March 16, 1861; The Charleston Mercury
Our Leavenworth Correspondence.
LEAVENWORTH, KAN., March 5, 1861.
LINCOLN’S inaugural was received here last night. It means coercion–war. Holding, occupying and possessing government property means quartering an army of occupation throughout the Southern Confederacy; holding forts on Southern soil vi et armis; reinforcing Forts Sumter and Pickens, and retaking Fort Moultrie and all other posts now in possession of the South. Collecting revenue means blockade of Southern ports, and levying tribute upon Southern commerce at the cannon’s mouth. War is inevitable.
As long as it was reasonable to indulge in the hope that our difficulties could be adjusted without conflict of arms, we clung to the delusion; but the bloody intent of this foreshadowing manifesto, illy concealed by equivocal verbiage, knocks the last plank from under us, and we must fight or yield. No concession is to be granted; no compromise offered; no settlement proposed. The solemn act of seven sovereign States, dissolving allegiance with a government no longer entitled to their fealty and respect, and erecting themselves into a free and independent nation, is treated as mere child play. ABRAHAM LINCOLN says to the South: “You can amuse yourself with a mock government, but you must obey my government; you can raise a revenue of your own, but you must pay mine; you can have mail facilities by paying or them–if you don’t accept those which I extend, you shall have none other; you can build forts, but those now on your soil are mine–you shall not have them–I will retake the, hold them, and shell your towns and cities if you resist me; you can rise your armies, but mine shall be there to watch them, and, if necessary to carry out my despotic reign, to conquer them. The South is called upon to submit to the yoke. She will never do it. She does not court war, but she will not shrink from it.
Would the thousands who read THE MERCURY like to hear now the fight is going on upon the frontier? I will tell them. Missouri is acting coolly and deliberately. She has had no thought of secession, yet entertains a strong sympathy for her Southern sisters. Her convention, now in session, will not pass a secession ordinance, but they will speak out and tell ABRAHAM LINCOLN that when he proposes to coerce the South he must include Missouri in his calculations. Missouri is loyal to Southern institutions, and will prove it when the proper time arrives.
Now, about this God forsaken, famine stricken, nigger thief ridden State of Kansas. Those who think the deadly hatred of the South which once burnt so fiercely upon these prairies, is well night extinct, were never more mistaken. This devilish hostility is only slumbering–no even dormant–for ever and anon its activity is seen in raids upon Missouri. Like a frozen viper warmed to life by the fire, it is at this moment coiling itself to strike.
The advantages which Southern Kansas offer as a depot and rendezvous for a large army to wage war upon Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, is already being coolly discussed in Republican quarters. The plan of a campaign is already arranged. An attempt will be made to carry it out when war begins. It is to concentrate an army in southeastern Kansas, upon the borders of Missouri, composed of the Kansas militia and auxiliaries from Iowa and Wisconsin. This army will operate first against Missouri on the west, in conjunction with two others, one from Iowa, on the north, the other from Illinois, on the east. If Missouri is conquered, the whole will meet upon the northwestern borders of Arkansas, and conquering that State sweep on to Texas, and hold that country as the southern end of a line of demonstration against Louisiana and Mississippi. This is the most practicable plan of invading Southern States. A Northern horde cannot gain a foothold upon the Southern sea coast; neither can it march through the border slave States. They can only come through Iowa and Nebraska into Kansas, in order to reach a point to commence operations. Missouri once whipped, they imagine their march to Galveston Bay will be one of continual triumph, perhaps without striking a blow, owing to the thinly settled state of the country. The planners of this campaign no doubt seriously entertain its execution, but they will find the attempt met by far more difficulties than they imagine. Missouri will not be so easily conquered. If necessary, she can protect herself by an army of two hundred thousand men, and such armies are not easily defeated.
The Chocktaw Indians have lately passed resolutions to go with the South. The Cherokees will follow suit. They are all slaveholders, and hard fighters; and, in conjunction with an army of Arkansans, will be a terror to the Abolition invaders. The occupation of Texas will not be a bloodless one. BEN. McCULLOUGH’S Rangers will want no better pastime than a shy at LINCOLN’S cohorts. While the Kansas militia are joining in the fray, they had better watch the pirates of the plains. Let them once leave the borders of their own States, and the Kiowa, Sioux and Pawnee Indians can exterminate the whites from Pike’s Peak to Missouri river.
Extensive military preparations are going on all over the State, but principally in the southeast, bordering on the thinly settled counties of Missouri. The militia will be organized at the sitting of the State Legislature on the 26th instant. MONTGOMERY, the notorious cut throat of Southern Kansas, will be a Brigadier General, and JENNISON, his partner in crime, will also hold a commission. Secret associations are rapidly forming among Republicans. Men are being… and the names of pro slavery men taken down and marked with a sign.
I believe the first gun fired at Sumter will put the bloody ball in motion here.
SOUTHRON.