Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/46

CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY. form an independent self-subsisting nation, shall show that and say authentically to the residue, "We want to get away from you," I shall say, and we trust self-respect, if not regard for the principles of self-government, will constrain the residue of the American people to say, "Go."

New York Tribune, December 28, 1860. — Nor is it treason for the State to hate the Union and seek its disruption. A State, a whole section, may come to regard the Union as a blight upon its prosperity, an obstacle to its progress, and be fully justified in seeking its dissolution. And in spite of the adverse clamor, we insist that if ever a third or even a fourth of these States shall have deliberately concluded that the Union is injurious to them, and that their vital interests require their separation from it, they will have a perfect right to seek separation; and should they do so with reasonable patience and due regard for the rights and interests of those they leave behind, we shall feel bound to urge and insist that their wishes be gratified — their demand conceded.

During the session of the South Carolina convention, Greeley, in his issue of December 17th, as if to afford arguments to strengthen the Southern people in their opposition and to encourage them to be prompt in their action, says: "If it (the Declaration of Independence) justifies these cession from the British empire of 3,000,000 of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of 5,000,000 of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861. If we are mistaken on this point, why does not some one attempt to show wherein and why? For our own part, while we deny the right of slaveholders to hold slaves against the will of the latter, we cannot see how 20,000,000 of people can rightfully hold 10,000,000, or even 5,000,000 in a detested Union with them by military force."

In the same issue of Mr. Greeley's paper we read the following: "If seven or eight contiguous States shall present themselves authentically at Washington, saying: ‘We hate the Federal Union; we have drawn from it; we give you the choice between acquiescing in our secession and arranging amicably all incidental questions on the