Disunion Feed

"It appears that we, Secessionists, have been all the while not disturbing the law, not intruding novelties upon the country, not seeking to break up established principles, but that we have been simply a step in advance of the highest tribunal in the country, in declaring what was the law of the land, and seeking honestly and faithfully to enforce it."

The Rhetts' Mercury, the loudest secessionist paper in the South, claiming the Supreme Court has caught up with it. Three years later the same paper would print South Carolina's ordinance of secession.

Read it in the original — Charleston Mercury, Mar 17, 1857 ↗

"That decision must be carried into effect -- that interpretation must be acquiesced in and acted upon, or else it must be resisted by force. There is no other alternative. [...] nothing but force, open rebellion, can successfully oppose the practical application and enforcement of the decision of the court in this case."

Franklin Pierce's home-state Democratic organ, meaning it as a warning to Republicans. Read forward instead of back, it is one of the plainest sentences in this feed: a Northern paper stating in March 1857 that the only remaining alternatives are submission or force.

Read it in the original — Daily Patriot (Concord), Mar 18, 1857 ↗