As was noted by Civil War Emancipation in its May 4 edition, by early May 1861 northern newspapers began taking note of the slave insurrection scare prevalent in many slave states after the outbreak of the Civil War. The departure of men for the Confederate army and news of military units from the North moving south, led many white Southerners to fear they were on the verge of a mass slave uprising as masses of northern John Browns in federal uniform armed the slaves, and set them upon their masters and other whites.
Clearly, some white Northerners did not share this fear. In its June 1, 1861 issue, Harper’s Weekly addressed the insurrection scare in a mocking editorial entitled, “Sitting on Gunpowder.” The editorial stated:
Who is it, then, that is exciting servile insurrection ?
The rebellious citizens of the United States. In what way?
Interestingly, Harper’s Weekly chose not to mock the racist assumptions behind the slave insurrection scare in the South (to whit, that barbaric slaves were itching to kill whites and would do so at the earliest opportunity, especially if encouraged by abolitionist troops who armed them). What the publication chose to mock was secession, in which rebel slaveholders made an enemy of the very government that before would have provided the best guarantee against servile insurrection and stood ready to suppress it should it happen anyway. Clearly, America’s great illustrated newspaper had not yet embraced emancipation, although it would soon be reporting stories of the peculiar institution unraveling in the South.
Harper’s did get it right that rebellion, even for the purpose of protecting slavery, would ultimately undermine the institution and its social and political foundations.
There were a few pro-slavery advocates who recognized that and opposed secession for that very reaon. They had the same impact as Cassandra’s prophecies did at Troy.