[
35]
Zzzgoing to go.
If the cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the
Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace.
The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists, nevertheless.
And again, in the same issue of his widely-circulated and influential paper,
Mr. Greeley said:
We must ever resist the asserted right of any State to remain in the
Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof.
To withdraw from the
Union is quite another matter; and whenever a considerable section of our Union shall delibarately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets.
Let them have both sides of the question fully presented; let them reflect, deliberate, then vote; and let the action of secession be the echo of an unmistakable popular fiat.
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 New York
tribune of November 16, 1860, again announced their views to the southern people in an article headed ‘Secession In Practice,’ in which the paper used the following words:
Still we say, in all earnestness and good faith, whenever a whole section of this republic, whether a half, a third, or only a fourth, shall truly desire and demand a separation from the residue, we shall earnestly favor such separation.
If the fifteen slave States, or even the eight cotton States alone, shall quietly, decisively say to the rest: ‘We prefer to be henceforth separated from you,’ we shall insist that they be permitted to go in peace.
War is a hideous necessity, at best, and a civil conflict, a war of estranged and embittered fellow-countrymen, is the most hideous of all wars.
Whenever the people of the cotton States shall have definitely and decisively made up their minds to separate from the rest of us, we shall urge that the proper steps be taken to give full effect to their decision.
Three days afterward, on the 19th, the same paper uses these words:
Now, we believe and maintain that the
Union is to be preserved
