The New York Herald
April 24, 1861
Some give it ninety days; but we will give it six months. In this armed movement to the South the people of the North are ahead of the government. If Mr. Lincoln wants them he can have 500,000 men in three weeks, and 200 millions of dollars to render the war short, sharp and decisive. In the first place he can march on Richmond from Washington with his troops to restore the authority of United States law. Wherever there is a post office and a custom house at the South the federal government has a right to protect both with any number of troops necessary for the purpose. This is a view of the legality and constitutionality of the action of the administration which seems to be lost sight of at the South. The principal towns would thus be occupied in succession by the advancing army, and that accomplished, the surrounding territory is necessarily reduced to submission to the federal power. The State of Virginia has seized the Custom House at its capital. The federal government has a right to retake it and assert its own authority. In view of the near approach of danger, the Virginia Convention may reconsider the secession ordinance, or perhaps the State may redeem its honor by claiming that it is not yet out of the Union, and by throwing the responsibility on the people who are to vote for it in May, and would probably vote in the negative in order to save their soil from becoming the theatre of war. If Virginia should give way, the other States will be likely to follow her example, and thus, in a short time, the whole South would be restored to the Union. If Virginia resists the contest cannot last very long, considering her large slave population, which will either become fugitives or take up arms against their masters. Slavery would thus be abolished, and abolitionism put an end to at the same time. The majority of the people of the North do not desire to meddle with the slave property of the Southern States; but that war must unavoidably result in its destruction can hardly admit of a doubt. As the principal property in those States consist of slaves, the war will, therefore, necessarily be one of brief duration.