We think it exhibits little reflection and very bad taste for the secessionists to make a jubilee of secession and hurry out of the Union with dancing and making merry, and think they had better go as Adam and Eve did from the garden of Eden when, with their heads bowed in shame and their hearts wrung with anguish,
"With melancholy step and slow,
Through Eden they took their solitary way." With the Petersburg Express we say that if we were one of the most ardent and enthusiastic advocates and supporters of the doctrine of separate and immediate secession we could but contemplate the work of disintegration whilst it was going on, with mournful sensations. The recollection of the nobler years of this republic when it was the pride and boast of civilization—the idol of its people—the wonder and admiration of the world—the palladium of our liberties—careering proudly and grandly onward in its glorious mission, and prospering in all its ways—these, and a thousand other affecting memories which cluster around the brighter Past would dim our eyes with tears in beholding it suddenly struck down in the prime and pride of its life, and lying before us a bleeding, gasping, expiring victim. Why should the people of the seceding States dance over the grave of the Union?
Staunton Spectator, Staunton, VA
The Staunton Spectator
The Spectator opposed secession, it’s editor Richard Mauzy stating that there “exists no incompatibility between the Union of the States and the rights of the States.”