Title
The First Battle of the "Irrepressible Conflict"
Creator
Ohio Enquirer
Source
"The First Battle of the 'Irrepressible Conflict,'" Ohio Enquirer, October 19, 1859, in Secession Editorials, Department of History, Furman University http://history.furman.edu/editorials/see.py?menu=jbmenu&sequence=jbmenu&location=%20John%20Brown%27s%20Raid%20on%20Harper%27s%20Ferry%20 (accessed November 13, 2007).
Date
1859
Text
The “irrepressible conflict” of the free and slave states, which is preached by the Republican leaders as an orthodox doctrine, is well calculated to lead to such results. This affair at Harper’s Ferry is but the “cloud in the distance no bigger than a man’s hand,” but it is the presage of the future storm, that shall desolate the whole land, if the people give this Abolition doctrine their approval. It necessarily tends to servile insurrection, civil war and disunion. BROWN and his followers are but the advance column of the partisan disciples of SEWARD and CHASE, who are burning to make a practical application of the “irrepressible conflict doctrine. They stand ready to deluge the land in blood to carry out their fanatical views; and the momentous question is, do the majority of the people of the free states sympathize with them?