The argument from editorials has some weight, but only some. There were two issues, at least. 1] Was there a right to secede, and 2] was it wise and just to oppose secession, even unlawful secession, by force of arms? I would have to read through a representative sample of these editorials to see what question the writers were responding to. Moreover, passions and fears were high, and some of the same papers changed their editorial stance after Sumter. Moreover, there are contrary indicators of popular sentiment, such as the anti-secession resolutions adopted by many Northern state legislatures.
Public opinion shifted in the upper South during this period, too. Witness the failure of the first Virginia Convention to decide on secession.
Of course, none of this bears on the views of the Founding period, which is already 50 years in the past by the time of these editorials.
Finally, do you have a link to the editorials, or does one have to get hard copy?
Regards,
Richard F.
I have only the excerpts and I don't remember where I found them. They may have been from the Charles Adams book. If you begin tracking them down and come across a high-powered database in which they can be found please direct me to the same.
As of 1860 most Northerners and Southerners believed in the Jeffersonian right of secession as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. In Northern Editorials on Secession Howard Cecil Perkins surveyed about 1,000 Northern newspapers and found that the majority of them agreed basically with what the Bangor Daily Union wrote on November 13, 1860: "The Union depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their Union is gone." A state that is coerced to remain in the Union becomes a "subject province" and can never be "a co-equal member of the American Union."
I looked for a used copy of the Perkins book on www.abe.com and the only one they had was $100. You are certainly right to question the utility of a survey of newspaper editorials from November 1860 (I don't say that's the only period surveyed, all of DiLorenzo's examples are from 11/60 - 1/61). Before Sumter, the temptation to accept a peaceful break-up must have been strong for men who had no desire or taste for civil war.
By the way, what do you think of this, in the Williams piece?
The northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.