The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1860-09-25
90hical.
From the Richmond Enquirer. ..
The Effect Of Douglas Coercion
Doctrine at the South.


greatly increased by the bloody coercion
doctrine cnunciated by Douglas in his re-
cent speeches
"A PRoTEsr-The undersigned, citizens
of the Southern States, accidentally as
sembled at the White Sulphur Springs,
have read with much surprise the speech
of Judge Douglas, recently delivered at
Norfolk, and being many of them too re-
mote from ther homes, to take part in
any public expression of opinion there,
deem it due to themselves to make known
in this manner their dissent from its doc
trines.
In his address, Mr. Douglas declares
that if the Southern States (not a part but
alD shall secede from the Union, upon the
Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, it will
be the duty of the President of the Uni
ted States, who, in the case supposed,
will be Lincoln, by arms to punish or
subdue them, and that he will counselhim
to do, and aid him to do so by all the
means in his power.
Now as there is largo party at the
North avowing the most implacable hos
tility to the institutions of the South,
whose candidate for the Presidency is
Mr.. Lincoln, this declaration of Mr..
Douglas is'in effect, that the election of a
man to the Presidency of the United
States, by thevotes alone of one section,
who is pledged to use all the powers of
the Government for the destruction of
the rights and property of the other sec
tion, would not justify the weaker in re-
sistance, but that if in such an event the
fifteen Southern States should assume to
determine on the extent of their danger,
and to quietly withdraw from it, he
should regard their action as revolt, and
as such to be punished with all the force
of the Government Than this we con-
ceive Of no doctrine more dangerous to the
South. It confounds resistance to estab-
lishcd law by individuals, which it would
be the duty of the Chief Magistrate to
punish, with the peaceable secession of
States from q compact no longer consis-
tent with the interest or existence of its
constituents; but it treats the Union as a
perpetual bond, oxacting unconditional
submission forever from o weaker to a
stronger section. Itstrips the States of
the chief attribute of sovereignty, to wit:
the right TO determine when their exis-
toncc is put to hazard, as to- the means
necessary to their preservation, and af
firms that, while it is legitimate in the
people Of the North having cnn+r@'--e +he h
General Government, through it, to in
flict upon the States Of the South what
ever wrongs it may be consistent with
their interest or feeling to impose, it
would be treason in the people Of the
South to obey the order Of their States in
opposition to Federal authority.
Fraught with error as this doctrine is,
subversive of that constitutional theoryin
which alone the rights of the States are to
be found, it has ct this moment, and un-
der the circumstances, a bloody signif-
canoe. The enemies of the South in the
Northern States have selected Abraham
Lincoln to lead them in the 'irreprcssible
conflict" which he has proclaimed. Mr.
Seward, the most distinguished counsel
lor Of Mr.. Lincoln, declares at Boston
that the election of Lincoln is sure, that
with it the power of slavery will end,
and that the s'irrepressiblc conflict" will
be pressed to its infamous and bloody
close..4-,a.a
At such a moment, the proclamation of
such sentiments by Judge Douglas, (com-
ing Immediately after Stewards Boston
speech, uttered here at the South, and
addressed to the citizens of State whose
Executive declared to General Jackson
that Federal troops should only cross her
border over the bodies of her sons, by
man from the North, from the neighbor-
hood of Lincoln himself, the candidate
for the Presidency, volunteering his
counsel to Lincoln, and in the event of
his election, his aid to wage war upon
our people, and to slay them in battle as
rebels, or hang them in cold blood as
traitors, if they shall render obedience to
State rather than Federal authority, is
repugnant to every sense of right, and
merits from the people of the South tho
severest rebuke. Such rebuke we sin
cerelv hone will be given thedoctrine and