I am still for the Union, because I have yet a faint, hesitating hope that the North will do justice to the South, and save the Republic, before the wreck is complete. But action, to be available, must be prompt. If the free States will sweep the Liberty Bills from their codes, propose a convention of the States, and offer guaranties which will afford the same repose and safety to Southern homes and property enjoyed by those of the North, the impending tragedy may be averted, but not otherwise. I feel a positive personal humiliation as a member of the human family in the events now preparing. If the Republic is to be offered as a sacrifice upon the altar of American servitude, then the question of man's capacity for self-government is forever settled. The derision of the world will henceforth justly treat the pretension as a farce; and the blessed hope which for five thousand years our race, amid storms and battles, has been hugging to its bosom, will be demonstrated to be a phantom and a dream. Pardon these hurried and disjointed words. They have been pressed out of my heart by the sorrows that are weighing upon it. Sincerely your friend, J. HOLT. Within forty-eight hours after the election of Mr. Lincoln, the Legislature of South Carolina called a State Convention. It met on the 17th of December, and three days later the inevitable ordinance of secession was formally adopted, and the little commonwealth began to act under the erroneous impression that she was a sovereign and independent nation. She benignantly accepted the postal service of the "late United States of America," and even permitted the gold and silver coins of the federal government to circulate within her sacred limits. But intelligence from the rest of the country was published in her newspapers under the head of "foreign news;" her governor appointed a "cabinet," commissioned "ambassadors," and practised so many fantastic imitations of greatness and power, that, but for the serious purpose and the bloody event, his proceedings would have been very amusing. It was a curious little comedy between the acts of a hideous tragedy.