...
"It [the separation] must begin, in Massachusetts. The
proposition would be welcomed in Connecticut; and could we doubt
of New Hampshire? But New York must be associated; and how is
her concurrence to be obtained? She must be made the center of
the Confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey would follow of course,
and Rhode Island of necessity."[24]
Substituting South Carolina for Massachusetts; Virginia for New York;
Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, for New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode
Island; Kentucky for New Jersey, etc., etc., we find the suggestions of
1860-'61 only a reproduction of those thus outlined nearly sixty years
earlier.
Mr. Pickering seems to have had a correct and intelligent perception of
the altogether pacific character of the secession which he proposed, and
of the mutual advantages likely to accrue to both sections from a
peaceable separation. Writing in February, 1804, he explicitly disavows
the idea of hostile feeling or action toward the South, expressing
himself as follows:
"While thus contemplating the only means of maintaining our
ancient institutions in morals and religion, and our equal rights,
we wish no ill to the Southern States and those naturally connected
with them. The public debts might be equitably apportioned
between the new confederacies, and a separation somewhere
about the line above suggested would divide the different characters
of the existing Union.
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