Editorial (leader) April 20, 1861.Editorial (leader) June 8, 1861.
It begins by stating that Virginia affirms “the right of a state to secede from the Union at will,” and that Missouri and Kentucky “declare that, in the event of forcible measures by the general government to resist the dismemberment of the Union, they will take sides with the seceded states.” “It seems questionable,” continues the Weekly, “whether the continued alliance of these states, on these conditions, is an unmixed gain. If this Union of ours is a confederacy of states which is liable to be dissolved at the will of any of the states, and if no power rests with the general government to enforce its laws, it would seem that we have been laboring under a delusion these eighty years in supposing that we were a nation, and the fact would appear to be that,” etc., etc., etc.“The rebellion in this country has not half the excuse that the Sepoys had. The Indian soldiers were at least standing upon their own soil and opposing a foreign race which had vanquished them by arms. It was a blind stroke for the independence of their nationality. But the Davis rebellion is the resistance of a faction of citizens against the government of all; and the liberty for which they claim that they are fighting means baldly and only the liberty of holding other people in slavery.”[156]
Editorial “Better than Dollars,” April 20, 1861.Editorial May 18, 1861, headed
“In Memoriam.”
Portrait of the typical Northern man in contrast with the typical Southern man, in which the first is described as mean, avaricious, and unprincipled. “Cotton Pork is a Northern man, mostly from New England, though often transplanted to New York, and doing well in our climate. Some varieties of his genius have been tried at the South, but they don’t thrive there. They can’t stand so much sun.” “At the South—an odd region—dollars are well thought of, to be sure, but still they don’t govern.... It seems ridiculous, but people talk and think much more about honor at the South than about dollars.” Cotton Pork, we are told, “is for his country if dollars are on his country’s side, otherwise he crawls on his belly to lick the feet of the enemy who offers him dollars.” “Strange how differently they talk down South! They spend no energy in denouncing civil war. They do not want to fight. They seek peace. But if it comes, they will make no wry faces. It will cost them much, but they utter no such philanthropic shrieks as proceed from the mouth of Cotton Pork. They seem to think that there are things worse than fighting in this world, and better than dollars. An odd people, surely.”“They have led us by the nose, and kicked us, and laughed at us, and scorned us in their very souls as cravens and tuppeny tinkers. They have swelled, and swaggered, and sworn, and lorded it in Washington and at the North, as if they were peculiarly gentlemen[157] because they have lived by the labor of wretched men and women whom they did not pay—whom they sell to pay their debts, and whipped and maimed savagely at their pleasure. They have snorted superciliously about their rights, while they deprived four millions of human beings of all rights whatsoever, and have sought to gain such control of the general government that they might override altogether the state laws which protect the equal rights of men. They have aimed to destroy the beneficent, popular system which peacefully and patiently and lawfully was working out the great problem of civilization; and while they have been digging about the foundations of the temple to make sure of its downfall, they have loftily replied to our inquiries, ‘We only want to be let alone.’”

We trust that the Southern gentleman and Cotton Pork, Esq., “a Northern man,” are pleased with their respective portraits.

We have long and patiently borne with the insults and aspersions upon our faith and conduct as Catholics persisted in for years by Harper’s Weekly. Trusting that better counsels would prevail, and unwilling to add by controversy a single spark to the fire already kindled, we have deferred from day to day, and from month to month, saying what we might at any time have said.

Fully aware of the by no means reputable “anti-Popery” antecedents of its proprietors, of their palpably governing motive, and of the speculation they saw at the bottom of the movement, we might, so far as we were personally concerned, have looked upon the malicious movement as not meriting serious attention.

But we are also aware to how great an extent the prestige of the wealth and commercial standing of a large publishing-house, the widespread circulation of their periodicals, and most especially their noisy

and incessant proclamation of a patriotism claimed as at once unvarying, inflexible, unselfish, and devoted, had misled or blinded the general public, ignorant of their real precedents, and we have, therefore, found it our duty to enlighten as well our own readers as those of the Weekly as to the real state of the case.

In so doing, we wish to call attention to the fact that we have here confined ourselves to the information furnished by public judicial decisions, and to their own record as published by themselves.

Finally, we most earnestly, and in the spirit of charity, urge these gentlemen to devote themselves to their plain, and what they may make their noble, duty as journalists. Let them be advised for their own good to cease fanning the flame of a hateful bigotry, and to pursue in the future such a course as may induce right-minded men to look upon their title-page illustration as indeed the flambeau of civilization, and not the torch of the incendiary.

[147] Demurrer is thus defined: “A stop or pause by a party to an action for the judgment of the court on the question, whether, assuming the truth of the matter alleged by the opposite party, it is sufficient in law to sustain the action, and hence whether the party resting is bound to answer or proceed further.”