It is said that the South challenges and
invites war. No such thing. The mad action of South Carolina does not
truly represent the South. There are disunionists South as well as
North. It is the duty of patriotic men to checkmate the disunionists
of both sections. By a proclamation of war, we shall effectually play
into the hands and gratify the disunionists of both extremes. Civil
war consolidates the South as a unit for disunion. The gallant
southern men who have so nobly battled for the Union against great
odds, will then be overpowered and forced into the ranks of the
defenders of the South. While the South will thus be undivided and
stand in solid phalanx, what will be our condition here at the North?

Can it be supposed that the Union men of the Democracy of the North
will stand by and see the country plunged into civil war to maintain
the Chicago Platform? Will they acquiesce in the demolition of this
Union by these means, when it can be preserved by peace? No, sir! Do
you talk here about regiments for invasion, for coercion--you,
gentlemen of the North? You know better; I know better. For every
regiment raised there for coercion, there will be another raised for
resistance to coercion. If no other State will raise them, remember
New Jersey. The Republican leaders of the North, with hot haste, have
worked through the Legislatures of the several States resolutions of a
belligerent character, offering the military power of those States to
the Government to subdue the South. Did the people of the North
authorize those Legislatures to make any such tenders? Would the
people of the North sanction any such nefarious policy? I know well
the enormous bribe with which the Republican leaders would seduce the
North into fratricidal war. The expenditure of uncounted millions, the
distribution of epaulets and military commissions for an army of half
a million of men, the immense patronage involved in the letting of
army contracts, the inflation of prices and the rise of property which
would follow the excessive issue of paper money, made necessary by the
lavish expenditure;--these, indeed, are the enormous bribes which the
Republican party offers.

How arrogant it is for the Republican leaders to tender the military
power of their States! Who gave them or their States authority to
raise armies? For national purposes the whole militia of the Union is
subject to Congress. Congress alone has power to declare war and to
call o