The Northern Press.
The New York Tribune declares against a Republic ‘"whereof one section is pinned to the other by bayonets,"’ and says:
But while we thus uphold the practical liberty if not the abstract right of secession, we must insist that the step be taken, if it ever shall be, with the deliberation and gravity befitting so momentous an issue.
Let ample time be given for reflection; let the subject be fully canvassed before the people, and let a popular vote be taken in every case before secession is decreed.
Let the people be told just
why they are urged to break up the Confederation; let them have both sides of the question fully presented; let them reflect, deliberate, then vote; and let the act of secession be the echo of an unmistakable popular flat.
A judgment thus rendered, a demand for separation so backed, would either be acquiesced in without the effusion of blood, or those who rushed upon carnage to defy and defeat it would place themselves clearly in the wrong.
The measures now being inaugurated in the cotton States, with a view (apparently) to secession, seem to us destitute of gravity and legitimate force.
They bear the unmistakable impress of haste — of passion — of distrust of the popular judgment.
They seem clearly intended to precipitate the
South into rebellion before the baselessness of the clamors which have misled and excited her can be ascertained by the great body of her people.
We trust that they will be confronted with calmness, with dignity, and with unwavering trust in the inherent strength of the
Union and the loyalty of the
American people.
The Philadelphia Bulletin, formerly a "conservative" Republican paper, adopts the following strain towards the
South:
The people of the
South must bear in mind that they are to be the greatest, losers by disunion.
They need not parade before us the stale old fallacy about the enormous exports of the
Southern States.
We can tell them that the exports from the
Northern to the
Southern States, of which no note is taken, are infinitely greater than the
Southern exports to
Europe; and the people of the
South would have to import from us quite as much, in the shape of breadstuffs and manufactures, after dissolution, as they do now. No prohibitive laws to prevent this could be enforced.
It is a matter of bread — of vital necessity, which knows no law. The people of the
North can no longer be appalled by this bugbear of Southern exports.
Least of all can they, by its display, be made to surrender their freedom and their right to vote for such a man and for such principles as they, in their hearts and consciences, approve.
It is best that these plain truths should be made public.
It is best to look the worst danger in the face fairly and honestly.
We desire to live in amity and peace with the
South.--We should deplore disunion as a calamity, not only to this country, but to the cause of freedom everywhere.
But if it should come, it will be the act of the
South; the
South will be its sole author, and the
South will be the worst sufferer.
