If the Cotton States become satisfied they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be revolutionary, but it exists. We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets.
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The post above is condensed. From the original, word for word
"If the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless [...] whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic, whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets."
'Let the erring sisters depart in peace' is not in this editorial — that line is a later paraphrase. What the Tribune wrote is 'we insist on letting them go in peace.'
Written by editor Horace Greeley; his celebrated post-election editorial on the right of secession. Verified against Bonner's Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1951) reproduction, which prints the block quote in full and cites the Tribune of Nov 9, 1860. The Tribune's own page is in the Library of Congress (Nov 9, 1860, page 4; the passage starts near the foot of column 2 and runs into column 3). The linked image is that stretch of column 2, which breaks off at 'we shall resist all co-'; the last lines finish at the top of column 3. Its machine-read text is too damaged to match string by string, so each fragment was read by eye against the page image on 2026-09-30: the words match, except that the 1860 page prints 'a republic whereof' with no comma. Fragments joined with [...].
Read it in the original — New-York Tribune, Nov 9, 1860 (Bonner reproduction) ↗
See the page itself — the Tribune’s own column, Nov 9, 1860 (Library of Congress image) ↗