Democrat On The Rebellion

In a headless, and we may add brainless, leader, in the Democrat of Saturday, the editor takes the position that the Republican party is responsible to the country for the rebellion now existing, and that the party now “presents the only real difficulty in the way of conquering a peace.” It represents the New York Tribune as having said that ‘whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all corrective measures designed to keep it in,’ and the GAZETTE and the Republican party as endorsing the sentiment. It is needless to say that it is all the creation of a beclouded imagination, that the GAZETTE nor the Republican party never endorsed such an idea. Our neighbor would compromise with treason under the garb of ‘conservatism,’ and laughs to scorn any attempt to subjugate the rebels that has [sic] a tendency to free their salves. But a few months since he was radical in his opposition to all attempts to ‘subjugate’ or ‘coerce’ the rebels under any circumstances. The phrases above quoted were as common and as glibly pronounced by him then as the word ‘conservative’ is now, but public sentiment has caused him to modify his views, and he now favors the subjugation of the South, provided in so doing you do not hurt the negro, nor interfere with his inalienable right of being a slave.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, February 10, 1862, p. 1