Guttenberg Mississippi Valley Register, April 5, 1861

As might have naturally been expected writers and leading politicians living under different forms of Governments from that of our own, with great avidity seize upon the present state of our national affairs, and attempt to show that a Republican Government has proved a failure in North America, and unadapted to the wants of the American people. Do existing facts prove this to be the case? Would a dissolution of the U. S. convince any person of ordinary foresight and comprehension that a Republican Government is not the best Government in the world for an enlightened and intelligent people? Can the American citizen be found who would exchange our present system for any other in existence? We think not. Is there anything in the late movement of the people in any section of our country, to show that they are desirous of a change? Certainly not. Even the citizens of the seceding States have, without a dissenting voice, adopted a Republican form of government. While such is the feeling in the South what should we expect of the North? Unfortunately for the perpetuity of the Union, there is and ever has been since its formation, a dissimilarity of institutions between the free and slave states, arising from a difference of climate and productions of the soil, which has led indirectly to an alienation of the two sections, and causing the present rupture.

And what does all this prove? why, that a people whose interest lies in such opposite directions, are not well calculated to be associated together under the same government; this and nothing more.

The rapid prosperity of the American people for years past, the heighth to which they have attained in the scale of intelligence and civilization, in consequence of the free and almost spontaneous flow of knowledge and religious freedom peculiar to our system of government, has strongly attached every American citizen to its principles, by opening the way to every bumble individual without distinction of birth or fortune, to participate in its blessings and share equally in its honors and emoluments; while affording ample protection to life and property, it acts as a stimulus to call forth an active exercise of the intellectual faculties of all classes of people, thereby contributing largely to their happiness.

It is not strange that those attached to other forms of government, who have watched with envy the unrivaled progress of the American people, should seize upon any pretext, when there seems the least possibility for lowering in the minds of their own people, the worth of a Republic.

Let the politicians of other countries say what they please, if they flatter themselves that a Republican government has proved a failure in America, time will show to them the contrary. Though the Union may be dissolved, and a southern nationality permanently established, still Liberty will survive, and Republican principles will ever be the basis, upon which the government will rest.

Free institutions and the suffrage of the people, will ever be cherished and receive a hearty and ardent support by all Americans.