Disunion Feed

"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 ↗

"A year ago it would have been difficult to find a man who would believe in the possibility of disturbing the Missouri Compromise. [...] How truly is here illustrated the fact that it is only the first step in crime that costs. When that is taken the downward descent is easy."

The editorial notes that Senator Atchison had himself called repeal impracticable and given it up, before the Administration reversed within a year. "Doughface" was the standing epithet for a Northern man who voted with the South; the Tribune is arguing that the ground of the possible had moved, not just the votes.

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