No power to coerce a State is delegated by the Constitution to the President or Congress. To coerce a State by force would, as Mr. Madison declared, be an act of war — a virtual recognition of its independence, and a dissolution of the Union. Mr. Buchanan will never do it.
Original passage & context
"While maintaining, what is undeniable, that no power to coerce a State is delegated by the constitution to either the President or to Congress [...] The attempt to coerce a State by military force would, as declared by Mr. Madison, be an act of war—a virtual recognition of its separate independence, and tantamount to a dissolution of the Union. Such an act of folly will never be committed by Mr. Buchanan."
The Herald (Bennett), the North's largest Democratic daily, states the coercion doctrine that governed the paralyzed final weeks of the Buchanan administration: the Constitution grants no power to force a State back, and the attempt would be war. Directly opposed by the Republican demand that Buchanan hold the Charleston forts (se-017). Via the AHA "Sixteen Months."