The New York Herald
April 24, 1861
The Union Governor of Maryland, who has withstood the appeals and threats of the secessionists since last December, has been coerced by a crazy mob of conspirators into calling an extra session of the State Legislature on the 26th inst., and has been warned of the consequences should he fail to deliver a secession message. We had hoped for better things: that Maryland would stand fast by the Union and be saved; but as her Legislature is overwhelmingly for revolution, she may be already considered as on the broad highly to swift destruction.
The burning of Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard, with a powerful squadron of our largest and some of our finest ships of war, is confirmed. This destruction of millions of property it appears, was the only alternative to prevent its falling into the hands of the rebels; but that it was impossible to save the splendid new steamer Merrimac, costing over a million dollars, is a mystery which, with the information before us, we cannot solve. One thing is perfectly clear. We can understand from this conflagration, which reduces thousands of her working people to beggary, that Virginia is fully committed to the secession league for the destruction of our government; and so, then let it be accepted. It is perhaps well that Maryland and Virginia have elected to bear the brunt of this conflict; for thus it is brought to the very field of operations where the crushing power of the North, military, naval and financially, can be brought to bear most promptly and decisively. And we must be prompt. Not only is the army protecting our federal capital denied provisions from Virginia and Maryland, but the seventy thousand inhabitants of that city and Georgetown are in danger of starvation, inasmuch as the scanty supplies which find their way to the District markets are almost monopolized at famine prices by the army. This is worse than Fort Sumter, and in the eyes of the world we are disgraced if we permit this state of things a week longer, with all power to put an end to it.
The war of the government against the revolted States is not a war of extermination or subjugation. It is an appeal to arms for the recovery of certain United States custom houses, forts, arsenals, navy yards, mints, marine hospitals, courts of justice, post offices and post roads, and for the restoration of the law of the land in the revolted States. Such is the character and such are the purposes of this war. On the other side it is a war undertaken for the purpose of detaching the rebellious States from the Union of which they form a very important part. They proclaim that they have thrown off their obligations to the government of the United States, and are engaged in a war of independence. They are grossly deceived. After deceiving their friends in the North with false professions of attachment to the Union, our Southern revolutionists are grossly deceiving themselves in this last resort of war.
The North is a unit against them and our government lags far behind our public sentiment. Five hundred thousand men are ready to answer at once the call of the government, not for defensive, but offensive operations. The plan of the enemy is to keep our Northern legions to the line of the Potomac. The reason is obvious. But the government should push on an overwhelming force upon Richmond, for the recovery of the government property there, and to extinguish those hostile cannon foundries. The next point of occupation should be Raleigh, North Carolina, and thence to Columbia, South Carolina, and thence to Montgomery, Alabama, the capital of the Confederate States. This expedition with a co-operating squadron along the seaboard, and another down the Mississippi, would soon crush out this formidable Southern revolt. In advance of this movement President Lincoln should issue his proclamation guaranteeing the complete protection of all loyal Union men and their property, but warning the enemies of the government of the dangers of confiscation, negroes included. This would sift out the wheat from the chaff in all the invaded States.
Our administration is naturally and properly enough devoting itself to the defence of Washington; but Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet should remember that while the Romans remained at home in defence of their capital, Hannibal remained in Italy, and that when they carried the war into Africa they removed the enemy from Rome, and brought his ambitious designs to a speedy and ignominious end. To disperse the revolutionary forces threatening Washington, Maryland and Virginia should at once be made to feel the pressure of two hundred thousand loyal men, and the first duty of the North is to open all our highways to Washington by land and water. The administration should not stop to chaffer upon nice punctilios of courtesy and submission to insolent traitors, but, driven to war, it should push forward all its resources to crush this gigantic rebellion.