Disunion Feed

"We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America [...] the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free [...] based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery [...] all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights."

The cascade's last state before Montgomery, and the most explicit. Where Mississippi argued economics (se-020) and Georgia counted dollars (se-026), Texas states the creed plainly: slavery 'mutually beneficial to both bond and free,' a 'beneficent and patriarchal system,' and equal rights reserved to 'all white men.' The ordinance passed February 1; this declaration February 2. Non-contiguous sentences joined with [...]; verified against the Yale Avalon Project.

Read it in the original — Texas Declaration of Causes, Feb 2, 1861 ↗

"The citizens of the free States are not prepared for civil war, nor will they consent to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brethren at the South. [...] We have drifted to a point where the problem has ceased to be, whether the Union can be saved; and, in answer to the still more important question, shall the South be permitted to go out peaceably? every conservative, right minded man at the North has already given, in his heart, an affirmative response. [...] Far better that the Union should be dismembered forever, than that fraternal hands should be turned against one another to deluge the land in blood."

The day after the Montgomery delegates convene, the largest-circulation daily in America answers the question the new nation poses to the North: let them go. The editorial is built around the Seward-Mason exchange in the Senate — Seward's readiness to "stand or perish" against Mason's plea for "the counsels of peace." The Herald sides with the Virginian. Non-contiguous sentences from the one editorial joined with [...].

Read it in the original — New York Herald, Feb 5, 1861 ↗