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GP

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A New Yorker on Southern Secession:

"Congressman Daniel Sickles, a Democrat from New York City, delivered a speech in the House of Representatives on December 10, 1860 on the question of secession. He opposed the use of force to retain States in the Union, making it clear that :

"When the call for force comes---let it come whence it may---no man will ever pass the boundaries of the city of New York for the purpose of waging war against any State of this Union...the Union can be made perpetual by justice; but it cannot be maintained an instant by force. (Sickles recognized the right of secession)...as the last dread alternative of a free State when it has to choose between liberty and justice. In our Federal system the recognized right of secession is a conservative safeguard. It is the highest constitutional and moral guarantee against injustice; and therefore if it had been always and universally acknowledged as a rightful remedy, it would have contributed more than all else to perpetuate the Union, by compelling the observance of all their obligations on the part of all the States. The opposite dogma, which is so extensively believed at the North, that no matter what wrongs a State may have to endure, it may and ought to be compelled by force to remain in the Union, even as a conquered dependency, is a most dangerous error in our system of government, and has contributed largely to the existing anarchy."

(The Secession Movement in the Middle Atlantic States, William C. Wright, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1973, pp. 189-190)