using that Union instinct

150 years ago earlier this month Frederick Douglass made the case that the Civil War had to be primarily a war for abolition; there could never be a return to the old Union with its acceptance of slavery in the South. Here a Democrat editorial from upstate New York believed that the war had become a war for abolition and that the Republican administration was using the people’s love of Union to gain public support for its partisan purpose of freeing the slaves. If the Republicans and abolitionists had their way, there would indeed be a new Union that would upend the work of Washington and Madison.

certifiable love of the Union

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in January 1864:

Saving the Union.

That the people ardently desire a restoration of the Union is an undeniable fact. That its preservation is an object dear to the public heart all will readily admit. The love of the Union is an instinct with the American people, and this popular instinct has been the great power which the present administration has wielded to carry out its principles of negro equality. Assuming that the partisans in power were trying to restore the Union, it followed as a logical consequence that they had the right to remove whatever obstacles there were in the way of its restoration. This has afforded them them the excuse, to the popular mind, for all their assaults upon the Constitution and all their outrages against personal liberty. Persons often wonder why the people acquiesce in and seem to support all the unconstitutional acts of Lincoln’s administration. The easy answer to all this is, “the Union! the Union!” That is associated in the popular mind, as such an unmixed good, that anything and everything seems of less value.

secured, defended, … and changed in 1863?

But who sincerely believes that Mr Lincoln or his party has ever made the first effort to save the Union? Since the 4th day of March, 1861, all that has been done has tended to destroy it, and to make its destruction more certain and more sure. Is there a Republican in the land who does not know that the Union is to-day farther off than when Mr. Lincoln sent his first fleet to Charleston, and set in motion the awful train of circumstances that have followed? But beyond all this the men in power never wished to save the Union. They never wished to preserve it, and they do not, and are not, trying to restore it, and would not restore it if they could. Indeed, they never professed to be in favor of the Union. They abused and ridiculed it for years, derisively calling Democrats “Union-sayers,” who sought to avoid the terrible consequences of abolitionism. The Democrats know of no Union except that embraced in the terms of the Constitution, and consecrated by the fathers of the Republic. That Union abolitionism always repudiated, and to-day the whole power of the government is brought to bear to crush it out, and to destroy what little there [is] left of the great and glorious work [of a] Washington and a Madison.

old ideas from 1861?