The secession winter, 1860–61: 44 primary sources
Newspapers, official documents, speeches and a diary, as the Union came apart from Lincoln’s election to the fall of Fort Sumter, Nov 9, 1860 – Apr 13, 1861, in their own words. The 44 passages come from Southern newspapers (13), Northern newspapers (17), abolitionists (3), politicians (8), Black voices (1) and diarists (2); the numbers count passages, and a writer can appear more than once. Free to print and copy for a class.
By name, the Black voice is Frederick Douglass, and the abolitionists are William Lloyd Garrison (2 passages) and Wendell Phillips.
Each passage below was matched, fragment by fragment, against the archive copy linked under it when our checker last ran, on Nov 4, 2026 (the verification record). The checker allows for differences in capital letters, quote marks, spacing and scanner misreadings, and nothing else. “[...]” marks words we left out; everything else is as in that copy, spelling included.
In class: give each student or group one source and the questions below. Then put two groups whose sources disagree side by side, and have them compare their answers.
Questions for any source here: Who wrote it, and for whom? Does it call secession a right, a revolution or a crime, and what does it say the quarrel is about? What does it want its reader to believe or do?
1 · Northern press
New-York Tribune · New York, N.Y.
Nov 9, 1860
If the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless [...] whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic, whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets.
Context (our note): Written by editor Horace Greeley; his celebrated post-election editorial on the right of secession. Verified against Bonner's Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1951) reproduction, which prints the block quote in full and cites the Tribune of Nov 9, 1860. The Tribune's own page is in the Library of Congress (Nov 9, 1860, page 4; the passage starts near the foot of column 2 and runs into column 3). The linked image is that stretch of column 2, which breaks off at 'we shall resist all co-'; the last lines finish at the top of column 3. Its machine-read text is too damaged to match string by string, so each fragment was read by eye against the page image on 2026-09-30: the words match, except that the 1860 page prints 'a republic whereof' with no comma. Fragments joined with [...].
Source: New-York Daily Tribune, Nov. 9, 1860, editorial on the right of secession (repr. in Thomas N. Bonner, "Horace Greeley and the Secession Movement, 1860–1861," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 1951)
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.ditext.com/bonner/greeley.html
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-001
2 · Northern press
Franklin Repository · Chambersburg, Pa.
Nov 14, 1860
The battle has been fought and the victory won! The spirit of the people rose with the fierceness of the contest! — The loud, wild, angry war-whoop of disunion did not frighten the brave sons of liberty! [...] Endurance ceased to be a virtue, and resistance became an absolute duty. The times required decisive action; the people rose in their might and applied the proper remedy.
Context (our note): A.K. McClure's Republican organ in Franklin County, Pa. — the defiant-victory register: the election as a refusal to be cowed by disunion threats, making 'resistance' a duty. Verified at Valley of the Shadow (clean transcription). Fragments joined with [...].
Source: Franklin Repository (Chambersburg, Pa.), Nov. 14, 1860, "The Victory"
Read the whole original ↗ https://valley.newamericanhistory.org/newspapers/franklin-repository/1860/11/14
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-002
3 · Southern press
Daily Constitutionalist · Augusta, Ga.
Nov 16, 1860
The most inveterate and sanguine Unionist in Georgia, if he is an observant man, must read, in the signs of the times, the hopelessness of the Union cause, and the feebleness of the Union sentiment in this State. [...] Some of the southern States see, in the tremendous popular majorities which have elevated LINCOLN to the Presidency, the huge mountainous waves that are beating down on the South with resistless force [...] With them the question is, secession from the Union, and a self-defending, homogeneous southern Republic, or submission to the Union, and the fate of Jamaica and St. Domingo.
Context (our note): A Georgia secessionist paper answering Gov. Joseph E. Brown's message; 'the fate of Jamaica and St. Domingo' invokes emancipation and slave revolt (Haiti 1791–1804; Jamaican emancipation 1834) — the core fear that remaining in the Union means the end of slavery. Text from the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter" reproduction of Dumond's Southern Editorials on Secession (transcription; original newspaper scan not cross-checked). Fragments joined with [...].
Source: Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, Ga.), Nov. 16, 1860, "What Should Georgia Do?"
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/what-should-georgia-do/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-004
4 · Abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison · The Liberator
Nov 16, 1860
The election of the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, to the Presidency of the United States, has operated upon the whole slaveholding South in a manner indicative of the torments of the damned. [...] Will they secede from the Union? Will they jump into the Atlantic? Will they conflagrate their own dwellings, cut their own throats, and enable their slaves to rise in successful insurrection? Perhaps they will — probably they will not! By their bullying and raving, they have many times frightened the North into a base submission to their demands — and they expect to do it again! Shall they succeed?
Context (our note): Ten days after the election and six weeks before South Carolina's ordinance, Garrison reads Southern secession threats as theatrical intimidation the North has repeatedly caved to ('there is method in their madness'). He does not here welcome secession. Verified at fair-use.org (clean transcription; masthead Vol. XXX No. 46). Fragments joined with [...].
Source: The Liberator, Vol. XXX, No. 46, Nov. 16, 1860, "Southern Desperation"
Read the whole original ↗ https://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1860/11/16/southern-desperation
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-005
5 · Southern press
North Carolina Standard · Raleigh, N.C.
Dec 1, 1860
There is only one evil greater than disunion, and that is the loss of honor and Constitutional right. That evil the people of the South will never submit to. [...] But our honor as a people is still untarnished—our Constitutional rights, so far as the federal government is concerned, are still untouched. If the federal government should attempt even to tarnish the one or to deprive us of the other, we for one would be ready to resist, and ready to dissolve the Union without regard to consequences. But not now! — the non-slaveholder says not now! — the slaveholder, whose property civil war would involve in imminent peril, says not now! — millions of our friends in the free States say not now!
Context (our note): William W. Holden's paper, the leading voice of North Carolina conditional Unionism — it would resist actual federal aggression but rejected secession over the mere election of Lincoln, absent an overt act. The Upper-South counterweight to the fire-eaters. Text from the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter" reproduction of Dumond (transcription). Fragments joined with [...].
Source: North Carolina Standard (Raleigh), Dec. 1, 1860, "Disunion for Existing Causes"
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/disunion-for-existing-causes/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-006
6 · Southern press
Nashville Union and American · Nashville, Tenn.
Dec 1, 1860
This election of LINCOLN is not assumed to be an actual wrong in itself, but only the crowning and authoritative evidence that the series of outrages perpetrated upon our rights meet with the approval of a majority of the Northern people. [...] Unity was never more essential to a people than to the South in our present condition. It is better that we should act with less wisdom, abstractly considered, than that we should be divided in our action.
Context (our note): A pro-Breckinridge Tennessee paper that treats Southern grievance as settled but argues the remedy is a united Southern convention, not separate-state secession — the Middle-South cooperationist position that the Charleston Mercury's 'Delay' (se-009) attacks directly. The 'minority President... marshaling of sectional hate' clause used in the tweet is verbatim from the same article, a few sentences before the excerpt. Text from the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter" reproduction of Dumond (transcription). Fragments joined with [...].
Source: Nashville Union and American, Dec. 1, 1860, "The Remedy"
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-remedy/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-007
7 · Black voice
Frederick Douglass · Rochester, N.Y.
Dec 1, 1860
What, then, has been gained to the anti-slavery cause by the election of Mr. Lincoln? Not much, in itself considered, but very much when viewed in the light of its relations and bearings. For fifty years the country has taken the law from the lips of an exacting, haughty and imperious slave oligarchy. The masters of slaves have been masters of the Republic. [...] Lincoln's election has vitiated their authority, and broken their power. It has taught the North its strength, and shown the South its weakness. [...] Hitherto the threat of disunion has been as potent over the politicians of the North, as the cat-o'-nine-tails is over the backs of the slaves. Mr. Lincoln's election breaks this enchantment, dispels this terrible nightmare, and awakes the nation to the consciousness of new powers,
Context (our note): Douglass concedes Lincoln is no abolitionist yet argues the election shattered the slaveholders' half-century grip on the Republic and broke the 'enchantment' by which disunion threats had cowed the North. Douglass' Monthly was a monthly, so no day is printed; dated to the first of the month. Verified via House Divided (Dickinson College) transcription of the December 1860 issue (primary scan at NYS Historic Newspapers). Fragments joined with [...].
Source: Frederick Douglass, "The Late Election," Douglass' Monthly, December 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/teagle/texts/selections-from-frederick-douglass-editorials-1860-61/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-008
8 · Southern press
Charleston Mercury · Charleston, S.C.
Dec 3, 1860
Although you see your enemy load his rifle with the declared purpose of taking your life, you are to wait, as a wise expedient of defense, until he makes the "overt act" and shoots you. This is one of those glaring absurdities, which only such daring submissionists as BOTTS and CRITTENDEN are capable of proposing.
Context (our note): The Rhett family's Charleston Mercury — the organ of immediate separate-state secession — rebutting the counsels of 'delay' (wait for Virginia, wait for a Southern convention, wait for an 'overt act'). BOTTS = John Minor Botts (Va. Unionist); CRITTENDEN = John J. Crittenden (Ky., of the Crittenden Compromise), named as the 'submissionists.' Directly answers the cooperationist case of se-007. Text from the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter" reproduction of Dumond (transcription); excerpt is contiguous verbatim.
Source: Charleston Mercury, Dec. 3, 1860, "Delay"
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/delay/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-009
9 · Political
South Carolina Convention · Charleston, S.C.
Dec 20, 1860
We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained [...] that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of "The United States of America," is hereby dissolved.
Context (our note): The operative act, adopted at Charleston at 1.15 p.m. — the whole of it repeals South Carolina's 1788 ratification of the Constitution and declares the Union dissolved. It names no cause; the reasons came four days later (the Declaration of Immediate Causes). The first state out. Middle repeal clause elided with an ellipsis; verified verbatim against the Wikisource transcription.
Source: Ordinance of Secession of South Carolina, adopted December 20, 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/South_Carolina_Ordinance_of_Secession
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-011
10 · Southern press
Louisville Daily Courier · Louisville, Ky.
Dec 20, 1860
Those in the border Slave States who are willing to give up everything that freemen should hold dear, to maintain the existing Union, and, if that cannot be done, desire to fasten these States on as the tail of the Northern Confederacy, complain bitterly of what they call the precipitancy of the Cotton States [...] The Cotton States [...] owe it to their own citizens and the world to secure themselves now against a calamity which the continued possession of the Federal Government for a few years by the Black Republican, or anti-slavery, party will make more than possible.
Context (our note): A border-state (Kentucky) fire-eater defends South Carolina's "precipitancy" and scorns the conditional Unionists who would make the border South "the tail of the Northern Confederacy." Via the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter" reproduction of Dumond's Southern Editorials on Secession.
Source: "The Position of the Cotton States," Louisville Daily Courier, December 20, 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-position-of-the-cotton-states/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-012
11 · Northern press
Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer · Cleveland, Ohio
Dec 21, 1860
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.
Context (our note): 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."
Source: "South Carolina Out of the Union," Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer, December 21, 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/south-carolina-out-of-the-union-the-act-of-secession-passed-the-convention-by-a-unanimous-vote/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-013
12 · Political
South Carolina Convention · Charleston, S.C.
Dec 24, 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;
Context (our note): 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.
Source: "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina," December 24, 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-014
13 · Northern press
New York Herald · New York, N.Y.
Dec 24, 1860
While maintaining, what is undeniable, that no power to coerce a State is delegated by the constitution to either the President or to Congress, it has as strenuously asserted that individual delinquents may, if expedient, be reached and punished by the strong arm of the central government, through its federal courts. The attempt to coerce a State by military force would, as declared by Mr. Madison, be an act of war—a virtual recognition of its separate independence, and tantamount to a dissolution of the Union. Such an act of folly will never be committed by Mr. Buchanan.
Context (our note): The Herald (Bennett), the North's largest Democratic daily, states the coercion doctrine that governed the paralyzed final weeks of the Buchanan administration: the Constitution grants no power to force a State back, and the attempt would be war. Two days later a Pennsylvania Republican paper reprinted a Baltimore letter telling Buchanan that abandoning the Charleston forts made him one of the rebels (se-017). Via the AHA "Sixteen Months."
Source: "Coercion or Conciliation?," New York Herald, December 24, 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/coercion-or-conciliation/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-015
14 · Southern press
New Orleans Bee · New Orleans, La.
Dec 24, 1860
We are decidedly in favor of a united South. [...] No single State could possibly long maintain an independent existence without grinding her citizens to the earth by a weight of intolerable taxation. [...] The Southern States which secede must come together under a confederated government. Hence the question of co-operation and concert of action among the several slaveholding commonwealths scarcely admits of discussion. None oppose it, at the proper time and in the proper manner.
Context (our note): The immediatist answer to the cooperationists (who urged the South move only in concert, not by separate-state secession): concede that a united South is essential — but as a Confederacy built AFTER secession, not as a brake on it. Reframes "wait for a convention" (cf. chapter 1's Nashville, se-007) into a post-secession Montgomery convention. Via the AHA "Sixteen Months."
Source: "Co-operation," New Orleans Bee, December 24, 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/co-operation/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-016
15 · Southern press
Baltimore Patriot · Chambersburg, Pa.
reprinted Dec 26, 1860
Your abandonment of the Federal forts on the coast of South Carolina, to the mercy of a Charleston mob, and your persistence in that policy, place you in the category of the rebels against the just and lawful authority of the United States, of whose Executive power, you are the sworn defender.
Context (our note): A letter to the sitting President, which the archive credits to the Baltimore Patriot, reprinted in Chambersburg by the Franklin Repository, A.K. McClure's Republican paper (se-002): leaving the Charleston forts to a mob puts Buchanan himself among the rebels against the authority he is sworn to defend. The opposite of the Herald's no-coercion doctrine (se-015). The Valley of the Shadow archive marks the piece "Origin of Article: Baltimore Patriot"; it does not record who wrote the letter or when the Patriot ran it, so the date shown is the Repository's. The archive transcribes this sentence of the letter and links to newspaper page images.
Source: "To James Buchanan," Baltimore Patriot, reprinted in the Franklin Repository (Chambersburg, Pa.), December 26, 1860
Read the whole original ↗ https://valley.newamericanhistory.org/newspapers/franklin-repository/1860/12/26
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-017
16 · Political
Mississippi Secession Convention · Jackson, Miss.
Jan 9, 1861
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. [...] a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. [...] Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it.
Context (our note): The first cascade state's manifesto — Mississippi seceded January 9, the day after South Carolina's window closes. Where South Carolina's declaration listed slavery among its grievances, Mississippi's makes it THE cause, in the first breath: an economy and a civilization staked on it. Non-contiguous sentences from the one document joined with [...]. Verified against the Yale Avalon Project. (Dated to the Jan 9 ordinance; the convention sat Jan 7–26.)
Source: "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union," January 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-020
17 · Northern press
New York Daily News · New York, N.Y.
Jan 9, 1861
The 'no compromise' policy of the Republican party, which at first had only a few ultramontane advocates, is now the watchword of that entire organization.
Context (our note): The Northern Democratic complaint as the Crittenden Compromise — a plan to save the Union by writing slavery permanently into the territories below the old Missouri line — died in the Senate. To this Democratic paper the Republicans' refusal to concede, once a fringe view, is now the party's whole creed, and it is that rigidity, not the fire-eaters, that is breaking the country. The Republican reply is se-027. Verified verbatim against the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter."
Source: "No Compromise," New York Daily News, January 9, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/no-compromise/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-022
18 · Northern press
Kenosha Democrat · Kenosha, Wis.
Jan 11, 1861
In all human probability James Buchanan will be the last President of the United States. One of the sovereign states of the Union has already declared the compact broken, and her allegiance dissolved.
Context (our note): A Democratic paper in Wisconsin, a thousand miles from Charleston, watching the country come apart and concluding the Union is finished — Buchanan will be its last President. Written the day Alabama seceded (Mississippi and Florida had gone Jan 9–10); by month's end six states were out. Verified verbatim against the AHA "Sixteen Months."
Source: "Dissolution," Kenosha Democrat, January 11, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/dissolution/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-023
19 · Abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison · Boston, Mass.
Jan 18, 1861
Look at the present state of the country! The old Union breaking up daily, its columns falling in every direction—four Southern States already out of it, and all the others busily and openly preparing to follow—
Context (our note): Garrison counts the cascade in real time — 'four Southern States already out': South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, as of January 18, with Georgia, Louisiana and Texas still to come. To the man who had publicly burned the Constitution as 'a covenant with death,' the Union's collapse was not the catastrophe the compromise-seekers feared. Text from the archive.org scan; the issue OCR is rough (column-interleaved) but this contiguous run was string-verified.
Source: William Lloyd Garrison, editorial, The Liberator, January 18, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1861-01-18_31_3
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-024
20 · Southern press
New Orleans Daily Crescent · New Orleans, La.
Jan 21, 1861
There is this difference between the Northern and Southern States, which illustrates the exact nature of the quarrel between the two sections: That, while the Southern States, in the Union, would have interposed no objection to the secession of any Northern State, the Northern States, on the other hand, are thrown into a perfect paroxysm of rage at the mere whisper of an intention to secede, on the part of any State of the South. [...] They know that the South is the main prop and support of the Federal system. They know that it is Southern productions that constitute the surplus wealth of the nation, and enables us to import so largely from foreign countries.
Context (our note): New Orleans's fire-eater daily makes the Deep-South PRESS case for the cascade on economic rather than constitutional grounds: the North rages at Southern secession because it needs the section it professes to despise — the South is "the main prop and support of the Federal system." The mirror image of Greeley's "letting them go in peace" (ch1 se-002): the Crescent claims the South would gladly let the North secede. Two paragraphs joined with [...]. The "barbaric" line it rebuts midway is Sumner's, from the Senate (the caning event). This is the one in-window Deep-South newspaper editorial available for the cascade — the Southern side of these weeks is otherwise carried here by convention and declaration voices. Fetched from the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter" archive.
Source: "The Difference," Daily Crescent (New Orleans), January 21, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-difference/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-054
21 · Political
Georgia Secession Convention · Milledgeville, Ga.
Jan 29, 1861
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. [...] the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union;
Context (our note): Georgia — the largest cotton state, where Alexander Stephens had pleaded against secession only weeks before — leaves and puts a figure on it: three billion dollars of human 'property' the Republicans would bar from the territories. Like Mississippi's and Texas's, the grievance is named without evasion: African slavery. Non-contiguous sentences joined with [...]; verified against the Yale Avalon Project.
Source: "Georgia Declaration of Causes of Secession," January 29, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-026
22 · Northern press
Boston Atlas and Daily Bee · Boston, Mass.
Feb 1, 1861
We are a commercial people. We are devoted to making money. [...] we shall proclaim as our policy, the Union first, submission to traitors NEVER.
Context (our note): 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."
Source: "Disunion and Compromise," Boston Atlas and Daily Bee, February 1, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/disunion-and-compromise/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-027
23 · Political
Texas Secession Convention · Austin, Tex.
Feb 2, 1861
In all the non-slave-holding States, [...] the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, 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 servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free [...] 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
Context (our note): 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.
Source: "A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union," February 2, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-029
24 · Northern press
New York Herald · New York, N.Y.
Feb 5, 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.
Context (our note): 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 [...].
Source: "Will the People of the North Permit Coercion?" New York Herald, February 5, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/will-the-people-of-the-north-permit-coercion/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-030
25 · Political
Provisional Congress of the Confederate States · Montgomery, Ala.
Feb 8, 1861
We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, invoking the favor of Almighty God, do hereby, in behalf of these States, ordain and establish this Constitution for the Provisional Government of the same [...] The importation of African negroes from any foreign country other than the slave-holding States of the United States, is hereby forbidden; and Congress are required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.
Context (our note): Four days after the delegates sat down, a nation exists on paper. The preamble names its six states one by one — Texas, which seceded Feb 1, has not yet sent delegates. The slave-trade clause is the wager underneath the new government: the African trade is banned, which protects the market value of the slaves already held in the South. Non-contiguous passages from the one document joined with [...]; verified against the Yale Avalon Project.
Source: "Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America," February 8, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csapro.asp
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-031
26 · Southern press
Daily Picayune · New Orleans, La.
Feb 8, 1861
At the same moment when the Southern seceding States are uniting in convention at Montgomery to create a new government for a new Union, the border States are holding another convention at Washington City for the purpose of restoring, if possible, the old order of things. [...] The preservation of the Union by any of the forms of the present constitution is so plainly impossible that the first and fundamental idea of any convention which looks to a further association of these thirty-four States under one government must be that the old constitution is suspended in fact as to six of the States [...] They have taken positions from which it is impossible to retreat if they desired it.
Context (our note): Two conventions sit in the same week: one at Montgomery building a government, one at Washington trying to save the old one. The Picayune — a conservative New Orleans daily, no fire-eater — reports the symmetry and calls the Washington effort already lost. The Peace Conference would sit until Feb 27; Congress declined to act on its proposals. Non-contiguous sentences from the one editorial joined with [...].
Source: "The Border State Conferences," Daily Picayune (New Orleans), February 8, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-border-state-conferences/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-032
27 · Northern press
Hartford Daily Courant · Hartford, Conn.
Feb 11, 1861
One of the bug-bears that the Secessionists have created for the purpose of frightening the timid, is that of COERCION. It is a magic word, but unfortunately its magic applies only to the Federal Government. You cannot coerce a Sovereign State, say these State Right Abstractionists. Is that so? [...] It is worth nothing as a Government, unless there is some idea of force in its very construction. To “govern” means to “coerce.” It is involved in the very idea of Government. [...] The individual rebel is the accountable being which requires the coercion, and on whom we hope to see it exercised.
Context (our note): The exact answer to the Herald six days earlier (se-030), and the opposite Northern pole: coercion is not tyranny, it is what a government IS. The Courant's move is to dissolve the sovereign state into the individuals composing it — you need not coerce South Carolina, only the rebel. Capitals and small-caps as printed. Non-contiguous sentences from the one editorial joined with [...].
Source: "The Right of Coercion," Hartford Daily Courant, February 11, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-right-of-coercion/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-033
28 · Abolitionist
Wendell Phillips · Boston, Mass.
Feb 17, 1861
But let an arrogant and besotted minority curb the majority by tricks like these, and when you have compromised away Lincoln, you revive John Brown. [...] Strictly speaking, I repudiate the term “insurrection.” The slaves are not a herd of vassals. They are a nation, four millions strong; having the same right of revolution that Hungary and Florence have. I acknowledge the right of two million and a half of white people in the seven seceding states to organize their government as they choose. Just as freely I acknowledge the right of four million of black people to organize their government, and to vindicate that right by arms.
Context (our note): Ten days after Montgomery, Phillips grants the seceding states the right to organize their government as they choose — and in the same breath grants four million enslaved people the identical right, by arms. The symmetry IS the argument. This is the SECOND of the two Music Hall discourses (Feb 17); the first is Jan 20, in chapter 3 (se-025). Non-contiguous passages from the one discourse joined with [...]; each verified against the archive.org scan. OCR line-wrap hyphens rejoined ("arro-gant", "seced-ing").
Source: Wendell Phillips, "Progress," second of Two Discourses at Music Hall, Boston, February 17, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://archive.org/details/disuniontwodisco00phils
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-034
29 · Political
Jefferson Davis · Montgomery, Ala.
Feb 18, 1861
Our present political position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established. [...] Thus the sovereign States here represented have proceeded to form this Confederacy; and it is by abuse of language that their act has been denominated a revolution. They formed a new alliance, but within each State its government has remained; so that the rights of person and property have not been disturbed.
Context (our note): Davis claims the Declaration of Independence for the slaveholding republic in his first breath as president: secession as the American idea fulfilled, not betrayed. Then he insists that founding a nation is not a revolution — and that "the rights of person and property have not been disturbed," in a speech founding a government whose property is people. Avalon's text derives from Richardson's 1905 compilation; it reads "rest on the consent" where the Papers of Jefferson Davis reads "rest upon." Non-contiguous passages joined with [...].
Source: Jefferson Davis, Inaugural Address of the President of the Provisional Government, Montgomery, Alabama, February 18, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csainau.asp
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-035
30 · Southern press
New Orleans Daily Crescent · New Orleans, La.
Feb 21, 1861
If any one can read the speeches which Mr. Lincoln has made on his recent trip to Washington City without a feeling of intense disgust, we envy him not his disposition. [...] Instead of rising to the dignity of a President, he has fallen to the level of a stump orator, addressing, for temporary effect, a miscellaneous assemblage of the populace. [...] Compare the Indianapolis speech of Lincoln with the inaugural address of President Davis, and how great the contrast! [...] In nothing is the difference between Northern and Southern sentiment and morality better illustrated than in these two addresses.
Context (our note): The Deep-South fire-eater press reading the two presidents side by side, three days after Davis's inaugural — it explicitly asks the reader to "compare the Indianapolis speech of Lincoln with the inaugural address of President Davis" (se-035). Lincoln is not yet in office; he is on the inaugural train, and the Crescent's charge is that he is undignified and does not understand state sovereignty. Non-contiguous sentences from the one editorial joined with [...].
Source: "The Northern President," Daily Crescent (New Orleans), February 21, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-northern-president/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-036
31 · Political
Abraham Lincoln · Washington, D.C.
Mar 4, 1861
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.
Context (our note): 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 [...].
Source: Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-038
32 · Southern press
Richmond Enquirer · Richmond, Va.
Mar 5, 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.
Context (our note): 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 [...].
Source: "The Declaration of War," Richmond Enquirer, March 5, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-declaration-of-war/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-039
33 · Northern press
Quincy Daily Whig and Republican · Quincy, Ill.
Mar 7, 1861
The inaugeration of Mr. Lincoln has revived the hopes of patriotism every where. Old Imbecility is out and talent, integrity and courage are installed in his place. [...] Let the line between traitors and patriots be destinctly drawn. [...] It is to these pirates, ruffians, thieves, plunderers, cutthroats, traitors and political debauchees that we are required to make concessions, surrender principles, political rights, the Constitution of our Country, and with it the hopes of the oppressed in all the world.
Context (our note): The Republican read of the inaugural, two days after the Richmond Enquirer's (se-039) — the same speech, heard as relief rather than as a declaration of war. "Old Imbecility" is Buchanan, whose term ended three days earlier. Spellings "inaugeration" and "destinctly" are as printed (sic) and left uncorrected. Non-contiguous sentences from the one editorial joined with [...].
Source: "The Treason and the Traitors," Quincy Daily Whig and Republican, March 7, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-treason-and-the-traitors/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-040
34 · Southern press
Montgomery Weekly Post · Montgomery, Ala.
Mar 26, 1861
To our mind there is no more prospect of a reconstruction of the old Government than there is of a return of Northern arrogance and fanaticism to right reason and self-sacrificing justice, a thing that they are incapable of doing, even if they had the disposition. [...] This new government is no visionary phantom, as some may seem to think—it is a living actual reality, its machinery is already in motion—it has its mission to perform and its destiny to realize
Context (our note): Three weeks before the guns, the Confederate capital's own paper kills the last northern hope out loud: there will be no reconstruction, no stray sheep returning to the fold. The essay is aimed inward as much as outward — it scolds Southern Unionists for keeping the North's illusions alive. Two passages joined with [...]; the second is preceded in the source by an em dash. Fetched from the AHA "Sixteen Months to Sumter" archive.
Source: "The Effect of the Doctrine of Reconstruction," Montgomery Weekly Post, March 26, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-effect-of-the-doctrine-of-reconstruction/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-042
35 · Northern press
Boston Daily Courier · Boston, Mass.
Mar 29, 1861
One of the most sensible, prudent, and praiseworthy acts of the government of the United States, which has come under our observation, for a long time, is that of sending Captain G. V. Fox, formerly of Massachusetts, on a secret mission of observation to Fort Sumter, to ascertain and report, from actual personal inspection, the practicability of reinforcing that fortress, as well as the present ability of Major Anderson to sustain himself and his men within its walls.
Context (our note): The secret mission is in the newspaper. Gustavus V. Fox had visited Sumter on March 21 and reported that the fort could be resupplied by sea; his plan became the expedition that sailed in April. A paper praising the mission's prudence is also, unavoidably, announcing it. One contiguous passage, no splice.
Source: "Capt. Fox and Fort Sumter," Boston Daily Courier, March 29, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/capt-fox-and-fort-sumter/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-043
36 · Northern press
Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel · Indianapolis, Ind.
Apr 9, 1861
we may then say that an army of 500,000 men could not conquer the whole South in five years. [...] Simply this: eight or ten millions of Anglo-Saxons, lying exhausted at our feet—with an undying hatred in their hearts against us, ready to rebel again and again on every emergency [...] It would no longer be a government of consent, but a military despotism.
Context (our note): Three days before the first shot, an anti-war Democratic paper does the arithmetic and gets it very nearly right. The Union would enlist roughly 2.1 million men over four years; the war ran from April 1861 to April 1865; federal troops occupied the South until 1877. The paper is arguing against coercion, not forecasting for its own sake — but the estimate stands. Three passages joined with [...].
Source: "Civil War: To What Good End?" Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, April 9, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/civil-war-to-what-good-end/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-045
37 · Northern press
New York Evening Post · New York, N.Y.
Apr 10, 1861
Supplies must be lodged in Fort Sumter at all hazards and against all opposition from armed rebels. It is carrying conciliation to its extreme when the government gives fair notice of its purpose, and contents itself with only sending the needed provisions. If the rebels fire at an unarmed supply ship, and make a perfectly proper act the pretext for shedding the blood of loyal citizens, on their heads be the responsibility. [...] The thought uppermost to-day in the popular mind is “Down with rebellion!”
Context (our note): Lincoln's decision — resupply the fort, tell South Carolina in advance, send provisions only — reaches the public, and a Republican paper immediately frames the trap it sets: if the guns open on a bread ship, the responsibility is fixed. Two passages joined with [...]. Compare se-047, the same maneuver read as a deliberate decoy.
Source: "Fort Sumter," New York Evening Post, April 10, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/fort-sumter/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-046
38 · Northern press
Jersey City American Standard · Jersey City, N.J.
Apr 12, 1861
This unarmed vessel, it is well understood, is a mere decoy to draw the first fire from the people of the South, which act by the pre-determination of the government is to be the pretext for letting loose the horrors of war. It dare not itself fire the first shot or draw the first blood, and is now seeking by a mean artifice to transfer the odium of doing so to the Southern Confederacy.
Context (our note): Printed the morning the bombardment began, though written before the news arrived. It reads Lincoln's provisions-only expedition exactly as se-046 does — as a maneuver to fix the blame for the first shot — and draws the opposite conclusion. One contiguous passage, no splice.
Source: "The American Cain," Jersey City American Standard, April 12, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-american-cain/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-047
39 · Southern press
Nashville Daily Patriot · Nashville, Tenn.
Apr 12, 1861
But the indications from the North and the South are that the arbitrament of war is to be resorted to for a solution and decision of our troubles. This is not the choice of Tennessee. Let that be understood at the outset. [...] Shall we assist in a war of subjugation against our Southern brethren? Shall we aid in the permanent overthrow of a government to which we are so devotedly attached [...] Or, shall we, by an act of revolution dissolve our relations with that government, and join the “Confederate States?” Or shall we act independently of both by forming a government of our own, in connection with such other States as may agree with us, under a constitution which will secure all our rights and meet our approval?
Context (our note): Tennessee had voted down a secession convention on February 9 by a wide margin. Here, on the day the guns open, a Unionist paper states the question the upper South will actually be asked — not whether secession was right, but which side to join, or whether to stand apart from both, once the shooting starts. Tennessee seceded on June 8. Three passages joined with [...].
Source: "Tennessee and the War Question," Nashville Daily Patriot, April 12, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/tennessee-and-the-war-question/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-048
40 · Diarist
Mary Boykin Chesnut · Charleston, S.C.
Apr 12, 1861
I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms at four, the orders are, he shall be fired upon. I count four, St. Michael's bells chime out and I begin to hope. At half-past four the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate I prayed as I never prayed before. [...] The women were wild there on the housetop. Prayers came from the women and imprecations from the men. And then a shell would light up the scene.
Context (our note): Chesnut's husband, James Chesnut Jr., had rowed out to Sumter that night carrying the ultimatum; she waited in a Charleston house and then went up to the roof. Two passages joined with [...]. Important caveat: "A Diary from Dixie" is the 1905 edition of a manuscript Chesnut substantially rewrote in the 1880s from her 1861 journals — it is a revised memoir built on a contemporaneous diary, not the raw 1861 text. Read it as testimony shaped after the fact.
Source: Mary Boykin Chesnut, "A Diary from Dixie" (1905), entry for April 12, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/chesnut/maryches.html
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-049
41 · Northern press
Atlas and Argus · Albany, N.Y.
Apr 13, 1861
The first gun of Civil War is heard, whose reverberations are yet to echo through the world. The signal is given of events of which no man can tell the end. A fearful responsibility is due to those who have brought this crisis upon the country. [...] It is a Civil War that opens—a war whose successes are without glory, whose noblest deeds are without honor; for they are won in fratricidal conflict, and their cost is fraternal blood. [...] The deed of separation is sealed in the first blood shed in this conflict.
Context (our note): The news reaches Albany. A Democratic paper that had opposed coercion all winter does not celebrate and does not rally — it records the sound and refuses the consolation that a victory could be worth having. Three passages joined with [...].
Source: "The First Gun!" Atlas and Argus (Albany), April 13, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-first-gun/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-050
42 · Northern press
Hartford Daily Times · Hartford, Conn.
Apr 13, 1861
Friday, the 12th day of April, 1861, will be recorded as the Black Day in the history of our Republic. United States Forts firing upon United States Forts. American citizens directing the implements of death upon American citizens. The Civil War commenced. What a shocking record! [...] We have no “subjects” in this country. We are equals, or we have no REPUBLIC.
Context (our note): The Democratic answer to the same morning's news: the war is Lincoln's doing, the four weeks of peace talk were a trick, and the Union cannot be held together by force. Note what the paper's proposed settlement actually was — a territorial line with Southern rights guaranteed south of it. Two passages joined with [...]. Compare se-052, printed the same day.
Source: "The Black Day," Hartford Daily Times, April 13, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-black-day/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-051
43 · Northern press
Newark Daily Advertiser · Newark, N.J.
Apr 13, 1861
Ten thousand troops, completely armed with diabolical enginery, deliberately and in cold blood prepared for months past, with all the skill that could be commanded, confronting about three score half starved but brave soldiers under the heroic Anderson. What remarkable chivalry is here! [...] The gallant little garrison may be starved out, they may see the walls of Sumpter reduced to dust by the iron balls and shells of infernal machines [...] but this will be but the first scene of the first act of a drama, which bids fair to become immortal.
Context (our note): The same news, read the opposite way from se-051: an unprovoked attack on a starving garrison, and the beginning rather than the end of the matter. The source spells the fort "Sumpter" throughout — a common period variant, left as printed. Three passages joined with [...].
Source: "The Tragedy Begun," Newark Daily Advertiser, April 13, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-tragedy-begun/
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-052
44 · Diarist
Mary Boykin Chesnut · Charleston, S.C.
Apr 13, 1861
Not by one word or look can we detect any change in the demeanor of these negro servants. Lawrence sits at our door, sleepy and respectful, and profoundly indifferent. So are they all, but they carry it too far. You could not tell that they even heard the awful roar going on in the bay, though it has been dinning in their ears night and day. People talk before them as if they were chairs and tables. They make no sign. Are they stolidly stupid? or wiser than we are; silent and strong, biding their time?
Context (our note): The day after the guns opened, an enslaver in Charleston looks at the people she holds and cannot read them — and half-guesses why. Every question in this feed since 1856 is in that last sentence, asked by someone who will not answer it. "Negro" is the source's word and period usage. One contiguous passage, no splice. Same 1905-edition caveat as se-049: revised in the 1880s from the 1861 journals.
Source: Mary Boykin Chesnut, "A Diary from Dixie" (1905), entry for April 13, 1861
Read the whole original ↗ https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/chesnut/maryches.html
On this site: disunionfeed.com/p/se-053
Left out of this set
The secession winter feed has 54 sources. These 10 are not here because on that run our checker could not match their words to the archive’s text, or could not reach the archive. The record says why for each:
- Valley Spirit, Nov 14, 1860 — did not match the archive’s text
- Charleston Mercury, Dec 20, 1860 — did not match the archive’s text
- William Lloyd Garrison, Dec 28, 1860 — did not match the archive’s text
- Frederick Douglass, Jan 1, 1861 — did not match the archive’s text
- Walker Brooke, Jan 9, 1861 — did not match the archive’s text
- Wendell Phillips, Jan 20, 1861 — did not match the archive’s text
- Frederick Douglass, Feb 1, 1861 — did not match the archive’s text
- Frederick Douglass, Mar 1, 1861 — did not match the archive’s text
- Alexander H. Stephens, Mar 21, 1861 — did not match the archive’s text
- Frederick Douglass, Apr 1, 1861 — did not match the archive’s text
Printed from https://disunionfeed.com/teach/secession-winter/ — free to copy for teaching. Every source above is dated and cited; the verification record is at https://disunionfeed.com/verification/.