Mary Beckley Bristow, an active member of Sardis Baptist Church in Union, Kentucky (a Calvinist congregation), in the pages of her diary offers personal commentary on the prospects of southern secession:
Have been too restless in mind about the situation of this once happy country to even answer the letters of my correspondents. I can see no good reason why the South should not peaceably secede from the Union, which in reality has been no real union for years past. The Senate and congress of the United States have met annually at Washington City to quarrel. The North, that is the Abolitionist portion of the North, seem determined to trample on the rights of the South, and the South are just as determined not to be trampled on. Then of course it is far better to separate. O Lord, if consistent with thy will cause a peaceable separation. I suffer not my country to be desolated by war’s devastating hand.
Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln is in Washington, D.C. awaiting his inauguration. Rumors of the alleged Baltimore assassination attempt are the talk of the town.
As the United States prepares for Lincoln’s upcoming inauguration, the Confederate States of America, in Convention in Montgomery, Alabama, completes the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. The Constitution invokes “the favor and guidance of Almighty God,” gives slaveholders legal protections, and prohibits the abolishment or limitation of African slavery in Confederate territories.
Source: Bristow’s 1861 diary (link); Confederate Constitution (link)
Note: Thanks to Jim Duvall of the BaptistHistoryHomepage website for bringing Bristow’s diary to my attention.
