Albany Atlas and Argus, November 10, 1860

In appealing to our citizens, before the election, to render such a verdict in that great contest as we believed would preserve the Union and the Constitution in their integrity, we freely expressed our apprehensions of danger in the event of a different result. The crowning calamity which the South has apprehended—the election of a President upon the issues and devoted to the principles advocated by the Republican party—has fallen upon them and upon the nation. It is yet too early to understand the real sentiments and intentions of the Southern people under this decision. Telegraphic accounts of excited feeling and action in a few States reach us, but it is possible they are to be regarded as the outbursts of the first feeling of indignation at Northern action, rather than as the deliberate declaration of the immediate future policy of the States in question.

We are not at all surprised at the manifestation of feeling at the South. We expected and predicted it, and for so doing, were charged by the Republican press with favoring disunion, while, in fact, we simply correctly appreciated the feeling of that section of the Union. We sympathize with and justify the South, so far as this—their rights have been invaded to the extreme limit possible within the forms of the Constitution, and beyond this limit their feelings have been insulted and their interests and honor assailed by almost every possible form of denunciation and invective; and if we deemed it certain that the real animus of the Republican party could be carried into the administration of the Federal Government and become the permanent policy of the nation, we should think that all the instincts of self-preservation and of manhood rightfully impelled them to a resort to revolution and separation from the Union, and we would applaud them and wish them God-speed in the adoption of such a remedy.—But, we desire to say to the few people of the South whom our voice will reach—we do not believe that the spirit of sectional Republicanism, as thus far displayed in its struggle for power, can be carried into the administration of the government at Washington—much less that it can become the settled policy of the country, and we will give some of our reasons for this conclusion.

In the first place, the Republicans will only have possession of the Executive Department, with Congress and the judiciary against them. The majority in both Senate and House will be so decisive as to effectually prevent the passage of any laws giving effect to any offensive theories of Republicanism. The South, therefore, is safe from aggression, so far as offensive legislation is concerned—more strongly fortified even, than under the present Congress. It is also safe against Mr. Seward's threatened re-organization of the Supreme Court against it.—That body can only be changed, by filling such vacancies as may occur by death or resignation, and the Senate can exercise a check upon filling those improperly.

The only increased danger, therefore, to the South, is from the Executive. What can the President do? How can he invade Southern interests, fenced in as he will be, by opposition in the co-ordinate branches of the government? What power has he to strike a single blow against Southern rights? We know of nothing that he can do or leave undone, materially affecting questions of pending interest to the South, unless it be to refuse to execute faithfully the Fugitive Slave law. We are aware that his party has pandered to the Abolition feeling against obedience to this obligation of the law and the Constitution, and has passed State laws nullifying and arresting it, so far as such laws can.

But Mr. Lincoln in the Presidential chair, clothed with the responsibilities of that position, is in a very different situation from your irrepressible agitators on the stump or in the Legislative Assembly, and he dare not refuse to execute the Fugitive Slave Law. The curses of the present and future generations would brand him as a perjured traitor and the Constitutional process of impeachment would expel him from the Presidential office, should he thus refuse obedience to the law and the Constitution.—Moreover, it is only due to truth to say, that there is no reason to believe that Mr. Lincoln will be disposed to shrink from the performance of that duty—as it is well known that he stands publicly pledged, by his speeches in the Illinois campaign, to the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law.

No—we beg leave to suggest to our Southern brethren, that the accession of Republicanism to the power and responsibilities of the government—unless rash and violent action at the South shall supply it with vitality—will be the certain death of it. Its impotency to accomplish a tithe of what it has threatened and promised, will reveal its hypocrisy and false pretences, and disgust its more rabid supporters and they will drop it and turn their backs upon it. Mr. Lincoln, as a matter of absolute necessity, when once in office, must become conservative—must execute the laws and obey the Constitution—and this course will disappoint the fanaticism which has animated his party and elevated him, and Republicanism will be stricken down within a single year, as by paralysis.— We say this will be the case, if our Southern brethren will look at the matter in the light of philosophy and common sense and wait a little, in quiet and repose, for the progress of events. If they will do this, we at the North will be able to take care of Republicanism, and in another short year, the crisis will have passed, and fanaticism will have burned out, and a healthful reaction will give renewed life and vigor to the body politic. But if unwise and rash counsels should prevail in some of the Southern States—if premature action for separate State protection should occur, and secession from the Union, or even serious demonstrations in that direction, be attempted, this might furnish sufficient excitement and outward pressure to hold the Republican party together and continue this hated struggle. Its only bond of union is the slavery excitement, which with quiet at the South and Lincoln in the Presidential chair, impotent to accomplish anything which fanaticism has anticipated as the fruits of victory, will prove a rope of sand, and the discordant materials—of which this political organization is composed—will fall to pieces and repel each other.

Such—we, who have sympathized with them and fought for their constitutional rights, say to Southern men—are our dispassionate views of the present crisis and of the action and policy which wisdom and patriotism demand. We ask for them the calm consideration which becomes the occasion. Southern men owe it to themselves and their own honor—saying nothing about courtesy to their hosts of true friends at the North—to act in this emergency with dignity and deliberation.