1

What is Coming.

From time to time in this paper we have given expression to the belief we entertained that traitors would yet plunge this country in civil war. We have felt from the beginning of this secession movement, that it was the deliberate and firm purpose of the influential men now controling the affairs of the seceded States to precipitate a revolution. We have steadily opposed any and all compromises that looked to Northern abasement. We have endeavored to create an unconditional Union sentiment. Our long acquaintance with Mr. LINCOLN, our constant contact with him, and our knowledge of his views led us to make an earnest effort to create a sentiment in the public mind that should harmonize with his own. We have long known that it was his purpose faithfully to discharge his whole duty, and we do not now, nor did we ever, doubt that the performance of that duty would lead to serious trouble. The performance of his sworn duties place him in the path of secession, confronting the leaders of that movement. He cannot recede or turn away — will they? One or the other must, or war will ensue. Mr. LINCOLN cannot. His oath and his inclination alike a will make him unyielding in his demands that the Constitution and laws of the United States shall be obeyed. It is idle to suppose that the secession leaders have not counted the cost of their movement. Whatever may have been the hope of some of the more timid among them, the master spirits have never, for one moment, entertained the idea of peaceable secession. Their military movements prove this. Their seizure of forts, arms and munitions of war prove their fears and their purposes. They know — and they knew from the beginning — that a President who had one grain of honesty about him must observe his oath of office, and they know that the observance of that oath would throw the power of the United States Government in the way of their schemes. — They have cried out lustily against coercion and the shedding of fraternal blood. They had an object in it. Behind fraternal sympathy they wished to build forts and ramparts from which to assail our Government. Shrewd men. Thousands of Northern men took up and prolonged the cry "no coercion!" "No shedding of fraternal blood!" While the North, or, rather, a small portion of it, has been holding up its hands in holy horror at the idea of imprisoning a thief or hanging a traitor, Southern fortifications have been concentrated, arms have been distributed, and all the necessary steps taken for a bloody, if not successful attack upon the Federal Government.

We have supposed — it is our firm conviction — that our present difficulties will culminate in civil war. We have been blamed for expressing such a conviction. We cannot help it. We have been flooded with letters and papers from the extreme South, all declaring that this Government must yield up its authority to hold forts and collect revenue in the seceded States, or war must follow. We believe the seceders are in earnest. We know that the Government will not yield up its forts, nor refrain from collecting the revenue. What will, what can follow, but trouble? If there were any honorable or constitutional way to avoid such trouble, we would be among the first to advise the country to walk in that way. But there is no such way. Either this mighty Government must yield to the demands of a few ambitious traitors, or those traitors must withdraw their demands, or a conflict must ensue.

We have been condemned by a few for taking this view of the question. Can a sensible man take any other? We think not. There are thousands and tens of thousands in the seceded States who still love the Union, and who would rejoice in the defeat of the schemes of the secession leaders. We have read Southern letters and papers to little purpose, if there is not a large, a very large party there, who earnestly desire that this Government should assert and maintain its rightful authority in the seceded States.

A conflict between the seceders and the Government will, in our judgment, be of very short duration. Mr. LINCOLN has declared that he does not regard the ordinances of secession as worth the paper they are written on. The writers of such ordinances and those who voted for them, regard such an expression as an insult, and his further expression of a purpose to enforce the laws, as a declaration of war. They are preparing for such an emergency.

The Southern leaders of secession may have a true understanding of Southern sentiment, but they are woefully in error in regard to the North. They look for division here. There is none. The North is a unit in support of this Government, and it will be a sad day for Southern traitors when they attempt by force of arms to overthrow a Government dear to thousands of the people of their own section and to the entire North. Those who would overthrow this Government are few in number, weak in purse, and bankrupt in the moral support and sympathy of the world. Nothing but an ignominious failure awaits them. The Government will stand firm, assert its authority and defend its property. Its authority will be supported and its property defended by a force sufficiently powerful for the purpose. In any conflict that may ensue, the United States will be the victor. In a short time the friends of the American Union will become the majority in the South. A very short secession experience will satisfy them, and when the Union tide sets in, the seceded States will float back to their former safe mooring, and traitors will be dealt with as traitors should.