[138]
let it be driven back as the direct enemy of the human race ..
We are ourselves as much attached to the Union as the writers at Washington or any of its Southern friends can be, and yet even if we supposed the cry of disunion was alarming, we should not be driven from the defence of truth, justice, and liberty by menaces from any quarter.
We regard the Union as an important means to an important end, but the end, in our view, is the more important of the two.
... It is a certain historical fact that the conservative men in the slave-holding States, the sort of men who composed the late Whig party in those States, with all their excellent and admirable qualities, never have been able to exercise any considerable influence even at home, and much less upon national politics, except as they were supported, maintained, and upheld by a powerful Northern party in which they never took the lead except to lead it to ruin.
It was so in the days of Washington and John Adams.
It has been so in our time.
The whole course of our national history testifies in a voice not to be mistaken that the only way to enable the conservative men of the slave-holding States to make the slightest movement towards coming forward and aiding in undoing the wrong of which we complain, is to organize at the North a powerful party having that very object in view, and to which that aid can be afforded.
Such declarations as these, and hundreds more which could be quoted while
Greeley was absent in
Europe, were either from
Dana's pen, or selected by him from the daily contributions of his writers.
They exerted a powerful influence in the organization of the Republican party, which took place on September 28, 1855.
Referring to it on that day, the
Tribune says, with exultation:
A noble work has been accomplished by the friends of republican freedom at Syracuse.
A party has been organized on the basis of opposition to the extension of slavery in this country.
