The Shasta courier., 1861-10-19
Coercion and What 1t Is.

check, particularly by law or authority, CON-
pulsion, force" This word, constituting all
the argument that rebel slang-whanger
ever deems it necessary to use, has recently
by the class of which he is type, been given
an unusual prominence in our language. By
some great peculiarity however of the rebel
mind, it seems to have two definitions. If
the General Government attempts in. any
way to enforce any of the laws placed on our
statute books by the aid of those who are now
rebels, before they went mad, why that is the
bIoodiest kind of /" coercion" If it attempts
to hold piece of property, by virtue OF
regular deed and cession from one of these
rebel States, that too is g coercion" But if
these traitors invade Missouri, Kentucky and
Maryland, to attempt to force 1--WE had almost
said coerce,) them out of the Union, after
they have said in a strictly legal and consti-
tutional manner, (which no one denies) that
they won't go, that is not coercion. If they
lombard forts and steal every thing they can
lay their hands on, that too is not coercion.
ed men opened a hail storm of shot and she'll
on the seventy half starved soldiers of the
Government at Sumter, garrisoning Uni
ted States fort, to which the United States
self. Nor was it coercion, according to the
Davis definition, when armed men from other
States forced Virginia out of the Union nor
yet when legislature elected for another
purpose, and three years ago, I" resolved"
Tennessee out of the Union, nor when troops
from that State invade Kentucky, nor when
troops from the chivalric States of Arkansas
and Texas pass Ikea pestilence through Mis-
souri,, Staying every man who is for the Union,
and stealing everything that possesses the
joint qualities of value and portability.
With them it is a war of conquest, coer-
cion and subjugation against the United
States. Disguise it as they may, thatis what
is meant. The Government ends if the re-
bellion is not suppressed. There is no halting
or middle ground. Itis the life or death of
the nation that is at stake. No peace is prac-
ticable only on the terms of actual and un-
conditional submission on their part. A
treaty to that effect, if we were mean and
base enough to make one would not bring it,
for in three weeks we would be fighting
again. In many quarters they have thrown
off all disguise, and boldly avow in their
cock tail valor what they intend doing. The
Memphis Appeal, the most influential journal
published in Tennessee or the South West,
speaks as follows:
We only speak the sentiment of the united
South, we believe, in asserting that Kentucky
can never be allowed to cast her destiny with
the North, whatever verdict Federal tyranny
may force from her people under the duress
of the bayonet. While we respect State rights
and State sovereignty, there are polite Il and
military necessities which override these
rights as measures of retaliation, in great
revolution like the present. Kentucky may
bend her knee at present to the Baal of Abo-
litionisn, but the strong arm of our national
power W II rescue her from the possession of
the enemy before the termination of the war,
as certainly and as effectually as the vast ex-
panse of our territory upon the golden coast
of the Pacific was rescued from the hands of
PROSTATE Mexico. The truth had as well be
spoken, and we can tell her citizens-loyal-
lists and traitors-that no such idea has ever
entered the mind of the Southern people as
that she shall remain under the iron rule of
the Yankee despotism. The South needs her
territory, and must have it, though at the
price of blood and conquest.
We want our peace friends, who are so
horrifcd at little blood letting to read and
ponder over the above paragraph, and more
especially if they are strong g States rights
men, or are from Kentucky, and run on the
as goes Kentucky, so go y principle.