take common action for the protection of the rights of all.  Events not yet foreseen may change their course and might lead to action on the part of Georgia without waiting for all the Southern States, if it should be found necessary to her safety.  I have handed General Gist a copy of my message on our Federal relations, which will be sent to our Legislature on the first day of the session.  I send only the forms from the press as it is just being put in type.  I may make some immaterial alterations before it is completed.  If your State remains in the Union, I should be pleased that she would adopt such retaliatory measures as I recommend in the message, or others which you may determine to be more appropriate.  I think Georgia will pass retaliatory laws similar to those I recommend, should Lincoln be defeated.  Should the question be submitted to the people of Georgia, whether they would go out of the Union on Lincoln’s election without regard to the action of other States, my opinion is they would determine to wait for an overt act.  The action of other States may greatly influence the action of the people of this State.  This letter is not intended for publication in the newspapers, and has been very hastily prepared.

    I have the honor to be your Excellency’s

    Ob’t serv’t,

    JOSEPH E. BROWN.

  [Sidenote] MS. Confederate Archives.

    EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
    MONTGOMERY, ALA., October 25, 1860. 
    His EXCELLENCY W.H.  GIST.

DEAR SIR:  Your letter of the 5th inst. was handed me a few days since by General Gist.  I fully concur with you in the opinion that Lincoln will be elected President, and that a full and free interchange of opinion between the Executives of the Southern States, and especially of the Cotton States, should be had as to what ought to be done and what will be done by them to protect the interest and honor of the slave-holding States in the event he should be elected.

My opinion is, that the election of Lincoln alone is not sufficient cause for a dissolution of the Union; but that fact, when taken in connection with the avowed objects and intentions of the party whose candidate he is, and the overt acts already committed by that party in nullifying the fugitive-slave law, and the enactment of personal liberty bills in many of the non-slave-holding States, with other acts of like kind, is sufficient cause for dissolving every tie which binds the Southern States to the Union.

It is my opinion that Alabama will not secede alone, but if two or more States will cooeperate with her, she will secede with them; or if South Carolina or any other Southern State should go out alone and the Federal Government should attempt to use force against her, Alabama will immediately rally to her rescue.

The opinions above expressed are predicated upon observation and consultation with a number