also most probably be out of the Union. If there was any doubt of such results the Government will make them sure by its futile attempts to coerce South Carolina. It will do more. It will speedily bring all the other Southern States into sympathy and union with the Cotton States. If the Cotton States had the ordering of events, they could not devise any expedient so certain and speedy in its operation to drive all the Southern States together into a separate Confederacy, than that which the Administration, under the counsels of General Scott, is now about to adopt. As soon as this intelligence passes down the South, the people of every Southern State in which is a military stronghold of the United States, will seize it. We could have seized Fort Sumter; but failing to do so, we see it garrisoned for the control of the bay. The other Southern States will profit by the lesson, and will know how to meet the faithlessness and hostility of the Federal Government. Virginia, Florida, Alabama, will now understand the uses to which the United States fortresses in their respective States are to be applied. They are to be filled with enemies to enforce the authority of a Government as unscrupulous as it is tyrannical. Nor will the spirit of the people of the South quail before such demonstrations. It will rise with the development of the true nature of the Government of the United States. Some of our people have not realized that it has become a remorse less sectional despotism. Now its true characteristics will be made plain to all; and as it raises its bloody front, it will be met with that stern courage which always animates men struggling for their liberties and institutions. Although we deprecate collisions with the General Government we cannot doubt that it must, more speedily than any other instrumentality, produce the triumph of the policy of South Carolina. That policy is an eternal separation of the Southern from the Northern States, and a mightily Southern Confederacy. The poor fools who are trying to defeat its consummation by drawing the sword, will only give it a loftier and more enduring triumph.
   South Carolina, with the Ithurial spear of Secession, has touched the toad--and lo! it springs up, a devil