Northern Patriotism.
Commodore Stockton is reported to have said in the Peace Congress, that for every regiment raised in the
North for coercion, two would be raised to defend it at home.
He even goes further, and says, unless the Abolitionists offer conciliation and compromise before conflict, he will head one of the home regiments in
New Jersey, and stand pledged that no foreign regiments shall pass over her consecrated soil —
Princeton and
Trenton battle fields — to fight the countrymen of
Washington, who stood upon them, and there bled for Jerseymen.
One of the initiating circumstances of an attempt at coercion would be the development of a fact which we have often endeavored to impress upon our readers, that society in the
United States is not so much divided upon slavery by geographical lines as is generally supposed.
It is not true now, as we have said a hundred times — it never was and never will be true — that the whole
North makes war upon the social system of the
South.
It is the
Puritan element of the
North which does so — now in the majority, no doubt; but there has always been a powerful minority who, from their cradles up, have refused to bow the neck to this spiritual despotism, not alone upon the slavery subject, but upon every subject on which it has attempted to force its peculiar ideas of morals upon the public sentiment.
We are not surprised, therefore, to see generous and chivalric souls, like
Stockton, throwing down the gauntlet to the fanatics who threaten the coercion of the
South.
And, let us add, this will be a most effectual check to coercion.
Once convince these gentry that there will be fighting upon their own soil, and they will become meek, patient and forgiving.
