Norristown Register and Montgomery Democrat and Watchman, January 22, 1861

Five States are already out of the Union, several others are about going, and in as much as the Republican leaders and politicians at Washington and elsewhere, manifest no disposition towards a compromise of the difficulties at present surrounding the country, it is almost certain that on the fourth of March next, fifteen states will be outside of the Federal Union, or in other words that the Union will be completely broken up. States will then assume an independent position. Under these circumstances what will Pennsylvania do, and whither will she go[?]—Should there be no re-construction of our once glorious union of States, will she link her destinies with a northern Republic including the New England States; or will she join her fortunes with the Southern States? This is a question that may present itself for profitable consideration. The majority of her people and her tendencies are conservative. They can have little sympathy with that portion of the country—which in turn has hung the Quakers and burned old women for witches, and which in later times has brought forth among its productions, wooden nutmegs and other notions.—With the land of such heresies and humbugs, sober, conservative, Pennsylvania can have no sympathy and no desire to come into close communion. On the other hand, the South is the natural market of Pennsylvania's products and resources. The manufacturing towns, (ours among the number) until the present disturbances, have found a ready market for their articles of manufacture. Whither then shall Pennsylvania go? In the event of a disruption of the Union and the resumption of her seperate independent position, shall she link herself with the fanaticism and heresies of the New England States; or shall she join her fortunes to that part of the country, which has throughout the whole period of our national existence, whatever its faults, always proved a bold and fearless advocate of the rights of the people?—Pennsylvanians may soon be called upon to decide this question.