150-Years-Ago -- Lincoln becomes president of the northern states.

The Charleston Mercury
March 4, 1861

A soldier from the 7th New York State Militia
at Camp Cameron in Washington, D.C. in 1861,
ready to launch Lincoln's war of coercion.
(Library of Congress)

     AbrahamLincoln, as President of the States that have not withdrawn from the Union, speaks for the first time to-day. He can scarcely avoid foreshadowing, in some degree, the policy of his administration. He must proclaim peace of declare war. He must virtually recognize the independence of the Confederate States, or encounter them in a conflict of arms. In his Western railroad speeches, while sedulously flattering the vanity and the ignorance of the rabble, by his frequent and pleasant allusions to the "enforcement of the laws," he has been shrewd enough to allow himself a wide margain for a change of mind. How far he will avail himself of this comfortable reservation, he will probably tell us to-day. His wily advisers are evidently in sore distress. They begin to understand the madness of coercion, yet looking upon the tid of Northern prejudice and ambition which has thus far borne them upward, they dare not falter. Like Frankenstein, they have raised a monster which they cannon quell. Let them solve their riddle as best they may. The strength of the South is her safety.