Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-06-17
A Fact Worth Noting.
Mobile Reofster.


The publication of Mr.. Davis book
has revived denunciations of the doctrine
of secession in the Northern papers.
We have no intention of defending that
doctrine. IL is dead beyond the posi-
bility of recovery, and all discussion OF
it is time thrown away. Mr.. Davis
views on the subject, however, viii have
historical interest. and in this light they
should be regarded
In this connection the St. Louis Re-
publican calls attention to the fact that
leading men in New England were the
first to enunciate the doctrine that their
descendants now reprobate We of the
South owe much to New England, for
that section has given us many good
citizens in the past, and has set our peo-
pie an example of thrift, economy, and
industry, which they would do well to
follow, but, per contra, 1t cannot be de-
MED that the New Englanders of colonial
times outdid the South in traficing in
slaves, that the New Highlander of the
first part of this century was ready to
talk secession if the general government
was not run to suit him, and that from
New England, in more modern times,
we have received wooden nutmegs, free
thinking in religion, woman's rights,
and isms without number.
But to return to the fact that our st.
Louis contemporary calls attention to.
We will go back to 1904, only fifteen
years after the Union had been estab-
lished. In that year Colonel Timothy
Pickering, of Massachusetts, successfully
Postmaster General, Secretary of War,
and Secretary of State in the Cabinet of
Washington, and for many years United
States Senator for Massachusetts,, wrote
as follows:
THE principles of our revolution point to
the remedy-d separation That this can be
accomplished, and without spilling one drop of
blood. have little doubt. l do not believe in
the pracucabillty OF long-continued Union.
A Nortnern conrederacy would unite congenial
characters and present a falrer prospect of
public happiness; while the Southern States.
having similarity of habits might be left to
mansge their own affairs in their own way.
The separation must begin in Massachusetts, y
Again in 1911 another representative
of Massachusetts in Congress, Hon. 10.
siah Quincy, said upon occasion of the
admission of louisiana
IF this bill passes it is my deliberate opinion
that 1t is a virtual dissolution of the Union;
that it will free the States from their moral
obligation. and as it will be the right of all so
it will be the duty of some, definitely to pre-
pare for separation -amicably if they can,
violently if they must
The Hartford Convention, which con.
vened in 1914, was constituted of dele
gates chosen by the Legislatures of the
New England States. Discussing the
variance of interests and antagonisms
of the sections, that conspicuous body
said:
Whenever it shall appear that the causes
are radical and permanent separation by
equitable arrangement will be preferable to an
alliance by constraint among nominal friends
but real enemies
The Hartford Convention, our readers
will remember, was the result of dissat.
isfaction in New England caused by the
war in which the United States was en-.
gagged with Great Britain. The people
of that section were more anxious for
the protection of their special interests
than for the success of the national arms.
1t will be seen, therefore, that the
doctrine of secession was not a plant
whose growth was confined to the
South. 1t fourished in New England,
just as slavery did, just so long as it
was to the interest of the people to cul.
tivate it. Our New England contem.
poraries who are pitching into Mr.. Davis
In such lively manner should remem-
Der, therefore, that their own ancestors
are responsible for the early develop
ment of the doctrine they now discourse
of.