Disunion Feed

"He plants himself resolutely upon the Compromise of 1850, as a final settlement -- not final merely as to the Territories then in dispute, but final as to all future legislation for territorial governments. [...] We may then gladly proclaim the democratic organization a unit, and repose confidently on the conviction that the federal Union is safe."

A Northern Democratic paper reading Douglas's report the week it appeared, and treating party unity and the safety of the Union as the same question. The test it proposes — whether Northern and Southern Democrats vote together — is the one the bill went on to fail in the North.

Read it in the original — Furman Secession Era Editorials transcription ↗

Next post: Charleston Mercury, Jan 23, 1854 →

"The indications thicken that the organization of this proposed Territory is to be attended with a renewal of strife. [...] It is a prodigious fall from the clouds, for such high-reaching spirits as the Free-soilers."

The Mercury catches an irony worth keeping: antislavery writers who had spent years arguing from a "higher law" above the Constitution were now defending the Missouri Compromise, an ordinary act of Congress. The card is a Southern paper scoring a debating point — and recording, in passing, that the North had shifted its ground.

Read it in the original — Furman Secession Era Editorials transcription ↗