Year: 1862

leaving by coercion on the part of the party
which had been successful in the Presidential
election Of lS6O--to use the language of YAM
cEY: There is (was) not the least probability of
coercion" First we call as witness to the
stand the Indiana State Journal, representing
the Republican party of Indiana. In an editorial
article in that paper in November, 1860, we find
the following argument upon the fallacy Of at
tempting 10 preserve popular Government by
force, which we trust viii be carefully read and
considered:


We deem it surperfuous to argue that popu-
lar Government can never be preserved by force.
The act of compulsion changes it to despotism
so far as the parties affected by it are concerned.
Ii is no Government of theirs any longer and
adespoism is simply Government that the gov
erned don't create Consequently if coercion"
preserves the body, it surely destroys the life of
this great popular Government. Ii seems as a
union without unity, an aggregation of States
without sympathy. And it does no more.
Whether that is worth purchasing at the fearful
price of a civil war, it is hardly worth while to
argue to sensible men. Not one solitary advant-
age of a real Union can be preserved by com
pulsory Union, except the wretched little pttanee
of revenue that can be saved from smugglers by
force of revenue cutters, costing four times the
revenue they save. By chastisng South
Carolina we can save about S40O, 900 of revenue
annually, if we will pay three or four Govern
ment ships to lay off the harbor and coast, and
stop smuggling, and that is ali, actually all the
good South Carolina can do Uunion into which
she has to be phipped. Is not the Union better
off without her, if she can only be kept in at such
cost for such an advantage? We say yesl Is
such Union worth preserving? We say mol
Practically. then, coercion costs good deal, and
gives noting. Theoretically it costs still
more, for it costs us our consistency. Seces-
sion is revolution. We, having established
Government by revolution, on the right of
the people at any time to change a Government
which is oppressive to them, can not deny that
right to those VINO deliberately declare our Gov
ernment oppressive. What claimed
right we can not deny to those who claim it of US,
and helped us to assert our claim at the outset
They may be mistaken. In our judgment they
are fatally mistaken, but not judge for
them whether the Federal Government is too op
pressive to endure any more than England could
judge for us. We know how eloquently may be
urged the "glory of this great country" and
"the Union cemented by the blood of our fathers
but il is all wasted by the side of the one simple
fact that if any State In this Union feels the
Union TO be injurious and oppressive, civil war
won't change her opinion, in fact it is not cacu-
lated to change it, and if she iciu not stay in the
Union it will be cheaper and kinder to let her CO.
The argument tnat secession is unconstitutional
and involves ever so many violations of law and
party pledges, is litter better than rihing with so
serious subject. Men do not treat a revolution
as they would a trespass; and urging the inforce-
ment of the Constitution as remedy for seces-
sion, is Just as wise urging man whose house
is on fire to keep in good repair.


After reading the foregoing, can any candid
man say that Mr.. YANcEY was not justified in
assuring the people of the South that "there is
not the least possibility of coerciOnf" The next
witness we will introduce is the New York
Tribune, the leading organ of the Republican
party. In that paper of November, 1860. We
find the following justification of secessionism:


If the cotton States consider the value of the
Union detestable. we maintain their perfect right
to discuss it. Nay, we hold with Jefferson to the
unalienable right of communities to alter or
abolish forms of government that have become
oppressive or injurious; and if the cotton States
shall become satisfied that they can do better out
of the Union than in it, tre insist letting them
90 in peace. The right to secede may be a rev
olutonary one, but il exists nevertheless; and we
do not see how one party can have right to do
what another party have right to prevent. We
must ever resist the asserted right of any State
to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the
laws thereof; to withdraw from the Union isquite
another matter. And whenever a considerable
section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to
go out, we shall resist all c0erciue measures de
signed to keep it in We hope nerer 10 iipe in a
Repablic iohereof section is pinned to the resi-
due by bdyonefs.


Again we inquire. was not Mr. YANcEY justi-
fed in saying to the people of the South "that
he had assurances upon assurances from emf
nent politicians in all the free States OF their de-
termined opposition to coercion?'


The third witness We bring to the stand is the
Cincinnati Commercial, a leading Western Re-
publican organ. In an article about the same
time in relation to the policy of coercion" it
said:


War for the sabjugation of the Seceders uoutd
be unUise and depLordbie. There is no province
in the world, conquered and held by military
force, that is not weakness to its master Many
of the English colonies have drained England of
her wealth. The English people are now eaten
mp with taxation to hold distant possessions in
military subjection and carry on her wide system
of fillibusterng, which has for centuries been
national passion. The wars which visited
upon her in her monstrous national debt were ec-
casoned by the pride OF her aristocracy and the
intrigues of her politicians, and were not with
exception or two, in the interest of her people.
India, upon which she has avished her strength,
and which is-the most magnificent trophy of wars
of conquest held by any nation, is AN incumber-
ance to her to day. Algiers is a costly and un-
profitable appendage of France Venetis is the
weak spot of Austria, and the life's blood of the
empire is drained to bold that territory. which is
absolutely worthless to the Austrians and fetters
her armies in the quadrateral The history of
the world certainly proves that mot profitable to
govern people without their consent"


The logical lesson of this fact in this country
is, that if there are two nations here who have
been living in an unnatural union, they should,
for the benefit of one or both, be separated.


After reading this argument We agair ask had
not YANoEY every assurance in pledging to his
friends in the South-"There is not the least
probability of coercion?


If expressed and determined opposition to
coercion to reduce the Revolutionary" States
to obedience is disloyalty to the Government, in
the classic language of Senator SUMNER or Par
son BRowSLow. we forget which, the editors of
the Indianapolis Journal. the New York Tribune
and the Cincinnati Commercial should be sent TO
hell without judge or jury, or the benefit Of the
clergy.


MY OK Is GOred.


The Republican papers are beginning to un-
derstand little of the "vexatious despotisIn' y
exercised by one or two Of Mr.. LIScoLN's Secre-
taries The New York Times is sneciallv severe