Newark (OH) Advocate, “The Impending Danger,” July 5, 1861

The Impending Danger

The Ohio State Journal, of July 3rd, frankly expresses its fears that both England and France will take sides with the Confederates on the first pretext that is afforded them. It says that in such a contingency, “every warlike virtue of our people would tend to protract, to embitter, to ensanguine such a struggle. A generation might pass from the earth before the end, and when at last the end came, it would find an impoverished people, devastated fields and ruined cities.” It adds further: “The American question would be then no longer one of American dominance on this continent, but America existence here; for would England and France cease to meddle with our affairs, when once successful?” We agree in the foregoing views of the Journal, but we cannot see how the forced emancipation of all the Southern slaves by proclamation of the President (as it proposes,) would restore the fealty of the South and re-establish the Union. Instead of brining peace, tranquility and union to our people, it would prolong and perpetuate the existing bitterness and alienation. Under such circumstances, the South would bow at the footstool of any other master rather than the North. There is danger that even now this feeling has an existence in the South, and it behooves good and discreet men of all parties to consider in what way this sad state of things can best be remedied. If we are ever to be a happy and united people, it is the part of wisdom that it should be brought about in advance of any intermeddling from abroad. The bone of contention between the North and South (unless abolitionism is really the object of the former,) is not worth wrangling over for a single moment in the face of such immense interests as are involved in a civil war. – We think that in this opinion all good citizens, after dispassionate reflection, will fully concur.