right of secession and the wrong of coercion. Down to the
formation of the Confederate Government, the one was distinctly
admitted, the other still more distinctly disavowed and repudiated, by
many of the leaders of public opinion in the North of both
parties--indeed, any purpose of direct coercion was disclaimed by nearly
all. If presented at all, it was in the delusive and ambiguous guise of
"the execution of the laws" and "protection of the public property."

The "New York Tribune"--the leading organ of the party which triumphed
in the election of 1860--had said, soon after the result of that
election was ascertained, with reference to secession: "We hold, with
Jefferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish
forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious; and, if
the cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union
than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede
may be a revolutionary right, _but it exists nevertheless_; and we do
not see how one party can have _a right to do what another party has a
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 is quite another matter_. And, whenever a
considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out,
_we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep her in. We hope
never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue
by bayonets_."[132]

The only liberty taken with this extract has been that of presenting
certain parts of it in italics. Nothing that has ever been said by the
author of this work, in the foregoing chapters, on the floor of the
Senate, or elsewhere, more distinctly asserted the right of secession.
Nothing that has been quoted from Hamilton, or Madison, or Marshall, or
John Quincy Adams, more emphatically repudiates the claim of right to
restrain or coerce a State in the exercise of its free choice. Nothing
that has been said since the war which followed could furnish a more
striking condemnation of its origin, prosecution, purposes, and results.
A comparison of the sentiments above quoted, with the subsequent career
of the party, of which that journal was and long had been the recognized
organ, would exhibit a striking incongruity and inconsistency.

The "Tribune" was far from being singular among its Northern
contemporaries in