whiskers, having
never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly
affectation if I were to begin it now?

_From an Address to the Legislature at Indianapolis, Indiana. February
12, 1861_

Fellow-citizens of the State of Indiana, I am here to thank you much for
this magnificent welcome, and still more for the generous support given
by your State to that political cause which I think is the true and just
cause of the whole country and the whole world.

Solomon says "there is a time to keep silence," and when men wrangle by
the mouth with no certainty that they mean the same thing while using
the same word, it perhaps were as well if they would keep silence.

The words "coercion" and "invasion" are much used in these days, and
often with some temper and hot blood. Let us make sure, if we can, that
we do not misunderstand the meaning of those who use them. Let us get
exact definitions of these words, not from dictionaries, but from the
men themselves, who certainly deprecate the things they would represent
by the use of words. What then is _coercion_? what is _invasion_? Would
the marching of an army into South Carolina, without the consent of her
people and with hostile intent towards them, be invasion? I certainly
think it would; and it would be coercion also, if the South Carolinians
were forced to submit. But if the United States should merely retake and
hold its own forts and other property, and collect the duties on foreign
importations, or even withhold the mails from places where they were
habitually violated, would any or all these things be invasion or
coercion? Do our professed lovers of the Union, but who spitefully
resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion, understand that
such things as these, on the part of the United States, would be
coercion or invasion of a State? If so, their idea of means to preserve
the object of their affection would seem exceedingly thin and airy. If
sick, the little pills of the homoeopathist would be much too large for
them to swallow. In their view, the Union as a family relation would
seem to be no regular marriage, but a sort of free-love arrangement to
be maintained only on _passional attraction_.

By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a State? I speak
not of the position assigned to a State in the Union by the
Constitution; for that, by the bond, we all recognize. That position,
however, a State cannot carry out of t