March 18, 1861 – What Shall Be Done

The condition of the country demands action. A “masterly inactivity” policy is the wisest for some emergencies, but it is not adapted to our present needs. The Government must vindicate its power in the face of treason and rebellion, or its destruction is as certain as that the law of gravitation will execute itself. The demoralization of public sentiment now in progress as to the power and efficiency of our National Government must be speedily arrested, or no earthly power will be able to avert the ruin that threatens it. We are not for making war upon the people of the seceding States, but we are for enforcing the laws everywhere within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. If men choose to make war upon the Government for the proper exercise of its Constitutional prerogatives, that is a matter for which they alone are responsible. As the upholders of the Constitution and laws, it does not devolve upon us to discuss the question of war at all. That burthen rests upon those who trample upon the one and resist the execution of the other. Government does not make war upon a murderer when it arraigns him for trial, establishes his guilt and executes him. It is simply performing one of its legitimate functions, the neglect of which from any cause whatever, would be an end of civil order and of government itself The effect is precisely the same in kind, if not in degree, whether it be the case of a single culprit, or of a whole community of criminals. The majesty of the law must be vindicated in each case, or the government has practically vacated its functions and ceased to exist. It is a delusion and a snare, therefore, to talk about the Administration making war upon the Seceding States, so long as it confines itself to the exercise of those duties for which it was created.

March 15, 1861 – The Noble Sentiment

The noble sentiment—so exultingly, enthusiastically, and unanimously adopted previous to the election of the Virginia Convention—of holding on to the fortunes of Virginia, whatever they might be—submitting to the decision…

March 9, 1861 – Gov. Ellis in Wilmington

We learn from the Journal that Gov. Ellis was in Wilmington on the 5th, had a reception at the hands of his brother disunionists, and made a speech—The Journal says:

“The Governor referred to the position of public affairs in Congress and throughout the country to Mr. Lincoln’s declarations to his sneaking into Washington to the total failure of all plans of adjustment to the coercion policy of Lincoln’s message to the necessity of resistance, and to the inevitable course of things leading North-Carolina to join her fate with her sisters of the South, and that at no distant day. He did not know how the election in this State had resulted, but however it had resulted the march of events was still onwards. If we had not a convention now, we would have one very soon. When he looked around and saw the spirit manifested here he felt that the spirit of resistance to oppression which animated the men of ’76 was still alive, and its fires still burning.

Neither the law nor the constitution gave the President power to coerce any State, and the attempt to do so would be an act of usurpation that the people themselves had the natural and indefeasible right to resist, even should it be necessary to do so without waiting for the forms of authority.

March 3, 1861 – The Border Slave States

In the following article the Baltimore Clipper tells some truths which should be seriously considered :

In the Presidential canvass all parties in the Southern border States proclaimed themselves for the Union without qualification. The Union party men stood upon their platform of the Union, the Constitution and the laws; the democrats ridiculed this platform, and asserted that they too were in favor of the Union, the Constitution and the enforcement of the laws, and declared themselves as good Union men as any others. By a solemn vote in the United States Senate the Southern men almost without exception had declared that protection to slavery in the territories was not needed, and the whole population, at least of the border States of the South, went into the canvass and through it upon this hypothesis and with this declaration.