Charlestown Advertiser, June 8, 1861

In Missouri, the present plans of the traitors have been frustrated by the energetic action of Gens. Harney and Lyon. For the present, they have given way to superior force, yet among the professed friends of the government will eventually be found some of its bitterest enemies. The plan of separating the South from the North is not wholly the result of the agitation of the Slavery question, and, in some of the disaffected States, this question does not at all enter into consideration. In Missouri, for instance, Slavery has ceased, for a long time, to be a material and leading interest, hence some other hobby must be started to inflame the minds of the people. Throughout this State the tariff passed by the last Congress, and generally known as the "Morrill tariff" has been seized upon by the traitors to accomplish what could not be done by crying "Abolitionist." They claim that this tariff is unfair to the South, and, a direct blow to the interests of Missouri. However, they are snubbed for the day, but still cherish their traitorous and insane purpose—that of destroying the Union. The traitors assert openly that they will carry out their hellish designs sooner or later. Their enmity to the Administration, and to the North especially, is bitter in the extreme, and nothing but blood will satisfy them. The love of power, position and rule is so strong in the negro-driver that it is with great bitterness of spirit he submits to be ruled. They say the interests of the States of the Mississippi valley are identical, and at the same time, separate and distinct from those of the Atlantic border. They would form a "Mississippi Valley Confederacy," which could control the vast productions of the West, and even make the East a tributary to its greatness. These ideas are now being industriously circulated among the people of Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, and wherever else, in that region, they dare promulgate them. In such manner do these traitors seek to alienate the affections of the loyal people from the general government. Some of them, in their more insane moments, even think that Illinois may be induced to participate in their grand scheme of fraud, rascality and treason.

The traitors of Missouri have all along, in a specious manner, argued that her interest[s] were with the South, but have never committed themselves to the Southern Confederacy, except so far as was necessary, by united efforts, to throw off their allegience to the general Government. They have ever professed to love and cherish the Union, and have wailed hypocritically over the probable destruction of the Country. But the mask which they have worn so long has fallen from their faces, and the brand of treason can be seen written upon their foreheads. This scheme will fail. Its projectors made the same fatal mistake which was made by the originators of the Confederacy of the South, that of expecting sympathy and co-operation at the North. Whether the argument that the interests of the States bordering on the Mississippi are identical, and separate from those of their sisters be valid or otherwise, is quite immaterial in arriving at a satisfactory conclusion as to the success of the scheme at the present time. So long as the people of the North West retain their present loyal sentiments towards the Constitution and the Union, its success is impossible. That the patriotism of this people is far beyond the reach of the influence of the plausible and insidious emissaries of the South, has been proved in too many instances to be at all doubted. Approaches were undoubtedly made to the chief executive officers of Kansas and Nebraska, during the last Administration, with a view to forwarding this grand piece of villa[i]ny, and though the people of those Territories were devoted to the Constitution, the Washington appointees, who ruled them, were looked upon with distrust.

Whatever may have been the views of the traitors of South Carolina and Virginia, the South Western Secessionists never intended to affiliate with and join a Confederacy whose policy should be controlled by the leaders of the movement in those two old States. On the contrary, they were with them most heartily until the Union should be broken, and the power of the United States crushed, then they were for themselves and an independent government. Their scheme comprised Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and the Indian Territory, in the first instance, and secondly, in conjunction with the Southern Confederacy, having secured the control of the navigation of the Mississippi, to dictate terms of intercourse to the great grain producing States of the North West, and, either by flattery or threats or [of?] conquest, unite with them such other States as the exigencies of the time might demand.

But owing to unlooked for opposition and disaffection at home, and the immense and unexpected uprising and consequent energetic action at the North, their plans were so imperfectly and irregularly carried out, that instead of two grand Confederacies, one controlling the East and the other the West of the United States, the force of circumstances compelled such as had gone too far to turn backward to form that improm[p]tu Republic, the "Confederated States of America." This Southern Confederacy was a mistake, an accident—and a sad one also to the parties concerned.

Pleasing, indeed, to the fancy were the prospects pictured by the orators and newspaper writers of the South West. Compared with their prospective empire, the glory of the Roman Republic faded from the sight, and its historic fame was eclipsed by the imagined greatness of the Republic of the South West. Irrational and absurd as these ideas may seem they found advocates and believers. Their opposers were to be welcomed with "bloody hands to hospitable graves," and, imitating the policy of the great nations of history, they were going forth for conquest and to conquer. The sparsely settled and half civilized Territories of New Mexico and Arizona would fall an easy prey to their invading hosts.

Their disordered vision saw no impediment to its extension but the Pacific Ocean. Now, all these bright visions of honor, prosperity and empire are vanished—treason and rebellion are being crushed—and these traitorous people know themselves to be what they really are, a comparatively insignificant part of a great nation which can, not only protect its friends, but annihilate its enemies.