Disunion Feed

"We are a commercial people. We are devoted to making money. [...] we shall proclaim as our policy, the Union first, submission to traitors NEVER."

The Republican answer to the Democratic charge that Northern rigidity forced the crisis (se-022): a merchant city that lives to make money still will not buy the Union back with concessions to secession. The phrase became a Northern watchword — 'the Union first, submission to traitors NEVER.' Opening and closing lines of the one editorial joined with [...]; verified against the AHA "Sixteen Months."

Read it in the original — Boston Atlas and Daily Bee, Feb 1, 1861 ↗

"The attitude of the Northern people in this crisis will crimson the cheeks of their children's children with shame. [...] Was ever a people so terribly frightened as are we of the North at this moment? We have been singing and shouting free speech! free speech! on every Northern stump during the last ten years, and yet one rebellious frown of South Carolina has muzzled the mouths of all our large cities, and filled the air with whines for compromise. Boston gets up a mob; Philadelphia shuts her halls; Rochester follows in the humiliating train."

The Black voice of the cascade — and it aims North. As six slave states leave, Douglass's contempt is for the free states' panic: a people who shouted 'free speech!' for ten years, muzzled by 'one rebellious frown of South Carolina,' now filling the air 'with whines for compromise.' 'Boston gets up a mob; Philadelphia shuts her halls; Rochester follows.' (His own Rochester had just closed its halls to an abolitionist meeting.) Douglass' Monthly was a monthly; dated to the 1st. Distinct from his ch2 card (se-019). Fragments joined with [...]; verified against the archive.org scan of the February 1861 issue.

Read it in the original — Douglass' Monthly, Feb 1861 ↗