Overview
The Alternative: A Separate Nationality, or by William Henry Holcombe
A sectional party, inimical to our institutions, and odious to our people, is about taking possession of the Federal Government. The seed sown by the early Abolitionists has yielded a luxurious harvest. When Lincoln is in place, Garrison will be in power. The Constitution, either openly violated or emasculated of its true meaning and spirit by the subtleties of New England logic, is powerless for protection. We are no longer partners to a federal compact, but the victims of a consolidated despotism. Opposition to slavery, to its existence, its extension and its perpetuation, is the sole cohesive element of the triumphant faction. It did not receive the countenance of a single vote in any one of the ten great cotton States of the South! The question is at length plainly presented: submission or secession. The only alternative left us is this: a separate nationality or the Africanization of the South.
