Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, April 30, 1861

The importance of the action of Kentucky at the present alarming crisis in the fortunes of our country is a sufficient apology for our frequent recurrence to this theme. We recur to it with no desire to obtrude ourselves officiously into its politics, but in a spirit of friendship, which our past political course so long in harmony with it will not cause to be questioned, we propose to offer a few suggestions. You are urged to abandon the Union, assume an attitude of hostility to the General Government and ally your fortunes with the Secession movement which has its head-quarters at Montgomery, and make your State, from its position, the battle-ground of the contest. Why should you do this? Why should you make this vast sacrifice of your material interests and trample in the dust all the past traditions, recollections and associations of Kentucky glory and Kentucky principle? Do you believe that if you remain loyal to the Union—continue on in the old track which you have so long trodden—you will be assailed, or that you will be interfered with in the least by the General Government at Washington? No reasonable and intelligent man cherishes such an idea for a moment. All the interests of your State are as safe from harm and are as much protected to-day by the aegis of the Constitution as are those of Ohio or of any other State. You could not be assailed aggressively, while you occupy your old position, without a half million of bayonets in the North-west alone coming to your defense. What power the LINCOLN Administration has it owes to the very men for whom you are now asked to sacrifice yourselves. If the seceded States had remained in the Union, or will now abandon their Government, and send their Senators and members back to Congress, there will be a majority in the House against the Republican Administration of thirty, and in the Senate of eight or ten. With both branches of Congress against him, LINCOLN was powerless to act against the conservative interest. In addition, the Supreme Court, always faithful to the Constitutional rights of all the States, was composed almost unanimously of conservative men, a majority even being Southern men, and in case of vacancy by death upon that tribunal, LINCOLN could not have filled it except with the consent of a Democratic Senate.

Thus in the legislative and judicial departments of the Government, which embrace nearly all its power—for an Executive can do nothing against a Congress, which can withhold its supplies, and Courts which can reject its decrees—those who had always proved themselves friendly to every just right of the South hold supreme control. If there is any danger to be apprehended to the slave States, the way to meet it is not to secede and institute a new government, raise large armies to be supported by immense taxation, but it is simply required to send members of Congress to Washington from all the States which voted at the Presidential election. When Kentuckians are asked to assist the Gulf States, to come to the rescue, let them remind the latter that they have the power to defeat the LINCOLN Administration at Washington in a constitutional way, and that it should be tried before any other remedy is talked or thought of.

But we have the assurances of Mr. LINCOLN, in his Inaugural Address, that he is strongly opposed to any interference by the General Government with the institution of slavery in the States, which interference he considers prohibited by the Constitution! Instead of Kentucky following off the Cotton States into the slough of secession, she should call upon the latter to send their Representatives to Washington, where, united with hers, they will be invincible against any assault. By this they save unnumbered calamities and eventual destruction. They preserve the Constitution and Union, as well as their own domestic institutions, unharmed.

We ask our friends in Kentucky to take note of those who are calling out for secession and war. Are they the men of substance, of large property, who have most to fear from a destruction of constitutional guarantees? On the contrary, are not these satisfied to let Kentucky hold on to her old position of peace and safety and redress of grievances all within the Union? Does not the secession cry come from dissatisfied political demagogues and office-seekers of but little character, who have no material interests in the welfare of the State? The farmers of Kentucky are prosperous and wealthy. They are realizing high prices and good markets for everything they have to sell; peace and prosperity smile upon them. They do not wish to exchange their happy condition for the misfortunes and ruin that are the necessary consequence of war and secession—especially as their honor has not been insulted or called in question, but have thus far been scrupulously respected.

All party lines and distinctions have been swept away in the North, in the energetic determination now that the issue of arms has at last come to maintain the authority of the Union unimpaired, and the supremacy of the Constitution in all the States. To attempt to resist it would be folly and madness in the highest degree. Kentucky, brave, gallant and strong as she is, would be powerless to stem the overwhelming Union tide that has set in, and the only effect of her secession would be to go clown into that hopeless gulf of ruin that awaits those who have already taken up arms against the Constitution. As a mediator, loyal to the Union, she may save the Cotton States, and a feeling of sympathy for them, as well as loyalty to the Union, should cause her to assume that position.