Coercion: Union by Force

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent “national divorce” comments angered nationalists, globalists, and others who view these United States as an “unbreakable union.” How could such authoritarian thinking evolve from a country that was founded on individualism, voluntary self-government, and belief in God? At least part of this agenda can be traced to the Southern States being militarily forced back into a Union they democratically voted to leave.

Abe Lincoln rebuffed multiple compromise efforts initiated by individuals in both North and South. These peace efforts ran from shortly after Lincoln’s election through April 1861 and beyond. Lincoln was a sectional candidate who received only 39.8% of the vote. He was not on the ballot in at least ten Southern States; Lincoln represented corporate and banking interests in New England and the Upper Midwest—not the South.

On April 15, 1861, a few days after the confrontation at Fort Sumter, Lincoln, without congressional input, issued his request (through Secretary of War Simon Cameron) for 75,000 troops from each State to force the seven “wayward sisters” back in the Union. This enraged many Americans. For example:

“Your dispatch is received. In answer, I say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States.” -- Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin

“Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its objects, inhuman and diabolical, and can not be complied with. Not one man will, of the State of Missouri, furnish or carry on such an unholy crusade.” -- Missouri Governor C. F. Jackson

"I regard the levy of troops made by the Administration for the purposes of subjugating the States of the South, as in violation of the Constitution, and as a gross usurpation of power. I can be no part to this wicked violation of the laws of the Country and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina." – North Carolina Governor John W. Ellis

Lincoln’s call for invasion helped push Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee out of the Union. E.P. Alexander noted the result of Lincoln’s use of force: “Virginia and some other states had not yet seceded and would not have seceded at all in all probability, had not the North committed itself to the policy of coercion.” Invasion was seen as a violation of a State’s sovereign right of self-government.

In January 1848, referencing the Texas-Mexico border dispute, Abe Lincoln stated:

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right—a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

Lincoln’s belief in self-government quickly evaporated once the Southern States left the Union and began to create a free market republic viewed as an economic threat to the North. The survival of the corporatist Republican Party was one of Lincoln’s top concerns.

In an April 4, 1861, interview with Mr. Russell, a correspondent with the London Times, Secretary of State William Seward stated, “It would be contrary to the spirit of American Government to use armed force to subjugate the South. If the people of the South want to stay out of the Union, if they desire independence, let them have it.”

On April 10, 1861, Seward wrote to Charles Francis Adams, Sr., Minister to England: “Only a despotic and imperial government can coerce seceding States.” Seward made these comments with near certain awareness that such a program was being formulated.

Charles Beecher Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, stated: “Many patriotic men of the South who cared little or nothing about slavery were stirred with the deepest indignation at the suggestion of the National government subduing a sovereign State by force of arms, and said that a Union that could only be held together by bayonets had better be dissolved…”

At some point, Christians and freedom-loving individuals may desire to leave this sadly corrupted Union. We are presently witnessing many people fleeing areas where the “Woke/Bolshevik” agenda proliferates. Some in Texas are exploring independence. If they follow through others are likely to join them. Will the so-called ruling class let these States go or will they force them to remain in a Union against their will? Coercion, Volume 2, would appear to be the most likely scenario.

Sources: “Lincoln’s Call for Volunteers,” Civil War’s Harpers Weekly, April 27, 1861, Son of the South, http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/april/call-for-volunteers.htm,, “Lincoln on Secession in 48 and 61,” This Sacred Right will Liberate the World, Richmond Times Dispatch—July 10, 1861, Civil War Daily, http://dlxs.richmond.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ddr;cc=ddr;type=simple;rgn=div2;q1=july%2010%2C%201861;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=ddr0214.0020.009;node=ddr0214.0020.009%3A6.1 ; George Edmonds, Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-1865 (Wiggins, Mississippi: Crown Rights Book Company Liberty Reprint Series, 1997), 160 .; General E. P. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 29-30. Mildred L. Rutherford, Truths of History, 19. [From Seward’s April 10, 1861, correspondence with Charles Francis Adams, Sr., Minister in England.]; Charles Beecher Stowe, “Honest Confession Good for the Country,” Confederate Veteran Magazine (Publication of the United Confederate Veterans), Volume 19, Number 7, July 1911, 326, http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ga/county/macon/newspapers/CV/cv1911pg12.htm.