Wabash express. [volume] (Terre-Haute, Vigo Co[unty], Ind.) 1841-186?, 1860-10-24
How Liucoln's Election will affect
Memphis-The Extent of our
Danger.
From the Memphis Appeal. ]


There was vast deal of nonsense
about the effects of Lincoln's
election. In the first place, we do not
believe that Lincoln will be the next
President, and if he should become
Buchanan's successor, we do not i'm
agine that any irremediable harm
will be done. He has only a veto
power, and can do nothing to injure
the South in reference TO any of her
peculiar interest, till the Senate and
Supreme Court are radically changed.
If the States south of us choose to
convert this republic into another Mex
lean confederacy ofmiserable factions,
warning States, on account of some
fancied wrong which may or may not
hereafter be imposed upon US, we can
only say that such States will lose the
most sensible portion of their popula-
ton. Let every extreme Southern
States secede and set up for herself,
let her begin system of taxation ade-
quate to the support of an independent
government, and the conservative tax
paying citizens will leave politicians
to manage the whirlwind, whose ter
rors they have awakened, and will
crowd into Tennessee and the Middle
States and their cities.
Should the secession of one or two
Southern States occur, if let alone by
the Federal Government for SIX
months, such States will "secede"
again, backwards into the Union
Abe Lincoln need not use the navy,
or the army we could not fight our
bretheren of the South, however I'M
justifable the quarrel in which they
may involve themselves but there is
no need of an army or navy to bring
seeding States to their senses we
wilt be enriched while they will be i'm
poverished by such a movement, till
necessity would invoke reason, and the
frey politicians whom ambition has
maddened would be dethroned, and
the Union would soon again be per-
fected on a more durable basis, if pos
sible, than that on which it now rests.
We Tennesseeans and Kentuckians,
we who are the near neighbors of Hi
noisans and Indianians, who are daily
brought into contact with them, pity
the deluded fools whom politicians
have led estray and converted into ne
gro thieves; We contemn and pity them
they know not what they do, believing
all the while, in all honesty, that in
wronging us they are doing God SER
vice. Then, there are vast numbers
in those States as sound on the negro
question as the secessionists them
selves.
But why is all this rhodomontade
about secession and revolution confn-
ed to the extreme South? The people
there do not suffer as we do. We lose
a thousand slaves to ten lost by Ala
bama and South Carolina. We must
be overrun and our cities desolated
before the extreme South can be inva-
ded by the North. In point of fact,
the Southern States should await the
action of the Middle States if they dc
not, it must be apparent that they dis
trust our sense of right and honor
and that they are willing to force us
into a struggle, the evils of which can
not for years affect them.
1t follows that in case of any I'M
Unsuitable action occurring in any ex.
treme Southern State, it behooves us
to take care of our slaves. If we see
no cause for secession, we should and
would have nought to do with it; and
Charleston, instead of becoming the
great political and commercial capital
of the Southern confedercy, would
dwindle into utter significance, while
Memphis would grow apace in wealth
and population by the exodus which
would take place among the laborng
taxpaying citizens of the seeding
States. We can conceive of no i'll eff.
ects necessarily arising to the conser.
vative Middle States and cities of the
Union, unless Lincoln and his adhe-
rents are outright madmen.