March 22, 1861; The New York Herald
By a telegraphic despatch in another column, it will be seen that the State Convention of Arkansas has passed a secession ordinance, to be submitted to the vote of the people. Arkansas is likely to go the way of Texas and of all the cotton States. By the news published yesterday it appeared that the secession ordinance was defeated by a vote of 39 to 35; but on reconsideration the ordinance was passed, subject to the popular vote, which will probably be for separation. The revolution of late is rapidly gaining ground in the south.
It is a great mistake to suppose that there is in any of the slaveholding States any considerable number of men who are in favor of the Union at all hazards and under all circumstances. With a very few exceptions, the only Union men to be found are conditional Unionists–men who have been prevented from seceding by mere hopes that Congress, or the new administration or the Northern States, would take some action which would lead to a reconstruction of the Union. But as soon as they found that neither the Northern States, nor Congress, nor the new administration, did anything calculated to heal the breach, but on the contrary much to widen it, many of them became secessionists; and it is very evident that ever since the promulgation of the inaugural, which proposes no remedy, but threatens coercion, the secession movement has gained ground in Virginia and all the other slave States. In North Carolina, out of a vote of upwards of 93,000 the majority against holding a secession Convention was less than six hundred. The moment Mr. Lincoln commences his coercive measures he may be prepared to hear of every remaining slave State seceding, one after another.
The telegraphic news from the Missouri State Convention, which we publish elsewhere, indicates not only what that State will do, but all the other slaveholding States, in the contingency of a collision between the federal government and the Confederate States. Through the secession ordinance was voted down for the present on Wednesday, but in yesterday session the following resolution was adopted by a vote of 89 to 6; –’That it is the opinion of this convention that the cherished desire to preserve the country from civil war and to restore fraternal feelings would be greatly promoted by the withdrawal of the federal troops from such forts within the seceded States where there is danger of a hostile collision; and we recommend that policy. ‘This is a very significant hint by all but a unanimous vote of the State of Missouri to Mr. Lincoln and his administration, and to all fanatics at the North who are urging him to coercion.
The border slave States are only resting on their oars. They are waiting to see what the President will do, and what the extra session of Congress, which he is expected to call, will propose to the country. If Mr. Lincoln should proceed to collect the revenue from the seceded States by force of arms, or to blockade their ports, and if the extra session of Congress should not propose the new constitution of the Confederate States for adoption, the Union cannot be reconstructed. The cotton States will not come back, and the border slave States will have to follow them in self defence. The best thing they could no just now is to adopt the ultimatum of the confederate States; for the result would be that the free States would, one by one, follow their example, and we should soon have, by this simple process, a reconstruction on a permanent basis. If the New England States should think proper to remain out in the cold and not come into the new Union, the country could manage to get on very well without them, and there would be the more harmony in the relations between the States.