January 31, 1861; The New York Herald
Our late cheering advices from Washington, indicating the seasonable cooperation of the President elect in some compromise arrangement in behalf of the Union, and the peace of the country, were too good, it appears, to be true. With the receipt of these advices at Springfield, the republican newspaper there accredited as the home organ of Mr. Lincoln, indignantly denies the soft impeachment as to his conservative inclinations. We are thus told that in Abraham Lincoln the country will have a republican President – one who will give them a republican President – one who will give them a republican administration, and that instead of being committed to the border State compromise or any other, “Mr. Lincoln stands immovably on the Chicago platform, and will neither acquiesce in, nor advise his friends to acquiesce in, any compromise that surrenders one iota of it.”
In confirmation of this unwelcome intelligence, our Springfield correspondent, in the same emphatic tone, assures us that Mr. Lincoln will adhere to the doctrine of the restriction of slavery upon which he was elected, he becomes convinced of its fallacy not by threats, treason and rebellion, but by his own sense of justice; and that will hold himself altogether aloof from attempts to intermeddle with the strife of congressional factions, and the troubles of the present administration, until he shall have assumed the reins of government. We are thus relieved of all doubt concerning the views and position of Mr. Lincoln on the subject of a Union saving compromise. He was elected on the Chicago platform, not by the democrats and their allies, but by their adversaries, the republicans and he will be a republican President. In the interval to his inauguration he will not interfere in the proceedings of Congress or of Mr. Buchanan’s administration; and when invested with the duties of the Presidency, if moved to a compromise at all, it will not be threats, treason and rebellion, but by his own sense of duty. On the other hand, we have been over and over again assured that the first duty and the first object of the incoming administration will be to enforce the laws and restore the authority and integrity of the general government, before stooping to compound with the traitors who have conspired to overthrow it.
In theory this line of policy is consistent and correct; but in practice we must deal with the stubborn facts which surround us. Let us look at these facts. Six States have withdrawn from the Union, and they stand before us today each in the attitude of an independent republican. During the present month, however, they will have organized themselves under the general government of a Southern confederacy, and at least two additional States will have joined them in this organization. Meanwhile, as a last resort for Union and peace, the Legislature of Virginia, in behalf of the border slave States and the States of North Carolina and Tennessee next adjoining has appointed a Union compromise Border State Convention, to meet in Washington next Monday, in view of the submission to congress of some adjustment calculated to retain in the Union the border slave States and to reclaim the seceded States. We believe, too, that if a compromise emanating from said convention shall be contemptuously rejected by this Congress, the alternative of a border slave State alliance, offensive and defensive, with the seceded States will so speedily follow that on the day of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration he will find it in existence.
Thus the enforcement of the federal laws in South Carolina, for example, will be met with the armed resistance of the united South; and thus, in the very outset, the new administration will be called to choose between a ruinous civil war and the recognition of a Southern confederacy. We fear that the President elect has not sufficiently considered the pressure and power of this southern revolution – that he has been too much controlled by the rabid anti-slavery elements immediately around him, and has given too little attention to the sagacious suggestions of such wide awake republicans as Gen. Cameron. The issue is simply between the Union and the Chicago platform. The one or the other must be abandoned. To retain even the border slave States in the Union there must be a compromise made in their behalf, and before the 4th of March, for after that day it will be too late.
Let Mr. Lincoln consult the history of the Roman republic, and in the frequent concessions from the patricians to the plebeians, for the sake of peace, he will discover the examples which should guide him in this crisis. Let him beware, on the other hand of adopting the coercive policy of the French Bourbons, a policy which, even with the rest of Europe combined in arms against France, resulted in the final expulsion of the Bourbons. Above all, let Mr. Lincoln remember that the rebellious people of the south are not our enemies, but our brethren, and that they can only be brought back to the common family altar through conciliation and promises of good treatment for the future. Finally, if the President elect is beyond the reach of compromises, and if he believes, as we believe, that half the loaf is better than no bread at all, he will pursue the part of wisdom in preparing his mind for the peaceable recognition of a Southern confederacy.