Chapter 3 unpacks the “sickly season,” or the summer of 1860, characterized by the threat of mosquito-related diseases in the Lowcountry. It argues that South Carolinians’ insistence upon traveling to their usual vacation haunts, often ending their trips in New York City, reveals a still-uncertain political future. During this “season” (roughly late May to late October), South Carolinians felt time slow down, and talk of electoral politics faded to the background. South Carolina women continued to express political thoughts, however, revealing rivalries with Virginians that coexisted with desires to form social, and therefore economic and political, relations at Virginia’s healing and resort springs. The annoyance with Virginia reflects a tension between the two states of who is the true inheritor of the American Revolutionary spirit, and this chapter uses the Mount Vernon Ladies Association to explore shifting perceptions of a federalist and yet southern president. It also describes the increasing anxieties surrounding slave rebellion on the eve of secession, and to what extent enslaved women increased their day-to-day resistance as rumors of disunion spread.