While, therefore, in 1860,
many violent men, appealing to passion and the lust of power, were
inciting the multitude, and preparing Northern opinion to support a war
waged against the Southern States in the event of their secession, there
were others who took a different view of the case. Notable among such
was the "New York Tribune," which had been the organ of the
abolitionists, and which now declared that, "if the cotton States wished
to withdraw from the Union, they should be allowed to do so"; that "any
attempt to compel them to remain, by force, would be contrary to the
principles of the Declaration of Independence and to the fundamental
ideas upon which human liberty is based"; and that, "if the Declaration
of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three
millions of subjects in 1776, it was not seen why it would not justify
the secession of five millions of Southerners from the Union in 1861."
Again, it was said by the same journal that, "sooner than compromise
with the South and abandon the Chicago platform," they would "let the
Union slide." Taunting expressions were freely used--as, for example,
"If the Southern people wish to leave the Union, we will do our best to
forward their views."
All this, it must be admitted, was quite consistent with the
oft-repeated declaration that the Constitution was a "covenant with
hell," which stood as the caption of a leading abolitionist paper of
Boston.
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