After just a couple of weeks, the editorials became more aggressive as seen in these:
“It is the enforcement of the revenue laws, not the coercion of the State that is the question of the hour. If those laws cannot be enforced, the Union is clearly gone; if they can, it is safe”
~Philadelphia Press, January 15, 1861
“They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest.... These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They [the North] are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it.”
~New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861
“The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more ships than all other trade. It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No-we MUST NOT let the South go!”
~Union Democrat (Manchester, New Hampshire), February 19, 1861
Interestingly, still no talk of slavery.....only MONEY.
“... the mask [of protecting slavery] has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports. The merchants of New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah are possesed of the idea that New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may be shorn, in the future, of their mercantile greatness, by a revenue system verging on free trade....The government would be false if this state of things were not provided against.”
~Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861
Interesting.....in that this editor seemed to think that the issue of secession had been used as a diversionary excuse.
Did he not believe the Cornerstone Speech? Looks like he did not.
He certainly believed that the entire issue was about MONEY.
I was reading Scott Adams the other day. (Author of the cartoon "Dilbert)
He said something along the lines of "People do not reason their way into a position. They make up their mind what they want to believe and then they look for arguments that support the position they want to believe."
The truth was economic, but that sounds unethical, and so they had to find a substitute truth to make them feel good about invading and murdering people.
They knew they had to invade and murder people to rescue their economics, but this wouldn't play in the moral society that existed then, so they had to rationalize other "moral" explanations for why they were invading and murdering people.
Initially they advanced "to preserve the Union", but that really wasn't a very morally compelling cause, so they had to up the hyperbole and claim they were doing it for the slaves. (18 months after the war had started.)
The truth is, they hated blacks and would rather see them thrown out of the country than to live with them, but it sounded good, or at least better than any other moral cause of which they could think.
It certainly sounded better than "We are going to invade to get back that money we lost when the South went independent."
No, that argument wouldn't sell at all.
Near as I can tell, none of those are legit, certainly not important enough to be recorded in histories of newspapers.
So those words should not be part of this discussion.
But PeaRidge's point -- that Southern slavery was a secondary issue in the North -- is certainly correct.
That's directly because: the United States Constitution was first agreed-to in 1787 on the basis of Northerners accepting Southern slavery, and that agreement still held for Northerners in 1860.
So before November, 1860 the US had never, ever before elected an openly anti-slavery President and Congress, and their elections were enough to drive Deep South Fire Eaters berserk with anger, first declaring secession then starting and declaring war on the United States.
In a nut shell.
This quote is more problematic than the Philadelphia Press quote because:
PeaRidge quoting: "They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest....
These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union.
They [the North] are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto.
They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it."
~New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861
Here were have a known paper with a seemingly genuine quote, at least part of it, the part I've put in bold.
The alleged rest of the quote is not there in the copy available online.
Further, the context makes clear that the first "They" referred to are not Southerners, but Northerners.
Regardless, even if we accept the quote as genuine, it still represents only a highly distorted Deep South view of Northerners, and an exaggerated opinion of their own value to the Union.
The actual Southern contribution was half the amount listed, certainly significant but not as important as Southerners may have wished.
Finally, if you read that opinion piece from its beginning, at the link above, you'll see that slavery was indeed the stated bone of contention between North and South, and these alleged Northern economic interests are not established as facts.
They are unfounded accusations.