Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Events are rapidly unrolling themselves, and it will be proved, in course of time, whether the North will remain united in its inflexible purpose, whether the South is as firmly united, or whether a counter revolution will be effected in either section, which must necessarily give the victory to its opponents. We know nothing of the schemes or plans of either Government.

The original design of the Republican party was to put an end to the perpetual policy of slavery extension, and acquisition of foreign territory for that purpose, and at the same time to maintain the Constitution and the integrity of the Republic. This at the South seemed an outrage which justified civil war; for events have amply proved what sagacious statesmen prophesied thirty years ago — that secession is civil war.

If all is to end in negotiation and separation, notwithstanding the almost interminable disputes concerning frontiers, the strongholds in the Gulf, and the unshackled navigation of the great rivers throughout their whole length, which, it is probable, will never be abandoned by the North, except as the result of total defeat in the field, it is at any rate certain that both parties will negotiate more equitably with arms in their hands than if the unarmed of either section were to deal with the armed. If it comes to permanent separation, too, it is certain that in the Commonwealth which will still glory in the name of the United States, and whose people will doubtless re-establish the old Constitution, with some important amendments, the word secession will be a sound of woe not to be lightly uttered. It will have been proved to designate, not a peaceful and natural function of political life, but to be only another expression for revolution, bloodshed, and all the horrors of civil war.

It is probable that a long course of years will be run, and many inconveniences and grievances endured, before any one of the free States secede from the reconstructed Union. J. L. M.