Disunion Feed

"The Revolution has begun—one of the "Original Thirteen" States, by a solemn ordinance, unanimously passed by a delegated Convention of her Sovereign people, is to-day out of the Union. A whole State has revolted! [...] It is startling because it inaugurates political revolution and precipitates civil war [...] All this talk about Compromise Lines, Committees and Compromises can only stay the dissolution, not prevent it. Mark what we say."

A Northern Democratic paper the morning after — no celebration, only dread: South Carolina's exit is real revolution and coming civil war, and no compromise scheme can now prevent dissolution. Via the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter."

Read it in the original — Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer, Dec 21, 1860 ↗

"An increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery [...] have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution [...] they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery [...] the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State."

Four days after the terse ordinance (se-011), the convention issued its manifesto — and named the cause plainly: Northern hostility to "the institution of slavery," broken fugitive-slave obligations, and "the right of property in slaves." The document that says the quiet part out loud. Non-contiguous sentences from the one text joined with [...]; verified against the Yale Avalon Project.

Read it in the original — Declaration of Immediate Causes, Dec 24, 1860 ↗