Crossing the Rubicon

Crossing the Rubicon, a common phrase used to describe a point of no return, is typically traced back to Julius Caesar’s crossing of the river Rubicon in January 49 BC, initiating the Roman Civil War. An analogy can be drawn between the actions of Caesar and those of Lincoln in his call for 75,000 “volunteers” from each State to invade the seven States that voted to secede from what they understood to be a voluntary union.

After Lincoln resupplied Fort Sumter (an act of war), he got the anticipated military response. On April 15, 1861, Lincoln issued Proclamation 80, requesting troops to invade the seceded States: Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by law:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union to the aggregate number of 75,000 in order to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

NOTE: The laws referenced primarily involved the collection of import taxes. The corporate welfare-loving Republican Party was unwilling to let their Southern “milch cow” govern itself.

Lincoln steadfastly refused to negotiate or compromise with the Southern States, who had numerous legitimate grievances. Jefferson Davis stated the South wanted to avoid war and simply wished to be “let alone.” Northern corporate, banking, and political interests said no. Pointing out the folly of coercion, William Seward wrote: “Only a despotic and imperial government can coerce seceding States.” Republican avarice and power-lust was understood and explained by Lincoln scholar David Herbert Donald: “the Radicals intended to enact a high protective tariff that mothered monopoly, to pass a homestead law that invited speculators to loot the public domain, and to subsidize a transcontinental railroad that afforded infinite opportunities for jobbery.” Corporate interests in the North would never let the Southern States exist as a “free market” alternative to their agenda of consolidated power, corporate welfare, central banking, and protectionism.

Lincoln’s call for invasion was met with furious disapproval from the governors of several States (referenced in “Robert E. Lee’s Refusal to Commit Treason,” Alabama Gazette, November 2025). The following examples reflect the intense reactions of these governors who felt Lincoln had literally crossed the Rubicon with his request:

Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin refused, stating, “I say, emphatically, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states.”

On April 16, 1861, Virginia’s Governor John Letcher, a Lexington pro-Union moderate, sent a defiant response: “Your object,” Letcher stated to the President, “is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me (for troops) for such an object….will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and having done so, we (in Virginia) will meet it in a spirit as determined as (your) administration had exhibited toward the South”.

Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson responded to Secretary of War Simon Cameron as follows: “Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman and diabolical, and cannot be complied with. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on any such unholy crusade.”

North Carolina Governor John Willis Ellis replied thusly: "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina."

Governor Henry Rector of Arkansas stated, "The people of this Commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives, and property, against Northern mendacity and usurpation."

Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee stated in a telegram to Lincoln, "Tennessee will furnish not a single man for the purpose of coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers."

Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas had been averse to secession, calling instead for a compromise to bring the seven seceded States back into the Union. However, Lincoln’s call for troops led them to reverse course and join their Southern brethren against this dubious request; Missouri and Kentucky also supplied thousands of troops in the quest for Southern Independence. The States that left the Union and/or supplied troops for the cause of Southern Independence understood that Lincoln’s actions undermined the entire basis of the original federal republic.

Sources: Beriah McGoffin, Kentucky Historical Society at: https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/37; Proclamation 80—Calling Forth the Militia and Convening an Extra Session of Congress, The American Presidency Project, at:

HTTPS://WWW.PRESIDENCY.UCSB.EDU/DOCUMENTS/PROCLAMATION-80-CALLING-FORTH-THE-MILITIA-AND-CONVENING-EXTRA-SESSION-CONGRESS; Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Truths of History (Harrisonburg, Virginia: Old South Institute Press, 2009); John Willis Ellis, National Park Service, at: https://www.nps.gov/people/john-willis-ellis.htm; President Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers, at: https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/President_Lincoln%27s_75,000_volunteers; 150 YEARS AGO: Gov. Claiborne F. Jackson refuses Lincoln's call for state help to suppress the rebellion, Rudi Keller, at: https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/2011/04/17/150-years-ago-gov-claiborne/21456526007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z119363d00----v119363b0093xxd119365&gca-ft=142&gca-ds=sophi;

Seward’s comment is extracted from his April 10, 1861, letter to Charles Francis Adams, Sr., Minister to England.

THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.