Madison Wisconsin Daily State Journal, April 19, 1861

The Louisville Journal admits that it is the duty of the President to execute the laws, but thinks there are exigencies when he cannot perform that duty, or can only do it by involving the country in evils ten times greater than he seeks to remedy.—Such is, in its opinion, the case now presented by the Southern rebellion. It argues that there is not power enough in the nation to execute the laws of the nation in the revolted States. "The territory," it says: "might be overrun, every square rood of its soil might be moistened with blood, all resistance might possibly for a time disappear before the march of a victorious army, but resistance would spring up again as speedily as a trodden blade of grass springs back to its position. Only by the utter annihilation of the whole population of the Seceding States, only by the transformation of the entire South into a red and reeking desert, could the laws of the United States be enforced there; and they could not be enforced even then, for there would be none upon whom they could operate."

We are incredulous, and shall be until the experiment has been tried! When "every square rood" of Southern evil has been "moistened" with traitorous blood, the Government of the Union may be satisfied to let the remnant go, but not until then.

It is asked what good a bloody protracted strife can accomplish unless it shall restore the integrity of the Union. While we believe that this revolt can be quelled and a Union party developed in the extreme South by vigorous measures, we are sure that every dictate of sound statesmanship demands that the effort should be made, were it certain that it would ultimate in a separation of the North and South, and the formation of an independent Southern Confederacy. This contest is not so much about territorial limits, as to demonstrate whether we have a government or not. The South have fallen into the fatal delusion that the Northern men are a race of cowards. They would never otherwise have ventured upon so wild and reckless an experiment as secession. That delusion has got to be whipped out of them. The North is rousing to the task. From Maine to Minnesota, in every village and hamlet the signal to arms is sounded; and hundreds of thousands are enrolling themselves for the struggle. Every State and every section is to be taught the great lesson that it is no light thing to trample upon the Constitution and the laws; and that every attempt to break up the Union will be visited with fearful retribution.—Whether the revolted States are brought back to their allegiance or not, such penalties must be visited upon the traitors as shall serve for a warning and example to all future generations. We must now fight. We must hold the seceding States as subjugated provinces for a time, if need be, in order to have settled peace hereafter.