Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/48

 36 Snulln rn Historical Nor/V/y

only so long as it is beneficial and satisfactory to all parties con- cerned.

We do not believe that any man, any neighborhood, town, county, or even State, may break up the Union in any transient gust of pas- sion; we fully comprehend that secession is an extreme, an ultimate resort not a constitutional, but a revolutionary remedy. But we insist that this Union shall not be held together by force whenever it shall have ceased to cohere by the mutual attraction of its parts; and whenever the slave States or the cotton States only shall unitedly and cooly say to the rest, " We want to get out of the Union," we shall urge that their request be acceded to.

The New York Herald of Friday, November 23, 1860, said:

THE DISUNION QUESTION A CONSERVATIVE REACTION IN THE SOUTH.

We publish this morning a significant letter from Governor Let- cher, of Virginia, on the subject of the present disunion excitement in the South; southern constitutional rights, Northern -State acts of nullification, and the position of Virginia in this crisis. * * * * To this end would it not be well for the conservative Union men of the city of New York to make a demonstration a northern move- ment or conciliation, concession and harmony?

Coercion, in any event, is out of the question. A union held together by the bayonet would be nothing better than a military despotism. Conciliation and harmony, through mutual concessions, in a reconstruction of the fundamental law, between the North and the South, will restore and perpetuate the union contemplated by the fathers. So. now that the conservative men of the South are moving, let the Union men of the North second their endeavors, and let New York, as in the compromise of 1850, lead the way.

And on the following day, November 24th, the Tribune says:

FEDERAL COERCION.

Some of the Washington correspondents telegraph that Mr. Buc- hanan is attempting to map out a middle course in which to steer his bark during the tempest which now howls about him. He is to condemn the asserted right of secession, but to assert in the same breath that he is opposed to keeping a State in the Union by what he calls Federal coercion. Now, we have no desire to prevent se-