The Richmond Enquirer, March 26, 1861, p. 1, c. 6

The importance of Abraham Lincoln is vastly overrated by the Black Republicans of the North, and the Submissionists of the South. They endeavor to impress upon the people the idea that he holds in his hand the issue of life or death to the South, and that he has fully made up his mind to speak the life giving word to our section! Many presses and politicians of the South declare for Submission and against Secession, upon the ground that Lincoln will give the country a "conservative administration." Does any reflecting man, of any section, really believe that the present opinions or intentions of Abraham Lincoln, whether right or wrong, ought to have the slightest influence in deciding the question of the relations of the border-slave States to the two confederacies between which they are now compelled to make choice? No considerate mind can view Lincoln, in the position to which he was called last November, in any other light than that of a mere "feather on the tide" of Abolitionism. The people of the South have no fears of the feather, but they ought to be alive to the importance of protecting themselves against the torrent of Abolition fanaticism which threatens to engulf them.