The idea has been shadowed forth in the South by Mr. Ruffin; has been taken up and recommended in the “Advertiser” (published at Montgomery, Alabama), under the name of “League of United Southerners,” who, keeping up their old party relations on all other questions, will hold the Southern issue paramount, and will influence parties, legislatures, and statesmen.  I have no time to enlarge, but to suggest merely.

    In haste, yours, etc.,

    WM. L. YANCEY

    To James Slaughter, Esq.

The writer of this “Scarlet Letter” had long been known to the country as a prominent politician of Alabama, affiliated with the Democratic party, having once represented a district of that State in Congress, and of late years the most active, pronounced, and conspicuous disunionist in the South.  In so far as this publication concerned himself, it was no surprise to the public; but the project of an organized conspiracy had never before been broached with such matter-of-fact confidence.[1]

An almost universal condemnation by the public press reassured the startled country that the author of this revolutionary epistle was one of the confirmed “fire-eaters” who were known and admitted to exist in the South, but whose numbers, it was alleged, were too insignificant to excite the most distant apprehension.

The letter was everywhere copied, its author denounced, and his proposal to “precipitate the Cotton States into a revolution” held up to public execration.  Mr. Yancey immediately printed a statement deploring the betrayal of personal confidence in its publication, and to modifiy[2] the obnoxious declaration by a long and labored argument.  But in the course of this explanation he furnished additional proof of the deep conspiracy disclosed by the “Scarlet Letter.”  He made mention of “A well-considered Southern policy, a policy which has been digested, and understood, and approved by the ablest men in Virginia, as you yourselves must be aware,” to the effect that while the Cotton States should begin rebellion, “Virginia and the other border States should remain in the Union,” where, by their position and their counsels, they would form a protecting barrier to the proposed separation.  “In the event of the movement being successful,” he continued, “in time Virginia and the other border States that desired it could join the Southern Confederacy.”

Less than ordinary uncertainty hung over the final issue of the Presidential campaign of 1860.  To popular apprehension the election of Lincoln became more and more probable.  The active competition for votes by four Presidential tickets greatly increased his chances of success; and the verdict of the October elections appeared to all sagacious politicians to render his choice a practical certainty.  Sanguine partisans, however, clung tenaciously to their favorites,