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To: Non-Sequitur
Lincoln violated nothing.

Sure he did. According to his OWN DEFINITIONS the "marching of an army into" a region "without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them" constituted invasion, and forcing them to submit once they got there constituted coercion.

Lincoln marched an army into the south without the consent of the southern people. He marched that army there in hostility against them as is evidenced by bloody battlefields and plundered cities alike. And when he got there he forced them to submit to the union. Therefore he both invaded and coerced.

There is no coercion in moving troops from the United States Army from one part of the country to another.

But there is in moving troops there against the wishes of the people and in hostility against them for the purpose of making them submit. Lincoln did all of that, therefore he coerced.

Or applying tariffs in all the ports of the United States.

As I have noted before, ensuring those taxes were collected was a frequently referenced priority of Lincoln in his military orders.

Or collecting and distributing the mail.

Actually Lincoln cut off the mail, especially to the west. That is one of the main reasons why Arizona territory seceded.

233 posted on 08/14/2002 4:01:03 AM PDT by GOPcapitalist
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To: GOPcapitalist
Sure he did.

No he did not. Look at the quote in it's entirity:

What, then, is ``coercion''? What is ``invasion''? Would the marching of an army into South California, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them, be coercion or invasion? I very frankly say, I think it would be invasion, and it would be coercion too, if the people of that country were forced to submit. But if the Government, for instance, but simply insists on holding its own forts, or retaking those forts which belong to it, or the enforcement of the laws of the United States in the collection of duties upon foreign importations, or even the withdrawl of the mails from those portions of the country where the mails themselves are habitually violated; would any or all of these things be coercion? Do the lovers of the Union contend that they will resist coercion or invasion of any state, understanding that any or all of these would be coercing or invading a state? If they do, then it occurs to me that the means for the preservation of the Union they so greatly love, in their own estimation, is of a very thin and airy character."

Lincoln clearly did not consider his actions as invasion, he believed the second half of the quote, merely moving troops from one part of the United States to another. He did not view it as coercion, you did. He did not believe it was invasion, you do. He was not sending an army to make them submit, he was sending a few hundred men to make a point, that Sumter was and would remain a federal fort.

You continue to make an issue of tariffs as if they were the sole purpose behind Lincoln's actions. The federal government realized fraction of one percent of its total revenue from Charleston's imports, less that 5% or 6% from the entire south. It wasn't the money, it was the message. Outside of federal courts and the military, tariff collection and the mail were about all the federal government did. If the tariff was collected and the mail went through and the forts were maintained then it proved to the world that the United States was in control of all its territory, regardless of what the mob in Montgomery claimed.

236 posted on 08/14/2002 4:28:07 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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