Coercion

“ For, after all, what should be the test of the amount of coercion or control which law has a right to exert over individual liberty? Does it desire the moral death of the sinner, or that he be converted and live? Should the main purpose of punishment be retaliation against a criminal, or reformation? ”

“ It is time that we turned up our definitions in some more trustworthy dictionary than that of avowed disunionists and their more dangerous because more timid and cunning accomplices. Rebellion smells no sweeter because it is called Secession, nor does Order lose its divine precedence in human affairs because a knave may nickname it Coercion. Secession means chaos, and Coercion the exercise of legitimate authority. You cannot dignify the one nor degrade the other by any verbal charlatanism. The best testimony to the virtue of coercion is the fact that no wrongdoer ever thought well of it. ”

“ It is this circumstance that renders the influence of this plan not less beneficial to what is called liberty, than to necessary coercion; not less powerful as a controul upon subordinate power, than as a curb to delinquency; as a shield to innocence, than as a scourge to guilt. ”

“ It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation. This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the Courts and Ministers of Justice, or by military force; by the coercion of the magistracy, or by the coercion of arms. The first kind can evidently apply only to men: ”

“ Still, if any set of men agreed among themselves to coerce that liberty of mind and thought by compulsion and restraint, they would be guilty of a criminal offence; he laid it down as clear and undoubted law, that if two or more persons agreed that they would, by coercion or compulsion, co-operate together against that liberty they would be guilty of an indictable offence. ”

“ No coercion is applicable to such bodies, but that of an armed force. If we should attempt to execute the laws of the Union by sending an armed force against a delinquent State, it would involve the good and bad, the innocent and guilty, in the same calamity. ”

“ For what better name do requisitions deserve, which may be evaded or opposed without the fear of coercion? But although coercion is an indispensable ingredient, it ought not to be directed against a State, as a State; it being impossible to attempt it except by blockading the trade of the delinquent, or carrying wat into the bowels. ”

“ And I do not see why it is not as obligatory a rule of conduct for the Legislature as for the Courts of Law.
I cannot lose this opportunity to remark, that the coercion, so much dreaded and declaimed against, appears at length to be no more than the authority of principles, the despotism of duty. Gentlemen complain that we are forced to act in this way, we are forced to swallow the Treaty. It is very true, unless we claim the liberty of abuse, the right to act as we ought not. There is but one way open for us, the laws of morality and good faith have fenced up every other. ”

“ Coercion is legitimate to the extent of compelling restitution, and preventing a repetition of aggressions; no further. Less bloody systems of punishment, wherever introduced, have borne excellent fruit. ”

“ Hence the origin of coercion, to restrain the volition which would have answered all the end of wisdom, had not mankind, from an increase of population, seperated into several societies, each of which became, as it were, an individual, with its own unwise volition. Different associations having no coertion to restrain them, waged war on each other, and their violence or evil volition unrestrained, forced mankind into the asylum of civilization, where they met coertion, a monster who devoured their liberty and happiness, in order to assure to them their miserable existence. ”

“ Where the coercion is direct or positive, i.e. where the person is compelled by physical force to do an act contrary to his will,—for example, when a man is compelled to join a rebel army, and to serve as a soldier under threats of death,—his act is not legally a crime. Where the coercion is implied, as when a person is legally under subjection to another, the person coerced, having no will on the subject, is not responsible. ”

“ During the last five years I know, sir, there have been very severe and drastic coercion bills; but it will require an even severer and more drastic measure of coercion now. You will require all that you have had during the last five years, and more besides. ”

“ With respect to coercion by force, I shall suppose that it is so extremely repugnant to the principles of justice and the feelings of a free people, that no man will support it. It must, in the end, terminate in the destruction of the liberty of the people. I take it, therefore, that there is no rational way of enforcing the laws but by the instrumentality of the judiciary. From these premises we are left only to consider how far the jurisdiction of the judiciary ought to extend. ”

“ We admire and respect the institutions which curb those who would defeat the ends for which society was established;—but, should a precisely similar coercion be exercised against one who merely expressed his disbelief of a system admitted by those entrusted with the executive power, using at the same time no methods of promulgation but those afforded by reason, certainly this coercion would be eminently inhuman and immoral ”

“ A lesser force, or one inadequate to present the idea of coercion, would incur their contempt, as they would necessarily conclude that the Government had sent all the men they could raise, and the few present would be imposed upon. ”

“ We have been living in the midst of a social exuviation, and the old coercive shell having been cast off, a new coercive shell is in course of development; for in our day, as in past days, there co-exist the readiness to coerce and the readiness to submit to coercion. ”

“ Cromer (1893) , “for a body of men to combine to hinder and delay the work of the transportation company without becoming amenable to the provisions of these statutes.” The indefinite diction of many of the State laws against “intimidation and coercion” also gives wide scope to judicial discretion, and permits the occasional naming of the most innocuous acts as “coercion.” ”

“ Our decisions under that Amendment have made clear that convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: ”

“ A lawyer irritated by the folly of popular declamation is tempted to dismiss all objections to Coercion Acts, together with all arguments founded upon such objections, with one peremptory remark—namely, that since a law is merely a rule which men are compelled to obey by the power of the State, and Coercion is but another name for compulsory obedience to the law, to object to Coercion is in reality to object to law itself, or in effect to the existence of political society. ”

“ Another of my reasons for supposing that the gentry of the south do not know what freedom is, is that many seem unconscious of the state of coercion in which they themselves are living; coercion, not only from the incessant fear of which I have before spoken,—a fear which haunts their homes, their business, and their recreations ”

“ When we speak of coercion, we do not mean violence, but only the assertion of constituted and acknowledged authority. Even if seceding States could be conquered back again, they would not be worth the conquest. We ask only for the assertion of a principle which shall give the friends of order in the discontented quarters a hope to rally round, and the assurance of the support they have a right to expect. ”

“ You cannot enforce the laws without Coercion, and you cannot Coerce without War.
"These matters, then, can be settled. How? By withdrawing your troops; admitting our right to Self-government clearly, unqualifiedly. Do this, and there is no difficulty about it. You say that you will not do it. Very well; we have no objection—none whatever. That is Coercion. When you have attempted it, you will find that you have made War. These, Senators, are facts. ”

“ If British subjects are being arrested for no more illegal acts than those which the prisoner is charged with having committed, or of the intention to commit which he is justly suspected, it seems that, however arbitrary and despotic we may consider the ‘Coercion’ Act to be, we are, nevertheless, bound to submit in silence to the action taken under it by the authorities even against our own fellow citizens. ”

“ I find that they who talk most against coercion of Rebels and coercion of States are indifferent to the coercion of four million people, men, women, and children, to work without wages under discipline of the lash. Without hesitation I say that the Rebels must be subdued,—call it coercion or subjugation, whichever you please: our war has this direct object. With victory will come conciliation, clemency, amnesty. But first victory.
To obtain victory, two things are needed: first, a precise comprehension of the case, and, secondly, vigor of conduct. One will not do without the other. ”

“ Moreover, the conduct which a man, by means of the coercion, is forced to maintain, will be determined either specifically and originally, by the determination of the particular acts themselves which he is forced to perform or to abstain from, or generally and incidentally, by means of his being forced to be or not to be in such or such a place. ”

“ If requisitions be not faithfully complied with, military coercion seems necessary: coercion, judiciously and moderately used, is proper; but, if severely and cruelly inflicted, begets unconquerable aversion and hatred. If the spirit of resentment actuates individuals, will not states be equally vindictive? What species of military coercion could the general government adopt for the enforcement of obedience to its demands? ”

“ The magistrate might avail himself of any means of coercion against a harmful or disobedient citizen—he might employ fines, bonds, and scourging; [702] but the fine, beyond a certain limit, and the scourging gave rise to the provocatio; in this case magisterial coercion led on to jurisdiction.
The objects of magisterial coercitio were by no means always private citizens. It could be directed against senators and judices, and could be exercised by any superior over any inferior magistrate, to compel his respect or to force him to a performance of his duties. ”

“ And I do moreover exhort all individuals, officers, and bodies of men, to contemplate with abhorrence the measures leading, directly or indirectly, to those crimes which produce this resort to military coercion; to check, in their respective spheres, the efforts of misguided or designing men to substitute their misrepresentation in the place of truth, and their discontents in the place of stable government ”

“ I admit that coercion is necessary in every government in some degree; that it is manifestly wanting in our present government, and that the want of it has ruined many nations. But I should be glad to know what great degree of coercion is in this Constitution, more than in the old government, if the states will refuse to comply with requisitions, and they can only be compelled by means of an army. Suppose the people will not pay the taxes ”

“ In other words, the privilege has a broader and deeper thrust than the rule which prevents the use of confessions which are the product of coercion because coercion is thought to carry with it the danger of unreliability. ”

“ But what are the reasons why it has not fully come up to the expectations of its supporters, as a measure of coercion? The reasons are obvious to every man who is not inimical to the principles of our Government, and who is not prejudiced against the present Administration. ”

“ We have only to examine closely the complicated mechanism of our institutions that are based upon coercion to realize that coercion and violence are contrary to human nature. The judge who has condemned according to the code, is not willing to hang the criminal with his own hands; no clerk would tear a villager from his weeping family and cast him into prison; the general or the soldier, unless he be hardened by discipline and service, will not undertake to slay a hundred Turks or Germans or destroy a village, would not, if he could help it, kill a single man. ”

“ If they, by combination, can coerce him no principle of liberty is violated. It is coercion against coercion, differing possibly in form and method, but not in principle or in spirit. Further, if the community as a whole sympathizes with the one side rather than the other, it can reasonably bring the law into play. ”

“ Punishment is undoubtedly needful, both as a restraint and an act of justice, but believe me also, that coercion as a means is likewise required. I am convinced that in all these matters we try to generalize too much. ”

“ Every perfect right, that is, every right involving in others an obligation in justice of deference thereto, if it is to be an efficacious, and not an illusory power, carries with it as a last appeal the subsidiary right of coercion. A perfect right, then, implies the right of physical force to defend itself against infringement, to recover the subject-matter of right unjustly withheld, or to exact its equivalent, and to inflict damage in the exercise of this coercion, wherever coercion cannot be exercised without such damage. ”