. . . I disagree very much with you in your idea of a central republic such a thing can never be, nor if it was practicable do I think that we should ever enter into it. May be that some of the states have been rather hasty, they are fighting for the institutions of the whole South and the South will yet sustain them.
Who would rather be swung on to the tail end of a Northern or central Republic than to be equals in a Southern Confederacy.
The safety of our institutions depend upon our living united; if we are divided where do we look for success. The North has shown that it was unwilling to compromise by the negation of the Crittenden resolutions. By all the South presenting one united front we may yet bring them to their senses but never while they find us quarreling among ourselves and if the worst must come let us all go together where nature would point that we should be. I know you think I am like all the young folks in for a charge without considering the consequences. I have weighed the matter as well as I am able and think that mine is the only safe course. . . .
