The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-06-14
REVIVAL OF AN OLD DEMOCRATIC
DOCTRINE.

recent correspondence between Presi-
dent Roosevelt and the Rev. Charles E. st.
John, secretary of the American Unitarian
Association, has revived a phrase that was
| once prolific of an immense amount of dis
cussion. 1t is the word coercion" as
| lating to the power of the national govern
ment to prevent dissolution of the Union
or to suppress a rebellion. The American
| Unitarian Association adopted a memorial
protesting against the policy of coercion
that was being used in the Philippines. In
his reply the President said:
There is now almost no policy of CO.
erc1on' in the islands, because the insurrec-
ton has been entirely overcome that,
save in a very few places, peace-and with
peace the policy of Cancellation and good
will''-obtains throughout the Philippines.
There has never been any coercion save
sucn as was absolutely inevitable in putting
stop to an armed attack upon the SOW
ereignty of the United States which in its
| last phases became mere brigandage.
1t is somewhat surprising that the Demo-
cratic party, with its instructive love for
dead issues, has not before this revived the
able arguments made before the beginning
of the civil war against the power of the
national government to "coerce" a State.
The Democratic constitutional lawyers of
that day used barrels Of ink and mountains
of paper in proving that inasmuch as the
right of State to secede from the Union
was inherent there could be no such thing
as a constitutional right of coercion in the
federal government to prevent such seces-
sion. and that union held together by
force would be no union at all James Blu
chanan. the last Democratic President of
the old regime thought State had right
TO secede, but it should not be exercised
| lightly. 1.-The election of any one of our
fellow-citizens to the office of President"
he said In his annual message of 1860, docs
not OF itself afford just cause of dissolving
| the Union. In order to justify a re-
sort to revolutionary resistance the federal
government must be guilty of deliberate,
| palpable and dangerous exercise of powers
| not granted by the Constitution" 1t did
not take Abraham Lincoln long TO discover
! that there was no such thing in the list of
state rights as a right of secession and
| that while the word coercion did not occur
| in the Constitution it existed an inherent
| power OF the government In very vital
| form. In his first message to Congress at
the special session in July. 1861. he said the
| question was whether constitutional re-
| public or democracy-a government of the
people by the same people-can or cannot
maintain its territorial integrity against its
own domestic foes" Holding that the right
of self-preservation and of sovereignty was
above the Constitution he had no trouble
in finding constitutional power to coerce a
| State.
| The Democratic anti-coercion doctrine of
| 1850 was the natural forerunner Of the OPP
position to government without the consent
of the governed in 1900. The same construc-
ton of the Constitution that would have
prevented the prosecution of the war for
the preservation of the Union would have
prevented that for the suppression of the
| instruction in the Philippines Coercion
proved very effective in one case and it is
about to be crowned with complete success
/ in he