New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-02-22
rlIa hoRnER srArEs-

The telegraph reports that Missouri, at her late
election, voted, by large majority in favor Ct
the Union. Coming close upon the elections in
Virginia and Tennessee, this result indicates that
the Border Slave States, for the present at least,
prefer the old Union to the Southern Confederacy.
They prefer a position Of luferiority in Union
where they will be at the mercy of an overwhelm-
ing majority, to a CoufederaCy in which they
would be welcomed snd honorcd equals, liz
which their peace ard security wou1 be max
tanned, and IN the control Of which they wortd
have potential voice. ----~-------~
We neetl not say that this decision has gveT I'M
alleged pain to great majority CT the people of
the G&lf States, Not that the latter he~Te the
slightest distrust of their inability to hold, alone
and &nassstedv the position they have 't9ken. 1t
Is not that We need physical strength, or that we
desire the ceantenance of others for movement
which we know to be right, though all the world
should say otherwise. 1t is for none of these
reasons tkat we have plead for Il united South.
But it YVES because wished to avoid the calam-
tiles of civil war; because we believed the cause
of one slave State was the cause of all of them
and because we were reluctant to be separate
and distinct from those to whom we are bound by
SO many ties, social, political, and commercial.
If the Border Sieve States could disabuse them
selves of the idea-a totally 6elusive one--teeat by
remaining in the q MON they will be in position to
mediate between the North and South in such a
way as to bring back the latter to the fold of the
Y Mon, it would be greatpoint gained with them.
We have before said, and every day strengthens
the assertion, that reconstruction of the Union
at the present time, and in the present temper of
both the Northern and the Southern people, is a
matter of almost absolute impossibility. If the
authoritative declarations to this effect first by the
President of the Southern Congress, and next by
President Davis himself in his Inaugural Address,
are not sufficient, the proof may be found in the
fact that not solitary Journal in the Gulf States
so far as We have seen, single speaker has
ever alluded to a reconstruction of the old Union
in any other terms than those of decided conde1n-
nation and repugnance,
What, then, the Border Slave States propose to
themselves by remaining at the fag end of the old
Union we unable to see. We have no dstrust
of their devotion to Southern rights and Southern
honor. We believe they feel as keenly as any
others the jgnomiuy of political and social COM
panionship with the myrmidons of Abolition. 1t
must be hope that the fell spirit of fanaticism will
be sooner or later put down, that causes them TO
adhere to the rotten wreck of the old ship of the
Union 1t is, we think, hoping against hope 1t is |
the indulgence of dream more unsubstantial than
the baseless fabric of vision 1t is DELAY which
will only give Abolitonism longer time to weave
its tolls around the Border States, until thew lie
PROSTATE and helpless at its feet.
1t was with difficulty the South when all the |
States were represented in the Federal Congress,
could prevent the passage of the obnoxious meas
Hres of Black Republican legislation. Now that
one-half of the Southern Representatives are per-
withdrawn, and the disproporton be-
tween the two sections is about to be made still
greater under the new apportionment Of represen-
tatioa, the Border Slave States will be powerless
in the Congress of the Union, and unable to resist
the most oppressive and unjust legislation that
Black Republican Ingenuity and selfshness nav /
suggest. The most onerous burdens in the shane
Of tariffs, bounties, nonopolies ard class le2isla-
ION will be imposed upon their shoulders, and
Northern cnpidy will make up from the Border
States what it has lost by the withdrawal of the
Sult States 1t must result, sooner or later in the
self-protectiVe measure which we have adopted
the withdrawal from Union of intolerable WRONG
and oppression. Why, then, these States should
hesitate about step that they will be compelled
to take eventually is, we repeat, an inexplicabIe
circumstance. In matter of this sort, argument
is not needed to show that the quicker the newt
able step is taken the better for themselves and
the better for US. Timidity and irresolution are
not the appliances by which the Black Republican
crest IS IS to be lowered. If it be true as the old
classical maxim declares that he who gives quickly
gives twice. equally true is it in the strategy of re-
sistance, that lie who strikes quickly strikes with
a blow of redoubed force.