11 True; it may be so. Who disputes the want of power to make war upon a State ? And yet who can dispute the right of Government to defend itself and protect its property? This only should it do. This only need it do. If in defense of its rights, of its property, collission ensues, who is responsible for that collission but the party making the attack ? The following “ Tennessee View of Coercion,” clipped from the “Nashville Banner,” enforces this view: “Citizens of seceding States seize and hold the arsenals and forts of the United States by armed force. They drive out all United States officers found therein. Is that coercion or not? And is it the duty of the United States Government to submit to coercion ? Citizens of the seceding States seize the mints and treasures of the United States, and rifle the mails at pleasure, and threaten with death any United States officer that opposes. Is that coercion or not ? If so, is it the duty of the United States to submit to it? “ So far all the coercion, all the resort to force, to military force to violate rights, laws and property, has been on the part of seceding States. And yet all the howl that has filled the nation against coercion, has been poured forth by those daily resorting to it! It is right enough for any mob to seize the property and trample on the flag of the Union, but damnable coercion if the Union refuses to submit to be robbed and insulted by such hands.” Want of decision, of firmness, has brought our country into her present unhappy condition. We have just passed through a President'al election. The various parties selected their candidates, laid down their platform of principles, and entered into the contest. By necessity one of those parties is victorious ; another, which has been so long in the ascendency and has controlled the policy of this government much of the time from its formation, is defeated. Immediately, when in the minority, it finds itself terribly oppressed by that government administered by itself. It must be this, or there is no cause of complaint—for that party succeeding in the election never was in power, and there are no administrative acts of it of which there can be complaint. Now what does this party propose to do? Simply to restore the administration of the government to original principles. When and where this may affect the question of slavery, to treat it as our fathers treated it, as a local institution, governed by local laws, not to interfere with it in States where established by such laws, to perform all the duties devolved upon us by the constitution in relation to this subject, however repugnant those duties may be to our views and feelings—because it is in the bond toperform
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