Cleveland Herald (Ohio), October 13, 1860
The New Orleans Picayune for the 8th says:
If Lincoln is successful in the electoral college—which can scarcely be possible*—will he not be elected President by the voice of the people constitutionally expressed—elected too according to the ordinary modes of party action and popular voting—peacefully and regularly honored with the office which Washington, Jefferson and their long line of successors have honored. Is it for this reason that any man at the South proposes to resist? Are we prepared to disown allegiance to a Government whose administrations hitherto have been followed by a series of uninterrupted blessings, because at some future time an act may be committed hostile to the spirit of the constitution? Will such an issue be one that can secure for any movement that we may commence not the favorable moral influence of the world, but what is far more important, the union of the South itself?
There is a public sentiment at the South that will forbid success to any movement of this character for this cause, no matter by whom it be originated and favored. The more violent such a movement may be, the less favor would it receive. It would have no foundation in law, it would appeal to no public sense of necessity. It would have no stimulus in the public feeling of positive wrong done, or in the sense by individuals, of actual distress inflicted.
It is time that the men of the South began to speak plainly on this subject. The Southern masses are not yet ready to imitate Mexico, nor will they, like that distracted people, be put in hostility to the legal government by the pronouncements of any popular leader.
(*Pennsylvania; Indiana and Ohio have said that it is not only possible, not only probable, but absolutely certain.–Eds. HERALD.]