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... Far better that the Union should be dismembered forever, than that fraternal hands deluge the land in blood.
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The post above is condensed. From the original, word for word
"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."
Between the posts · the narrator, not the paper
February 4, 1861. At Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from the seceded states take their seats. They have four weeks before the man whose election they left over is sworn in at Washington. In that time they mean to build a government.
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 ↗
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