A Northern View of the Southern Confederacy, April 13, 1861

From the Covington Journal  of April 13, 1861 comes the following article from a newspaper in Maine. .Fear of the economic impact of secession on the merchants of New England was mentioned in the north, though this paper seems to be taking it to an extreme conclusion. Was it fear, or just wishful thinking?


A Northern View of the Southern Confederacy
The reader will be struck with following article from the Bangor (Maine) "Union."

"The SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY - Were we to venture a prediction, we would say that we here have the germ of a Republic, which history, at no far distant day, will record as the most powerful and wealthy of ancient and modern times. It will grow, and that to (sic) rapidly, by additions from the North, from the South and from the West. Its government purged of every notion of consolidation, no State will hesitate to take shelter under its wings from any fear of losing its sovereignty. The burdens of that government will be light. It will be administered according to the southern idea. In the exercise of its powers it will be confided within the legitimate sphere of the Constitution. It will not be used as an engine of corruption. It will not be used as an instrument for exercising those projects which belong only to State governments or individual enterprise. It will build no railroads and canals. It will undertake to build up no manufacturing interests. Hence its burdens will be light, and consequently the trade will be nearly or quite free.


"Capital, which has for the last three quarters of a century been aggregating in Northern cities, will begin to run southward. By degrees, the trade of Boston, New York and Philadelphia will decrease, whilst that of Charleston, Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans will proportionally increase. Immigration will also turn thitherward. The North has lost, irrevocably lost, we fear, her largest and best customers. Our future we may read in the past of Canada. Negro sympathy, which of late has been so active with us, will in a few months more will be like a tale that is told. We shall hear no more of slavery in the south than we now hear of it in Cuba and Russia. From New England, at least, the scepter of empire has departed forever, and that through the folly of hew own sons."

I'm surprised the Journal did not conclude with a few wise remarks of its own but maybe the Bangor paper had took the words off its own printing press.