2

The Republican Triumph and the Broken Union.

From the Detroit Press.

The republican party is in power, and the Union is broken. The consequence has been quick to follow the cause. The Union is broken for all time. The parts will not be reunited. We may as well make up our minds to that, and the sooner the better. Seven of the richest states that were of the Union four months ago, and possessing the entire coast of the Gulf of Mexico and both banks of the lower Mississippi, are gone, never to return. They would have returned if the Crittenden compromise had been accepted by the republican party, but as it was not accepted, and as the Lincoln administration has declared against that compromise, and has proclaimed the Chicago platform to be "a law" to it, the confederate states will go on and perfect their government, achieve their independence, by the sword if need be, obtain recognition from the great European powers, and become one of the powers of the earth. Nor will the disintegration stop there. The border slave states, with perhaps the exception of Missouri and Delaware, will as surely separate from the Union and join the confederate states as that time shall pass. Their adhesion to the Union thus far has been solely in the expectation that such constitutional guarantee would be granted to them as would ensure their own safety, and promise to bring back the seceded states. The Union men of the border states are for the Union on these terms, and only on these terms. Openly and avowedly they are against the Union on the terms of the Chicago platform. They will accept nothing less than equality in the territories, the faithful execution of the fugitive slave clause of the constitution, and cessation of abolition agitation. Mr. Lincoln, in his inaugural address, denies them equality in the territories, aims a blow at the supreme court designed to destroy the doctrine of territorial equality which it had announced, and gives no evidence of a disposition to crush out, so far as in his power lies, the pestilent abolition agitation. The people of the border states see and comprehend all this perfectly, and all the advices are to the effect that the secession sentiment in those states has grown fearfully during the past two weeks.

We do not feel at all satisfied that the leading spirits in the administration at Washington are not more than willing that the border states should go. It is not possible that Mr. Lincoln and every member of his cabinet does not understand that the Chicago platform cannot be the law of the administration, and the border states be retained. Understanding this, and still adhering to the Chicago platform, what other conclusion can be arrived at than that we have stated? It is a heart-sickening reflection that the federal government is deliberately pursuing the anti-slavery policy which has been proposed by the New York Tribune of letting the border slave states go, with the idea that they can be gradually reabsorbed as the "irrepressible conflict" shall drive slavery southward. It is a heart-sickening reflection, but it is forced upon us by the conduct of the administration, and by the advices which come to us from Washington of the apparent drift of things outside of the administration. We append an example of these advices. It is a letter from Washington to a New York journal, under date of the 19th instant:

"The close observer of men and matters in the federal capital will vainly strive to rid himself of the impression that a growing diffidence of a restoration of the Union to its former integrity, and of the permanency of the adhesion of the slaveholding parts still attached to it, prevails among the leading republican minds now gathered here.

The idea of a disintegration into two confederacies, upon the basis of a strict division of the two antagonistic labor systems of this country, is becoming more and more familiar to them, and many of the wisest consider its realization only a question of time. I am able to state, and I know whereof I affirm, that it has crept into the cabinet, and has two, if not three, representatives, whose counsels weigh most with the president, in that body. I can say, furthermore, that the executive acts bearing upon the southern question will be largely influenced by a belief in the probable contingency of a separation, and a desire to make it a peaceable one. While it is deemed due to the honor and dignity of the government, both at home and abroad, to vindicate its authority in the seceded states, and while blows will be struck if necessary, it will be only to redeem the credit of the federal power and not to permanently maintain its authority over an unwilling people. The ultimate decision in this matter does not, of course, rest with the administration; but that a peaceable parting is thought infinitely preferable by the most trusted of Mr. Lincoln's immediate advisers, to the assertion and maintenance of federal laws in the south, is certain."

We have no right to be disappointed at this as the result of the triumph of the republican party. It is no new charge that abolitionism aims at the separation of the Union on the line between the free and slave states, with the view of all the more effectually carrying on the anti-slavery war. But let us wait. And we shall not have to wait long for the full development of the anti-slavery policy.