The Louisville (Ky.) Democrat, under the head of “Our Sister States of the South,” says:
This is a common style of speech just now, and quite ad captandum. We should like to see some of the sisterly affection reciprocated. They deserted us in spite of our petitions. We did not feel the hatred and distrust of the Union that inspired them. Our judgment was, that our rights could be better secured in the Union. We had some interest in the Union beyond the loyalty which every good citizen should feel for established forms and habits – of political action, and which should not be disregarded for light and transient causes. We had “sister” States of the North our next neighbors; tens of thousands of them of our own blood. They were our personal and political friends. We had an interest in their friendship, for domestic peace on both sides ; we judged, and judged correctly, that this breaking up of the Government would lead to war, and that our soil, here on the border, would again be the dark and bloody land. We had always stood by them in the Union, in defense of a common interest, and had a right to expect some regard for our interest and our position. Has any regard whatever been shown?
Lying at a safe distance from the power they chose to hate, and knowing that we stood in front of the danger, they exulted in their independence, and have sought a collision rather than avoided it. Grant their right of secession : is hasty, violent secession right? Does the right include the right to seize, without notice, all they find in their own borders, which they held in common with the other States? Did it include the right to check commerce and trade suddenly, and even control the Mississippi, secured as a highway by the common blood and treasure? It is not a peaceable right of Secession they have sought, but a violent revolutionary right, which acknowledges no law but the necessity of accomplishing the object. Rights which, on any fair principle, were vested by time and common means, they forceably appropriate. We have done it. It is our Government we have set up, notwithstanding your advice. We care not for your conceits ; help yourself if you can. That is the style of treatment. We have no respect for your interest or your judgment. We have made up our minds, and you can join us or take the consequences of standing between two fires. This is the sisterly conduct of these “sister” States.
Now, if we join them, what have we to expect from the sisters? If one of them should take offense in the conflict; if her dignity should be offended ; or her interest too much jeopardized, what is to prevent her Secession in the heat of the battle? Impossible, that a sister State should play false? No false about it. A State, according to their theory, is to be her own mistress in any event; you go into the contest with this fair understanding.
But whatever be the understanding, this brothering and sistering of States is all stuff. They brother and sister to-day, and fight tomorrow. Enemies in war, and peace friends, is all we can expect of States. Half a century may not pass away before these sisters are cutting each other’s throats. General Washington, in his Farewell Address, warned his countrymen not to be controlled by their partiality for one nation, or hatred of another; that a people thus controlled would be the slave of their fondness or animosity. This sisterly style will do for green ones: it can only amuse a statesman who knows that States are controlled by no such feelings.
Cincinnati Daily Press, Cincinnati, OH