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Rhode Island, the repeal of the
Personal Liberty Act on its statute-book, “not from fear or cowardice,” he said, “but from a brave determination, in the face of threats and sneers, to live up to the
Constitution and all its guaranties, the better to testify our love for the
Union, and the more firmly to exact allegiance to it from all others.”
The act was repealed at the close of January;
and this measure was regarded as the forerunner of other concessions that might bring about reconciliation.
The spirit of the conspirators was unknown and unsuspected.
They had resolved to accept no compromises or concessions, and they sneered at generous acts like this as the “pusillanimity of cowardly Yankees.”
It was the first and the last olive-branch offered to the traitors by
Rhode Island.
When they struck the blow, with deadly intent, at the life of the
Republic, ten weeks later, she sent against them a sword in the hands of her Governor and others, that performed brave deeds in the cause of our nationality.
In the remaining
New England States, namely,
New Hampshire,
Vermont, and
Connecticut, nothing specially noteworthy
was done in relation to the secession movement, before the insurgents commenced actual war, in April; but in the great
State of New York, whose population was then nearly three millions nine hundred thousand, and whose chief city was the commercial metropolis of the
Republic, much was done to attract public attention.
The Legislature assembled at the beginning of January, and the
Governor,
Edwin D. Morgan, in a conciliatory message, proposed to cast oil on the turbulent political waters, by offering concessions to the complaining politicians of the
South.
The members of the Legislature were not so yielding; and on the first day of the session
patriotic resolutions were introduced by
Mr. Spinola, of the lower house.
They were referred to a Select Committee of Five, who reported a series of resolutions and a spirited preamble, that were adopted on the 11th.
They seemed to comprehend the true character of the conspirators and the duty of all loyal men. The preamble spoke of the “insurgent
State of South Carolina;” its seizure of the public property; its act of war,, in firing on the
Star of the West; the seizure of forts and arsenals elsewhere; and the treasonable words of the representatives of Southern States in the National Congress.
The first resolution then declared that the people of New York were firmly attached to the
Union, and that,. impressed with the value of that Union, they tendered to the
President, through their
Chief Magistrate, whatever aid in men and money might be required to enable him to enforce the laws.
They directed the
Governor to send a copy of these resolutions to the
President, and to the
Governors of all the States.
These produced much irritation in the Slave-labor States, and at the same time profoundly impressed the people therein with a distrust of the assurance
