That termagant little South Carolina has declared herself out of the Union and resolved to run away and to the sea. How many of the Southern sisterhood will join the secession jig…remains to be seen…. It’s a grave event for any family if one of its members goes mad. But as an offset, we have the influx of gold from England and the growing hopes that Northern cities will get through the winter without the panic and crisis and uprising of hungry mobs that our Southern friends complacently predict.
George Templeton Strong
December 21, 1860
(New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009. p. 413.)