It would be hard to conceive language more forcible for defining the right of the states to withdraw and the wrong and criminality of the attempt to coerce them when they had exercised that right, than this of Mr. Greeley's. It derives additional force as coming from him, when it is recollected that he had ever been inimical to the institutions of the South, and it announced principles which had been previously asserted in all questions of the Union, and underlay the whole superstructure of a government which itself was founded on the right of revolution. It is difficult to realize the fact that the man who uttered language like that quoted, subsequently became one of the most strenuous advocates of the war of coercion, which was waged on the Southern states. Mr. Greeley cannot avoid the effect of his statement of the principles asserted in his article, by contending that the act of separation was not "the echo of an unmistakeable popular fiat," and that the Southern people were precipitated into secession without due deliberation. When the right to discuss, deliberate and decide, exists, those possessing it, must necessarily be the sole judges of how it is to be exercised. The Southern states did deliberate and did decide that they could no longer remain in the Union with safety, and therefore they determined to withdraw from it. If the Southern people had been hurried into secession by their leaders, they are the parties to complain and to hold the guilty ones responsible. They have not done so, and what right had Mr. Greeley and his party to become their champions against their wishes? He and his party are estopped from denying that the Southern people, did with almost entire unanimity, adopt secession and willingly gave their support to the cause of separation; for since their country was overrun by a superior military force, their state governments overthrown; military despotisms established over them; and in the effort to reconstruct the Union, the great mass of the people disfranchised, and the right of suffrage given to the freed slaves, because it was alleged that the Southern people were still rebellious, and so wedded to the idea of secession, notwithstanding the bitter experience of the war, that they could not be trusted with the right to vote and hold office. All of this was done with Mr. Greeley's full knowledge and sanction.