“Coercion” – Another Take

Governor Morton: Four white horses and a pageant for Lincoln

As the Civil War Daily Gazette reports President-elect Abraham Lincoln Departed Springfield, Illinois 150 years ago today on his journey to Washington, D.C., where he will be inaugurated on March 4th. Lincoln stayed the first night in Indianapolis. The Civil War Daily Gazette piqued my interest my saying that a speech Lincoln gave that night would turn out to roil the South. Until now Lincoln has tried to say as little as possible, it seems, referring inquirers to the Republican Party platform and his own previous speeches. Here’s some more about Lincoln in Indianapolis.

From The New-York Times February 12, 1861:

ARRIVAL AND RECEPTION AT INDIANAPOLIS.; SPEECH OF MR. LINCOLN.

INDIANAPOLIS, Monday, Feb. 11.

The firing of thirty four guns announced the approaching train, bearing the President elect and party. The President was received and welcomed by Gov. MORTON, and escorted to a carriage with four white horses, when a procession was formed into, a pageant seldom if ever witnessed here. The procession was composed of both Houses of the Legislature, the public officers, the municipal authorities, military and firemen. Great enthusiasm was manifested along the line of march. The President stood in his carriage, acknowledging the welcome of the surrounding thousands. …

On reaching the Bates House the procession halted and Mr. Lincoln was escorted to the balcony, when he said: He came here to thank them for the support given by Indianapolis to a true and just cause. Coercion and invasion are terms much [met?] now with temper and not blood. Let us not misunderstand their meaning nor the meaning of who use them. Let us get their meaning from men who deprecate the things which they would represent by their use. What is the meaning of these words? Would marching an army into South Carolina with hostile intent be an invasion? I think it would, and it would be coercion also if South Carolinians were forced to submit. But if the United States should merely hold and retake its own forts, collect duties or withhold the mails, where they were habitually violated, would any or all of these things be invasion or coercion? Do professional Union lovers, resolved to resist coercion, understand such things there on the part of the United States to be coercion or invasion? If they do, their idea of preservation is exceedingly thin and airy. 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 by personal attraction. …….. By what rightful principle may a State, being not more than one fiftieth part of the nation, in sort and population, break up the nation, and the coerce a larger division of itself? What mysterious right to play the tyrant is conferred on a district of country with its people by merely calling it a State?

Mr. LINCOLN, in conclusion, said he was not asserting anything, but asking questions for them to consider and decide in their own minds what was right and what was wrong. …

The crowd swaying to and fro forget all etiquette, and each seem to outdo his elbow companion …

John C. Calhoun:godfather of those seeing Union as free-love arrangement?

Free-love and people swaying to and fro – kind of reminds me of Woodstock, although probably a few differences between Winter of 1861 and Summer of 1969.

As you can imagine Oliver Hazard Perry Morton was a stalwart Republican.