Daily Chicago Times, December 7, 1860

It is the custom of late to quote old Jackson's declaration that "by the Eternal, the Union must and shall be preserved!" Heart and soul we join in this devoted love of the Union. Heart and soul will we unite in preserving this glorious home of freedom erected by our fathers. But how is this work of love to be achieved? By reviling the South still more? by renewed falsehoods as to her course and purposes? by taunting her with her alleged weakness? by sustaining the unconstitutional State laws made to rob her of her rights? by denouncing her citizens who seek their fugitive slave property as "kidnappers?" by apologizing for, or applauding the villains, who seek to disturb her repose and peace? by demanding the right to agitate, to subvert her institutions in spite of her wishes? by denying her equality, while prating of fairness, or overriding the very plainest principles of the Constitution, while bleating about our Constitutional majority? Shall we win her into the Union by depriving her, by means of a sectional party, of all participation in the destiny and interests of the Union, and excluding her from all control over her own most vital interests? Shall we woo her into the Union by making her powerless in the common government, through our sectional numbers, and waging a war upon her dearest rights and greatest interests when she is in? Are these the means which the great Jackson would have employed? No, people of the Northwestl The sword of the old Hero of New Orleans might have leaped from its scabbard in this conflict, but it would never have glittered in the ranks of the Abolitionists.

The union of these States must be preserved—but by what means? There is but one way under heaven in which it can be saved. Either the negro or the South must be given up. The Union cannot and will not stand under this intermeddling with slavery by the North. The issue is made up: we must either let go the everlasting negro, or let go all hope of the Union. The great question now to be solved, before the American people, is whether the party pride of a dominant majority will stand proof against the calls of patriotism, the claims of self-interest, the warnings of their dead fathers, and the pleadings of their unborn children whose inheritance they are despoiling; whether the miserable desire to dictate laws, morals and religion to those who are their equals, shall override every consideration of law, interest, humanity and national prosperity.

The problem of this age, we again repeat, is not the capacity of the negro for liberty, but the capacity of the white man for self-government. Blinded by an utterly impracticable theory of universal equality, certain fanatical minds years ago commenced this war upon the Southern States. Their agitation has bred a horde of isms and driven thousands into infidelity and atheism. It has desecrated the pulpits of our churches and made many of them dens of malice, falsehood, fanatical politics, and unchristian hate. It has severed the churches of God asunder, and left them warring, infuriated and malignant. It has retarded the progress of our legislation for the public welfare, and made the halls of Congress a disgrace to the civilized world, and a burning reproach to freedom and popular government. It has fostered and nourished vile incendiaries to instigate slaughter and crime in one whole half of our country. It has overthrown the only humane and practical movement ever made to liberate and colonize the poor negro. It has forced additional restrictions and harsher laws for the poor slave, and re-tightened and double-riveted his chains. It has driven the country upon the only rock upon which it could ever be wrecked, and formed the nation into sectional and geographical lines. It has sundered all the ties of affection that made us once a united, peaceful and fraternal people.—It now marches to the last act of the fiendish drama which it has been playing for the last thirty years, and it is about to tear asunder the Union and Government of our fathers. Like some huge ploughshare of ruin, it has moved forward with diabolical obstinacy and blind fatuity, bearing down the rights of the White, crushing the hopes of the Black, and tearing asunder every tie that bound governments, societies, religions and social life.

When—oh, when, our countrymen! will you awake from this dread delusion, and throw off this horrid nightmare from the national soul! Evil, and nothing but evil, has ever followed in the track of this hideous monster, Abolition. It has been, and is now, the source of all your woes. Look back over the pages of American history, and ask yourselves what was at the bottom of every great distraction, trouble and difficulty through which we have passed. Strike the history and effects of Northern anti-slavery agitation from our records, and the annals of our great Republic would be all covered over with sunshine and glory. Think of it, oh people of this once happy land, and trample the monster into the earth forever with an iron heel and a remorseless tread! Hurl its dead and loathsome carcass from you, as if it were some poisonous upas, whose very dead ashes would breed pestilence, war, discord and famine! Awake from your fatal lethargy and be men again. You have untold interests clustering around this Union, and uncounted hopes must perish with it. Will you allow the brightest American hopes and prospects to be dashed to earth by this vile struggle, not to elevate the negro, but to degrade the white man to the negro's level. The negro! the negro!! the negro!!! What in the name of all that is holy and sacred, have you got to do with the negro? Let him alone—send him back to his master where he belongs. You would never know there was a negro if your ears were not eternally deafened by the cries of demagogues, prating about their neighbors' business. Let slavery alone! If it is a sin, it is not on your shoulders. Let the South and the new States act for themselves, and bear their own sins; you have enough to bear of your own. If slavery makes the South poor, it makes you rich. If it drives away population and the mechanic arts, it drives them into our own ranks, and gives us wealth and greatness. What is the South's loss is our gain. Every motive on earth, either of humanity, self-interest, patriotism or love of liberty, demands that we should forever close this strife. It has been wrong from the beginning—it is madness now. It was [an] apple of discord from the first—it is destruction at this moment. Let the South have her negroes to her heart's content, and in her own way—and let us go on getting rich and powerful by feeding and clothing them. Let the negroes alone!—let them ALONE! Your intermeddling is not only not helping the negroes, but it is ruining yourselves. Let the whole antislavery agitation in the North perish. Let the South take the responsibility for her own sins, and let her have full protection for the maintenance of her property and rights, and let her KNOW that you MEAN to maintain them. This is the way to save the Union, and the ONLY way. Kill the Vile CAUSE of disunion, and disunion itself will perish for lack of food. ABOLITION IS DISUNION. It is the "vile cause and most cursed effect." It is the Alpha and Omega of our National woes. STRANGLE IT!