Disunion Feed

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. [...] It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. [...] In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

The North's formal answer to the new nation, and it is two answers in one breath: slavery is safe where it stands, and secession is legally void. Both halves are the platform he ran on. The seven states at Montgomery had a government, a president, and a constitution before the man they seceded over took office. Non-contiguous passages from the one address joined with [...].

Read it in the original — First Inaugural Address, Mar 4, 1861 ↗

"Mr. Lincoln’s Inaugural Address is before our readers—couched in the cool, unimpassioned, deliberate language of the fanatic, with the purpose of pursuing the promptings of fanaticism even to the dismemberment of the Government with the horrors of civil war. [...] Civil war must now come. Sectional war, declared by Mr. Lincoln, awaits only the signal gun from the insulted Southern Confederacy, to light its horrid fires all along the borders of Virginia. [...] The question, “where shall Virginia go?” is answered by Mr. Lincoln. She must go to war—and she must decide with whom she wars—whether with those who have suffered her wrongs, or with those who have inflicted her injuries."

Virginia has NOT seceded — her convention is sitting in Richmond at this moment, and has so far refused. The Enquirer reads the same speech the Quincy Whig reads two days later (se-040) and finds a declaration of war in it. This is the upper South's hinge: the Enquirer's argument is that Lincoln has removed the choice of neutrality, leaving only which side. Virginia secedes on April 17, five days after Sumter. Non-contiguous sentences from the one editorial joined with [...].

Read it in the original — Richmond Enquirer, Mar 5, 1861 ↗