New York Tribune, November 19, 1860.—
Now we believe and maintain that the Union is to be preserved only so long as it is beneficial and satisfactory to all parties concerned. We do not believe that any man, any neighborhood, town, county or even State may break up the Union in any transient gust of passion; we fully comprehend that secession is an extreme, an ultimate resort—not a constitutional but a revolutionary remedy. But we insist that this Union shall not be held together by force whenever it shall have ceased to cohere by the mutual attraction of its parts; and whenever the slave States or the cotton States only shall unitedly and coolly say to the rest, ”We want to get out of the Union,” we shall urge that their request be acceded to.
This paragraph, from Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, is cited in a number of 19th century books on the war.
Of course it was but one part of a longer article, which was titled, “Bullying The Free States.”
Click on the clipping to view the whole article image (1.62 mbytes)
