January 19, 1861 (Saturday)

State's Rights:  The Other Side of Coercion

An Address by the Former Secretary of War Floyd given to Virginians:

"Now, this fissure which commenced in the iceberg has gone on, splitting in its progress whatever came in contact.  It split the church in two, and the next disaster which it threatens is the breaking up of our political system.  What is the issue?  It is the issue of Coercion on the one side, and peace on the other.  That is the issue.  Shall the pretext of holding the property of the United States be made the grounds upon which the arms and the armaments of the United States are to be introduced into the forts of the South for the purpose of coercing them and making them to submit to an unwilling tyranny?

You are unwilling to do that, I think, and a power greater than your power comes up and seizes that point which you are unwilling to seize.  You must do it, as coercion is the policy announced; I tell you tonight that that is the plan on foot.  You have got to meet it.  It is in vain, altogether in vain, that a timid man, that a coward, may hug the delusion to his bosom that no coercive policy will be enforced, and that the times will be better.  There are no better times; that is what you have got to meet now.

Let you men of Virginia and of the South prepare.  The North will demand...and coerce you into obedience.  Gentlemen, the principle of coercion is no new one, and in God's blessed name are we standing here in Virginia at this hour and this day considering not the right but the possibility of submitting to coercion?  Look a little back to the history of the past, I pray you, and then answer me the question, who have we been taught to look upon as the arch enemy of popular rights in the United States?  Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams...have declared that the right of coercion was monstrous and untenable, and now we are told the doctrine of coercion is a doctrine that you shall have to submit to.  John Quincy Adams was President of the United States...and in a conflict with the State of Georgia and Federal authorities...was urged to exercise coercion; but he refused, saying, "I cannot undertake to crush a State." 

Are you the sons of the men who put themselves in battle array against King George, upon the mere assumption of a power on his part to overtax tea?  Virginians sprang to arms in those days to resist the imposition of this trilling tax...how much more readily should the descendants of those men resist the accumulated grievances heaped upon them.  Patrick Henry stood within the very echoes of this spot proclaiming, "Give me liberty, or give me death."  [Applause.]  If you hesitate, I can say, he who dallies is a dastard, and he who doubts is damned. [Immense applause.]"  (The Disunion Movement:  Secession in the Cabinet.  Revelations of Cabinet Councils by the Late Secretary Floyd, New York Times editorial, January 18, 1861).