Newbern weekly progress., 1860-11-27
From the Petersburg Express.
WHERE WE ARE DRIFTING TO.

We have always thought tha: whenever the
disntegration of the Union of these States com
menced, it would subsequently ramity into Other
separations The huge mass once broken, the
fragments operated upon by the force of the dis
severing blow, will also fly to pieces themselves
We mean by this that the agency through which
the present republic shall be extinguished, viii
60 on, until the same result will be effected in
the new organizations. If a Union of 33 States
cannot be hell together by the ties of com
mon constitution, then a smaller Union cannot
be.
But this is not all Sectionalism is plant
whose growth is confined to no particular soil
1t takes root wherever government is organized
It's just apt to spring up in Single State as
in a Confederacy of States, and is just sure to
do so in the in the other Yea, the
smallest county in the smallest of the States may
be torn to pieces by its discordant and pernicious
excitements. There is not state in this Union
that has not in its own bosom the seed of section
al strife abundantly sown and waiting only for a
favorable season to germinate and grow. In the
light, then, of such startling fact the dissolu-
ton of our Union, what guarantee would any
State have against its own similar disintegraton?
New Governments might and would be establish.
ed, but certainly with no more brilliant and GER
tain prospects of success and durability than were
the prospects which lay before the present repub-
lie when it came forth from the hands of its great
architects. In fact, new government could
be carved out of the original one that could have
half the promise of long continuance, that the
one, in the present case. had. It is therefore
not only possible but extremely probable that
the disruption of our present Confederacy will be
but the beginning of a mutitudinous series of
subdisru ptlons of the different parts into which 1t
may y until at last (and that at not very remote
day,) there will be hundreds of little ephemeral
governments scattered over the noble expanse
now covered by this magnificent and mighty re-
public.
How much then, does it become the people
North and South, to reflect carefully upon all
the aspects of dsunion, and to act in the present
emergency with the utmost consideration! How
important is it for them to avoid precipitancy and
have an eye at the time to the Past, the
Present and the Future Let them bear in mind
the axiom which is no less true in the political
than the philosophical world, that like causes pro-
duce like effects and that if new governments are
formed out OF the ruins of that we now live un-
der, they will severally and inevitably be ex-
posed to the very same perls that have proved
fatal to the present case
The New York Express of Monday, ir an ar
ticle upon ''The State of the Country" turns its
thoughts to this very subject, and impressed
with similar views to our own, appeals in the most
earnest terms to Northern agitators to beware of
the consequences of their reckless courses
The following extract from this excellent ar
ticle will be read with interest. Says the Ex-
press
Our Republican friends will doubtless, some
sixty days hence, begin to agree with us upon
the reality of the crisis, however much they may
differ with us as to the causes oft, and however
laughingIy sneeringly they may talk of it, just
now Meanwhile, we beg them brethren in
this our Northern land to pause, and reflect, and
see where they are drifting with all. What
security have they, that in sneerng revolution,
South, it viii stop in the South? What pledge
have they that when once the bonds of Govern
ment are broken, that the break will be the
and Ohio rivers and will not reach
us even here at home What certainty is there
that the immense masses of Union, anti-Repub
lican people, that So nth of the line of the Ma
tional Road in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, or South
of the Central Railroad in New York. will drift on
with the new Seward, Lovejoy, Sumner Masssa-
chusetts Republic, and will not cling to the old
Constitution and the Southern States with it
Once sever the bonds of Union, and new
Union may be formed-of people in the North,
that can live in peace with the people of the South
Once sever the Republic, and States may be sew
cred too. Revolution once started has no dlkes or
dams-but becomes flood, overthrowing all dlkes
and dams. Oh. let Republicans pause, before they
push this thing too far Let US address our South
ern conntrymen, alarmed, excited. even If not
justly exasperated, in other terms than in the bit
terness of the Republican press of the North.