Extract from the Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge

December 23. South Carolina seceded on Friday, the twentieth, from the United States. The day, I am afraid, will be long remembered. Mr. William Amory, who returned from Washington yesterday, says that the Republicans will make no concessions and he thinks, as I do, that if that is the case the Middle States will join the cotton States and disunion and civil war follow.

Published in The Autobiography of T. Jefferson Coolidge, 1831–1920 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923), 19.