January 17, 1861, The New York Herald
The argument is continually brought forward by that portion of the people of the Southern States who would justify the seizure of federal property by State governments, that our coast defences were erected exclusively for local defence. They say that Fort Pulaski belongs to Georgia, from the very necessity of the case, as much as Dover does to England, or Cherbourg and Toulon to France. They maintain that the authorities of South Carolina have an absolute, inherent right to hold forts Pinckney, Moultrie and Sumter; that the approaches to New Orleans belong to Louisiana; and that forts McHenry and Monroe are appendages of Virginia and Maryland, just so soon as those states have cut themselves off from the Union. This is an entire fallacy. It was not alone for the protection of any particular point, or line of coast, that our fortifications were built with so much care and at such vast expense; but for the security of the common country, and to prevent the possibility of invasion, which would give a lodgment anywhere on the continent to a common enemy.
The inhabitants of Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore are no less interested that troops should not be landed in Georgia and South Carolina, than are those of Savannah, Columbus and Charleston. An attack upon any one point of our coast is an invasion of the whole United States, and would be resisted as much in the present dislocated state of our national and administrative machinery as it would have been under the Presidency of Monroe, Madison or Jackson. Were Louisiana menaced by a foreign foe, would the people of that State cry out hands off; let us fight out this battle singly and alone? They would justly demand the assistance of the whole sea and land force of the Union to aid them, and they would receive succor alike from Missouri, Ohio, New York and even Connecticut and Massachusetts. The blood still flows from one common heart, and the pulsations of every artery are dictated from one common national centre. An injury inflicted is felt from one extremity to the other of the body politic, no matter what member may suffer the immediate injury.
It is idle, therefore, to attempt a defence of the conduct of those State governments that have seized upon national property, on the ground that it is essentially of local derivation and for the preservation of local integrity. Our fortifications belong to the federal government alone; can be legally held and defended only by federal troops, or under federal jurisdiction, and the acts that have dictated the movements of our Southern brethren must be unequivocally condemned by every right minded citizen. It would doubtless be inexpedient to attempt any reversal of the mad acts of extremists at the South, at the present moment; but the principle remains fast which Mr. Buchanan laid down in his annual message with regard to the matter.