COERCION. A term employed in political science to describe the means (principally non judicial) for securing obedience to law.
State When the Southern States issued their ordinances of secession in 1860 to 1861, the action constituted an effort to nullify the action of the Federal government upon in dividuals by setting up the authonty of States in opposition to that of the Federal government The South believea that the Federal govern ment was simply .a compact between separate and sovereign political bodies, that the powers of the Federal government were held in trust for the States themselves, and that sovereignty therefore was not in the hands of the Federal government but in the hands of the people who had created these governments, not, however, as a mass, but rather as individual States. The South thought that under the Constitution the Federal government. was given only cer tain specific powers which it did not possess under the Articles of Confederation (q.v.) and that the Constitution did not conflict with nor the Federal government supersede the sover eignty of the States.
There was considerable discussion of the right of the Federal government to coerce a State. In 1832-33, during the dispute over nullification (q.v.) in South Carolina, Presi dent Jacicson said: 6To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States are not a nation. Seces sion, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppres sion, but to call it a constitutional right is con founding the meaning of terms.° And again: 6The right of the people of a single State to absolve themselves at will and without the con sent of the other States from their most solemn obligations, and hazard the liberties and hap piness of the millions composing this Union, can not be aclaiowledged. Such authority is be lieved to be utterly repugnant both to the prin ciples upon which the general government is constituted and to the objects which it is ex pressly formed to attain.° On the other hand he said: °That a State or any great portion of the people, suffering under long and intolerable oppression and having tried all constitutional remedies without the hope of redress, may have a natural right, when their happiness can be not otherwise secured, and when they can do so without greater injury to others, to ab solve themselves from their obligations to the government and appeal to the last resort, needs not be denied? (Richardson, J. D., (Messages and Papers of the Presidents,' Vol. II, pp. 640 56). On 25 Nov. 1860 the New York Herald, an independent journal, said: °Coercion in any event is out of the question. A union held to gether by the bayonet would be nothing better than a military despotism? And again: °Each State is organized as a complete government, holding the purse and wielding the sword, possessing the right to brealc the tie of the confederation and to repel coercion as a nation might repel invasion. . . . Coercion, if it were possible, is out of the question?' In his message of 3 Dec. 1860 President Buchanan declared that no State possessed the right to secede, but on the other hand he stated that the Constitution contained nothing which would grant the Federal government the right to coerce a State, and therefore he apparently had no right to prevent secession. (Richardson,
(Messages,' Vol. V, pp. 626-653). Buchanan based his message on an opinion given him by his Attorney-General,' Jeremiah S. Black, 20 Nov. 1860,.in which, among other things, the latter said that the Federal govern ment had the right to °preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers? but that "an offensive war to com pel a State to recognize the supremacy of the government of the United States'' would destroy the Union, immediately and completely. ((Opinions of the Attorney-Generals,) Vol. IX, p. 516 et seq.). The seceding States held that there was no constitutional provision that met the case because a State could not be coerced; in his speech of 21 Jan. 1861f when resigning from the Senate, Jefferson Davis said: °If it be the purpose of gentlemen they may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the limits of a seceded State. . . . A state [in such con dition] . . . claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.° (Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2d session, p. 487). The South erners made much of the fact that the Federal convention did not provide for coercion of States but on the contrary omitted it from the Constitution. But the power of coercion was omitted because a government over people was established which had the right to enforce law on persons. The Northern statesmen insisted that no State could exist or act except under its obligations to the Federal Union; and that the power to coerce individuals could not be dissolved by any State. It would have been appropriate to provide for the coercion of States in a union of sovereignties where obligations might have been enforced suitably by war; but where the system established pro vided for a govenunent immediately over men who were subject directly to the commands of that government, coercion was inappropriate. Any action. by a State government which con flicts with its duty as a member of the Union is illegal;. officials who carry out unconstitu tional legislation are not properly State offi cers; people cannot legally perform illegal acts. Lincoln and the Federal government in sisted that they were dealing only with indi viduals. In his speech of 29 Dec. 1860 Lyman Trumbull said: "ti there is anybody in this Senate. or in this country, who ever talked of the United States declaring war against one of its States. or of coercing one of its States. or ever entertained such notion, I know not who it is. 1 have never seen hira. This phrase. ' coerce a State,' is a phrase calcu lated to mislead the public mind. . . . Nobody pro poses to declare war against a State. That would adnut at once that the State was out of the Union — a foreign govern ment. Of coutse we cannot declare war agamst a State. Nobody proposal tO coerce a State or to convict a State of treason. You amnot arraig' n a State for trial; you cannot convict it or punish it; but u can punish individuals." (Corsgressional Globe. 36th 2d Session, Pt. I. p. 156).