They began to grow insolent, and, while compelling absolute
submission to their rebellious usurpation at home, decried any exercise
of legitimate authority on the part of the General Government as
_Coercion_,--a new term, by which it was sought to be established as a
principle of constitutional law, that it is always the Northern bull
that has gored the Southern ox.
During all this time, the Border Slave-States, and especially Virginia,
were playing a part at once cowardly and selfish. They assumed the right
to stand neutral between the Government and rebellion, to contract a
kind of morganatic marriage with Treason, by which they could enjoy the
pleasant sin without the tedious responsibility, and to be traitors in
everything but the vulgar contingency of hemp. Doubtless the aim of the
political managers in these States was to keep the North amused with
schemes of arbitration, reconstruction, and whatever other fine
words would serve the purpose of hiding the real issue, till the new
government of Secessia should have so far consolidated itself as to
be able to demand with some show of reason a recognition from foreign
powers, and to render it politic for the United States to consent to
peaceable secession.
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