"Must N.C. and the border states go with them is our question? We are not compelled to do so. Many think we could do better, and the method is to form a great middle confederacy composed of the border slave and the border free states. In this way we preserve this Capitol, the public lands, the form and prestige of the old government, secure greater homogeniousnes, and finally re-organize and reconstruct the whole Union round this grand and overshadowing nucleus! It is the policy of the cotton states as disclosed here by their commissioners and leading men, to keep out the border states from joining them until they can confederate and form a constitution embodying their own peculiar dogmas and Rhett-Yancey policy. The leading ideas of this policy is that reopening the African slave traffic and free trade and direct taxation. The voice of the great border states is against this of course; hence their hasy action. Their confederacy once formed, we go into it acceding to their policy of we stay out and be their border guard against abolitionism- They don’t care which! That’s the present state of the case. I confess I am not willing to do either. And I think the only way that the Union can be reconstructed and these cotton states be brought to treat us with proper respect, is this idea of a great Central Confederation. It could dictate terms of compromise which Georgia would be compelled to accept, and the withdrawal of Georgia would break the back bone of the whole seceding Kingdom. As for New England, we would kick it out if it refused to secede, and would never let it back unless as the single state of New England with only two Sumners in the senate to play the blackguard."
What is obvious is that Vance wants to stay out of any conflict between Lincoln and the newly christened Confederate States of America, going as far as to believe that the border states should teach the two extremes how to get along.
Vance also was a fervent believer in the people's right to govern. Instead letting the few hot-heads in the state government (including the pro-secessionist Governor Ellis) vote and create a Secessionist Convention, he proposed holding a state-wide vote where the people could elect their representatives to said convention.
The whole southern mind is inflamed to the highest pitch and the leaders in the disunion move are scorning every suggestion of compromise and rushing everything with ruinous and indecent haste that would seem to imply that they were absolute fools- yet they are acting wisely for their ends- they are “precipitating” the people into a revolution without giving them time to think- They fear lest the people shall think; hence the hasty actions of S. Carolina, Georgia & the other States in calling conventions & giving so short a time for the election of delegates – but the people must think, and when they do begin to think and hear the matter properly discussed they will consider long and soberly before they tear down this noble fabric and invite anarchy and confusion, carnage, civil war, and financial ruin with the breathless hurry of men flying from a pestilence
He shows a certain amount of animosity towards more militant future and former countrymen in South Carolina and Georgia, writing off their vote for secession as "hasty". As moderate and cool-headed as Vance appears in writing, it is worth saying that when North Carolina did end up seceding in 1861, Vance enlisted in Raleigh and served until elected governor in 1862. As governor Vance was often at odds with Jefferson Davis' central government by giving North Carolinians first pick of imports smuggled through the blockade into Wilmington or any of the other North Carolina ports.
Tomorrow I will conduct a bit more research on Vance, I'd like to write a few pages about the idea of creating a central confederacy.
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