When I read that War is Disunion in a local Democrat editorial, I thought, wouldn’t a successful secession be disunion? Here a Republican-leaning editorial put the blame squarely south of Mason-Dixon, with a little helpo from northern doughfaces and copperheads
From The New-York Times March 13, 1864:
The Morals of the Rebellion.
If there is anything disgusting anywhere, it is the pharisaic assumption with which the rebels occasionally take to themselves all Christian excellencies. Here are a parcel of men who have raised a causeless revolt against a Government which had been nothing but beneficent to them; who have rebelled against free institutions in the interest of Slavery, the “sum of all villianies;” who began their work by robberies the most gigantic, frauds the most dishonest, breaches of faith the most atrocious; who have plunged a nation into civil war and shed oceans of the best blood of the land; who have beggared thousands of families, brought grief and shame into thousands more; who have in the name of liberty perpetrated the most atrocious crimes; who have been guilty of barbarities worthy of savages and utterly innumerable; who have shrunk from no oppression, refrained from no crime; whose whole career has been one of treachery, broken pledges, robbery, extortion and cruelty; and yet every now and then one of the gang will descant upon the purity of their motives, the nobleness and magnanimity of their actions, the glory of their deeds, and the innumerable merits of their cause.
One of the most remarkable displays of this kind is the following from the Richmond Whig:
“If our cause be just, it must triumph. If it be not just, then the greater portion of the enlightened world is deceived. On moral grounds the justice of our cause has been vindicated by the ablest intellects in Europe and by the best men at the North. England, the mother of Abolitionism, has sustained us; France, as thoroughly Anti-Slavery as England, though, not like her, a propagandist, has sustained us. FERNANDO WOOD, FRANKLIN PIERCE, SEYMOUR of Connecticut, sustain us in the moral issue at least. Thus sustained, we shall indeed lack manhood if we fail to meet this last hour of trial bravely and hopefully.”
What idea of “moral grounds” or a “moral issue” can this rebel Whig have, when he talks in this way? What sense can he have of what goodness is, if he calls SEYMOUR, PIERCE and FERNANDO WOOD, the “best men at the North?” England and France have helped sustain the rebellion, it is true, but it has been in spite of its immorality, because they thought it was their interest, and they would have sustained it ten-fold more, were it not that they dared not so insult the moral sense of the civilized world. How hard up this rebel must be for support when he has to grub for it in such a mire as this. Only think of it! The Richmond Whig rejoices in the support of FERNANDO WOOD “on the moral issue.” Was there ever such a sight? A polecat rejoicing in the moral support of a humble bug! and then the creature talks about “manhood!” Faugh!
