New-York daily tribune., 1862-05-14
TlR RIGHT OF REVOLUTION

The Indiana SeTftnd mas an article on TIE
Right of Secession, which we transfer rerbatsm
to our columns. The main question involved
is one of the utmost gravity, Is cmnently
practical. ard demands q present solution. We
trust every reader of TIE TRIBUNE will con-
slider it thoughtfully, and that The stnhn1i
will transfer this article in turn TO its columns.
The readers of both journals will thus be en-
abled to study the question under various
aspects, and to arrive at just and ripe con-
clusions. We must restate our views with all
possible brevty.
/. We have steadfastly affirmed and upheld
Mr.. Jefierson's doctrine, embodied in the De-
cIaration of American Independence, of the
Right of Revolution. We have insisted that,
where this right is asserted, ard It's exercise
is properly attempted, it ought rot to be nec-
essary TO subject all concerned to the woes and
horrors of civil war. In other words, What one
party has a right 10 do. another can have
no right to resist. And we have urged that,
had the great mass Of the Southern People
really desired a dissolution of the Union, and
been willing to exercise reasonable patience,
their end might have beca attained without
devastation and carnage; for we, with thousands
more in the North, would have doue all in our
power to incline our fellow citizens to defer u
their request and let them 60 in peace. Hence
we have contended that the violent, terrorist,
outrageous proceedings of the Southern Jaco-
bins-ther seizure Of the National forts, arm.
ories, arseuals, subtreasuries, &c, culminstine
in the bombardment Of Fort Sumter-were not
only inexcusable in themselves, but signally cal.
have in view. These high-bandcd outrages arc
only explicable on our presumption that The
great body Of the Southern People uere really
arsrse TO DiSunion wberef re- the conspirators
found it necessary to plunge into outrage and
crime in order to " FIRE the Southern heart, "
and convince their fellow citizens that Dlsunicn
was an accomplished fact-that for each OF
them 10 choice remained but to stand by the
North and her Abolition. II was precisely
because Disunion was weak throughout the
South that the DsunioDists rushed the country
ut the earliest moment into the abyss Of Civil
War. Steadfsst, Wholesale, reckless lying by
the Jacobin leaders, throughout the Winter OF
ISG0-'61, with the purchase end peryersion OF
several leading Union journals, carried over a
good many to the side Of Secession, yet the
popular vote showed majority 10 the eutire
Slave region for the Union even then. II was
not till war bad been actually commenced BY
the bombardnent of Sumter that the masses
were made to regard the Union as dream
of the past and to embark in the rebellion as
the cause Of the South against the North,
which no Southron could decline TO Uphold
without baseDess, pusillanimity aud treason.
In other words, civil war was commenced by
the disunon leaders, not because the South
hated and sought to escape from the Union,
but in order to make her do 50. We deny,
therefore, that the South, in any real and
practical sense, desires disuniOn to-day. She
hns been deceived, frcnzied, perverted, by the
most gigantic and INSCRIPTIONS system of fase-
hood that tho world has ever known-the truth
having been vigorously suppressed and its
utterance savagey punished there for more
than year past-but aside from the effect
produced by this enormous lying, majority of
the Southern People are UniOnists. Ii is by
assuming the contrary as indubitable, that
Tie Sentinel seeks to convict us Of inconsis-
tency; but this is Of little moment. Let us
keep to the main question.
ii. We loathe War; and stand firm in the
faith that it Is never necessary where Nations
are prepouderautly just aud humane. Aud We