"...None deplores the civil war in America more than we do, not only on account of the misery it inflicts both North and South, but also for the injury it inflicts upon material interests in many lands--upon the moral interests of liberty and self-government in all. We observed in the beginning that armed coercion would end in conquest, and such, notwithstanding the declaration of the last Congress, seems to be the opinion of the present, by one of its committees introducing a bill to govern the revolted States as Territories, accompanied, as it must be, with standing armies in each. What then becomes of the mighty fabric, that lofty tree, which Washington, Franklin and Jefferson reared and nursed; which was based on mutual concessions and peaceable adjustment; which assumed as political postulates that all authority was derived from the consent of the governed; that that country is governed best that is governed least; that individual man as well as collective states can govern themselves--can live in peace, and, if need be, part in peace, without embittering the parting by life-long wounds; that the right to bear arms was the prerogative of a freeman; and who drew the sword against foreign foes alone, the olive branch for friends and brothers? We said then that coercion would lead to a reconstruction of the Union; and here we have the foreshadowing of a reconstruction with vengeance...."
- The Polynesian, Honolulu, March 08, 1862. "To Whom It May Concern". Vol. XVIII. No. 45. Pg. 2
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