New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-01-02
COERCION.

i q yesterday presented to cur readers the |
i New Years CIT Of the New York Evening |
Post--ar articls in which the Southern people |
were spoken of as & half civilized and half
craay,,, and g band of desperadoes.o To-day |
We invite their attention to the following moroccan
from the same journal:
Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana cannot go
out Of the Union. Their continuance IN tnelr
present relation to the other States IS as certain
and inevitable as that of Vermont or khoue
Island.
we have an idea that if Arkansas, Mississippi
and Louisiana choose either to go out OF the Union
or stay in it, they will determine the matter upon
their own responsibility, without consulting the
poetfcal politician Of the New York Evening Post.
They are the best as they are the only, arbiters
| of their own fate, and the judges OF their own
actions South Carolina has already gone ont of
| the Union, and we know of no impeachment in the
| way Of Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana to
prevent them from doing the same thing. And we
| rather think notwithstanding the oracular fiat OF
1 the Evening Post, that these States not only can
90 out of the Union but that they will do it, and
i that in short order
The Post however, selects these three States
4 because they border on the lower Mississippi. 1t
\ speaks in behalf Of the free States of the upper
Mississippi, to reassure the people Of that region,
Il who have become somewhat alarmed ct silly
report that the navigation Of the river would have
certain restrictions upon it as soon as Louisiana
was out of the Union. This ridiculous fabrica-
tion-nursed as there is reason to believe, by the
II small squad of subnlissionsts in the South--has
already been exploded. So that If any argument
A in favor of coercing Arkansas, Mississippi and
Louisiana be drawn from the apprehension that
the right of free transit, for commercial purposes,
on the great river will be interfered with we
beg that the idea may be dismissed at once.
1t is popular fallacy at the North that the
Union cannot be dissolved, although it is Vr-
tually dissolved already. We see the assertion
made in all their papers, and proclaimed by all
their orators, that they do not intend to let the
. Union be dissolved. South Carolina has already
dissolved it, far she is concerned, and she
is only little ahead Of half dozen other States
"A that will be out of the Union before the lqtn of
ii February; and Of the remainder ct the Southern
States which will not be far behind. All this time
the North still insists tat the Union shall not be
dissolved, when IL is, in fact erumbling to pieces
all around tliem It is like the strange infatuation
OF q nocturnal inebriate who, hanging to lamp.
post for support, rehementy protests that he is
II not drunk and sturdiIy aYows his determination not
/. to go home till morning.
Il It may be, however, that the declaration of the
Post that the three States named g cannot 'go out
II Of the Union, is intended for threat-that the
North does not mean that secession shall be car
ried into effect. If SO. it means coercion. Coer-
cion Is civil war. Thus if this be the true inter
81 probation of the language of the Post, are to
1t be kept in the Union by force of arms. It is alb
surd 70 suppose the first place, that such thing
could be done-and We presume that the North
! would hardly wish to live in Union where nearly
one.half of the States yielded an allegiance which
Il was reluctant and compulsory, and were ripe, at
every favorable opportunity, for rebellion and
i revolution.
i Events succeed each other SO rapidly days
that it is difficult TO keep up with them-h9tif any
one has kept an eye on the movements of the
Southern people for the last six OF eight weeks, he
must have become satisfied, whether he live in the
North or the South, that the secession of all the
Il siaYeholding States from the Union-some soon
Il and some late-is an inevitable event, just as Ger
tain to occur as anything in the future can be.
Il there were any doubt of it up to this time, tht
positive refusal of the North in Congress to retrea
4 from its position of ayowed hostility to the Soutl
and institutions has settledthe question Instea
of silly and impotent declarations that the Unol
cannot and must not be dissolved, these people ha
much better accept the patent fact that is alead
dissolved, and act accordingly.