The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-09-11

the whole trouble would be at an end
within sixty days!
Eventually there came a slight change OF
tone. \ portion Of the willy Abolition lea
ders. fearful they could not conquer the
South. and abolish slavery, by force, con
ceived the idea of dividing the South. by
States. but retaining the Border States,
with all the Western Territories, thereby
carrying the sectional line several degrees
Southwark, and i~nsuring the speedy death
of slavery in Virginia. Maryland, North
Carolina. Tennessee, and Kentucky, whose
people derived little profit from the lnstltu-
ton, and would hasten to ship their slaves
into the Gulf section, after which they
would assimilate with the free States.
Horace Greedy, at that time recognized as
the official spokesman of the Abolltlonlzed
Republicans, cast the full influence Of his
voice and pen in this direction. In a lead
ing editorial, one month before the first
State seeded. the Tribune rang out
" hold with Je fferson to the inalienable Right of
communities to alter, or abolish, forms OF govern
'ment that have become oppressive or injurious; and II
'ter outside of the Union than in it, WE INSIST On LET
Ting THEM GO IN PEACE. Whenever a considerable
tout we shall resist all coercive measures designed to
keep it in. We hope never to live III a Republic
'NHcTtO III tCllOu Is AIueu u TIC coleiuC ~ DoyO-
''nets.'
Again on the 18th of December, the day
South Carolina assembled her secession con
~vention, the Republicans, through Greeley,
said to her and the South =
"If ever seven or eight States send agents TO Wash
"lngton to say we want TO go out OF the onlon, we
''shall feel constrained by our devotion to human hDer-
.ty to say Let them go" And we do not see how we
could take the other side without coming IN direct
conflict with those Rights OF man which we hold para
mount to all political arrangement, however convenient
land advantageous
Edward Everett, the late Union condi-
dote" tor Nice-President, also said-''If
the Southern States are determined to go,
let them depart in peace"
The same views were shared by multi
tudes. At an immense mass meeting in
New York, held five days before South
Carolina seeded, the two most prominent
speakers, Messrs. John Mckeon, and Daniel
5. Dickerson, afterwards a member of the
Federal Cabinet expressed the belief that
the dissolution Of the Union was already a
foregone conclusion, and reunion impossible.
Mayor Wood, of the same city, in a formal
message to the city council, three weeks after
South Carolina seeded, spoke OF the disso-
luton Of the Union as inevitable, and
remarked, when disunion has become a
fixed and certain fact, why may not New
York disrupt the bonds which bind her to a
iSiilo oIt ~ ~ Il DCODIC dilu
a party which have p~lundered her revenues,
attempted to ruin her commerce., taken
away the power of self government, and
destroyed the Confederacy of which she was
the proud empire city,
President Buchanan in a message to Con-
gress in reference to South Carolina, while
declaring secession to be revolutionary in the
extreme, fully admitted there was nothing
in the Constitution to prohibit it, or to war
rant the use of force to crush any State into
a condition of submission. Lincoln himself.
speech Any people, anywhere, being in
cllned and having the power, have the right
to rise up and shake off the existing govern
ment, and form a new one that suits them
better. .And even after his inauguration.
his Secretary of State, Seward in a letter
of Instructions to Minister Adams at Lon
don. wrote" For these reasons Mr.. Lincoln
would not reject the secession dogma
that the Federal government could not re-
ducc the seeding States to obedience by
conquesr. In fact he willingly accepts it as
true. Only an imperial or despotic govern
mcnt coul Suliugate thoroughly disafrected
AMI III urrectlonary members OF the State.
thus Federal system OF ours is Of all forms
OF government. the very one most untitled
fo- such labor"
Yet a few weeks latter the whole earth
was being raked for means to crush and sub
iugate the South!
1t Is well to remember these things. They
show that when the Lincolnites subsequently
changed their tore. and rushed upon the
South to rule. or eternally ruin. it was in a
spirit OF rage and hatred rather than of JUS
tee. or real love for the Union.
ANDERSON KINDLEs THE WAR FLAMES.
During the last week of 1850. the Seces-
sion movement, which had been confined
chiefly to political transactions, took a more
serious and war like phase under the impul-
Sion of Maj. Anderson's flight from Fort
Moultree to Fort Sumpter at the mouth of
Charleston harbor. By this ill-iudged and
unauthorized action the Federal commander
lot only violated a tacit agreement which
had withheld the South Carolinians from
s"lzing the forts, and imprisoning his small
force, but be also thereby changed his atti-
tude from a condition of peaceah'c ouies-
cence pending political negotiations. IN tbat