[Sidenote] MS. Confederate Archives. ALEXANDRIA, LA., 26th October, 1860. His EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR GIST. DEAR SIR: Your favor of the 5th inst. was received a few days ago at this place. I regret my inability to consult with as many of our leading citizens as I wished, but I will not delay in replying any longer. You will (of course) consider my letter as private, except for use in consultation with friends. I shall not call a convention in this State if Lincoln is elected, because I have no power or authority to do so. I infer from your letter that an authority has been vested in you by your Legislature to call a convention in a specified contingency. Our Legislature has taken no action of that or any similar kind. That body will meet in regular annual session about the middle of January; but it is not improbable that I may consider it necessary to convene it at an earlier day, if the complexion of the electoral colleges shall indicate the election of Lincoln. Even if that deplorable event shall be the result of the coming election, I shall not advise the secession of my State, and I will add that I do not think the people of Louisiana will ultimately decide in favor of that course. I shall recommend that Louisiana meet her sister slaveholding States in council to consult as to the proper course to be pursued, and to endeavor to effect a complete harmony of action. I fear that this harmony of action, so desirable in so grave an emergency, cannot be effected. Some of the Cotton States will pursue a more radical policy than will be palatable to the border States, but this only increases the necessity of convening the consultative body of which I have spoken. I believe in the right of secession for just cause, of which the sovereignty must itself be the judge. If therefore the general Government shall attempt to coerce a State, and forcibly attempt the exercise of this right, I should certainly sustain the State in such a contest. There has never been any indication made by Louisiana, or by any public body within her limits, of her probable course in the event of an election of a Black Republican President, and she is totally unprepared for any warlike measures. Her arsenals are empty. While some of her sister States have been preparing for an emergency, which I fear is now imminent, she has been negligent in this important matter.