Ever yours,
Charles Sumner.
Senate Chamber, February 6, 1861.
My dear Andrew,—It seems to me that nothing is gained for the Union by the Virginia election except delay, unless the North surrender everything. I have always trusted that the North would not, and therefore look to the secession of Virginia as impending,—sooner or later to occur.
This delay seems like a beneficent intervention of Providence to arrest the conflict, which a sudden movement would have precipitated. It suspends the revolutionary movement in Maryland, which was to begin the 18th,—five days after the Virginia Convention,—and thus gives security to the capital.
Since General Scott has become wakeful, and has received powers from the President, I have felt safe against everything but a revolutionary movement.
Be assured I will keep you advised. I shall scent the coming danger.
But do not be deceived by that fatal advice which sees nothing but peace and security in the recent elections.
Chase has just left me. He thinks there may be thirty Unionists per se in the Virginia Convention; all the rest only conditionally,—the condition being the resolutions on which the Massachusetts commissioners are to deliberate. Bah! A friend, who was with Mr. Rives this morning, tells me that he was very bitter against Johnson, of Tennessee, for his Union speech, and especially for saying “Secession is treason.” He says that the persons called Unionists will be for secession, if the South cannot have “Constitutional guaranties.” The course of such a person as Mr. Rives, who is said to be conservative, foreshadows the result.