April 30, 1861;
The New York Herald
Not the smallest pretext is made, by the people of Maryland and Virginia, that those States are out of the confederacy. The Cotton State secessionists, have gone through certain forms of a declaration of independence, and systematically revolted against the federal government; but such has not been the case in the border States. What language, then, is strong enough to characterized the treason of executive States officers, like Governors Letcher and Hicks, who have, hitherto, professed to be Union men, but who, at the very moment when their loyalty would have been of service to the country, unblushingly make common cause with the enemy. The declarations and acts of Governors Magoffin, of Kentucky, Ellis, of North Carolina, Jackson, of Missouri, and Harris, of Tennessee, have been as unpardonably rebellious and improper, as those of their colleagues in Virginia and Maryland; but the former have always been blatant, savage, fire eating secessionists, without a particle of hypocritical respect for the laws, and nothing was to have been expected of them than that they would entitle their necks to halters, on the very first opportunity. Governor Hicks, on the contrary, has affected the utmost attachment to the Union; has given information to government by which it has profited; and has concealed his sympathies with the extreme South under the mask of abhorrence of disunion. Mr. Letcher, who is from the western part of Virginia; has been the prominent antagonist of Governor Wise, was elected to office on account of his strong Union proclivities; yet he now turns out to have been secretly affiliated with Jefferson Davis and with the other conspirators who have aimed, for years, to overturn the constitution and the republic.
No border State has passed any valid secession measure. In neither North Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, or Virginia, has any act been submitted to the people. The ordinance which was passed at Richmond, by the late convention, declares that it will take effect it shall have been ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of the State, cast at a poll to be taken on the fourth Thursday in May next. Yet, Governor Letcher has had the impudence, in defiance of this act, and anticipator of the popular will, to assure dictatorial powers; to order the seizure of a navy yard and of an arsenal; and he is now organizing an attack on Fort Monroe. Governor Hicks, has equally arrogated the language and attitude of the independent head of a foreign power; has warned the President of the United States, not to allow any troops to pass through Maryland and has invoked the mediation of a foreign minister, to arbitrate between rebels and legitimate authority. The treason of both of these perfidious rebels, is of the most inconsistent and self contradictory description. It has not even the manliness of courage and bravery to palliate it.
Government will pay but small attention to remonstrances or defiance from such sources. The route to Washington, through Baltimore, will be opened, and will remain open, in spite of Governor Hicks, and his irresponsible satellites; and Harper Ferry, and the Navy Yard, at Norfolk, will be retaken, with the other and properties that belong to the United States. If an army of three or five hundred thousand men, and all the treasure of the loyal States, were necessary to punish the perfidy which has been practised, and to restore the Union to its pristine integrity, they will be expended for that purpose. The constitution which was framed, for the benefit of the whole Union, by the Washingtons, Madisons and Jeffersons of an earlier age, will not be sacrificed to the beck of reckless demagogues and rebels. It was intended for the protection of the right of all, both North and South. It was designed to curb aggression, on the part of the headstrong of either section. It has been the object of the hostile attacks, of abolitionists in the free, and of fire eating secessionists, in the slave States; and it will outlive the storms which both have raised against it. Every nation as gone through its periods of convulsion and of trial. Rome, Greece, England, France have survived theirs, and come out of the fire purified. The United States will still emerge from the clouds that surround it, to prove to the world that a free people, with free institutions are as capable of suppressing internal as of vanquishing externals foes.