RICHMOND ENQUIRER
(Richmond Examiner)
This quotation illustrates the level of delusion regarding the importance of slavery that the plantation and slave owners had induced in Southern Society.
See {630997} for the description of the terror policy.
This is a wonderful quotation which illustrates the polarization which had taken place in America as a result of the slavery issue. Lincoln’s address—which history and most people have adjudged to be such a moderate attempt to find common ground, and which offended many of his constituents because he was compromising and temporizing on the slavery issue—was seen as the radical attacks of a “fanatic”. There is probably no policy that Lincoln or any other President could have followed that would be even marginally acceptable to the slave owners and their economies and the abolitionists and their economies. In the final analysis, slavery was the kind of issue that is not susceptible to compromise. No nation can exist half slave and half free. The Civil War was inevitable unless the South would give up slavery or the North would accept it.
The Richmond Examiner, a newspaper which was published before and during the American Civil War under the masthead of Daily Richmond Examiner, was one of the newspapers published in the Confederate capital of Richmond. Its editors viewed strong executive leadership as a threat to the liberties of its subscription readership. The paper published staunch and increasingly vitriolic opposition to the leadership and policies of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Historians often consult the pages of the Examiner for insights into the growing problems faced by the Davis administration and the South as they faced the increasing prospect of defeat in the Civil War.
