had the of been submitted to and hj a direct popular the eight other states which had double their free population and double their representation in had not merely declined to � virginia and had such against it as they before north and had expressly it down while and refused to take the matter into consideration in fact the people of the south like those of the north were as yet for and shuddered at the prospect of civil war the of which summoned the nation to arms was impelled by a consciousness that the would otherwise and disappear said formerly united states from at a union meeting at march � i wish to state a fact in relation to the of this war some time after the of was passed i was in and called on president who was in that city the secretary of war pope the member from county and several others were present as i entered the conversation ceased they were evidently discussing the propriety of firing on fort two or three of them withdrew to a comer of the room and i heard say to the secretary of war it must be done delay and in the union you must blood in the faces of the people so said so done � except that the swelled into a the into a river which and the whole breadth of our country l civil war � actual and possible on the part of the had been weeks before mr s accession to the the c c in the states had in good part thus changed hands � often with the hearty assent and of their � always without serious resistance offered by them or commanded from washington fort key west and fort at were all that held out for the union general s surrender of the greater part of our little army then posted along the exposed of with all the arms stores c occurred two weeks before the close of mr s term still the fact that war existed or even that it was inevitable was not generally realized in the free states the telegraph flashed far and wide the startling news that fire had been opened f on fort from the rebel and whereby it was half encircled � following this next day with the tidings that the feebly and fort had surrendered virginia was promptly plunged by her into the of and was soon followed by j north � and ultimately by meantime president directly on hearing of the fall of had summoned the new to meet in � february may t april � may tm m our civil actual and possible on the of july and had called on the gk of the loyal states for their respective of a force of men to defend capital and public property of the union the not only of which was then on the if not in the act of but of north and even responded only with railing amazement that any president should ask or expect help in the work of from the of the free states nearly or quite all very different were received swiftly followed by the required one of the first on foot was from and was fiercely assailed on its passage by a vast pro slavery mob whereby three of its men were slain and eight seriously wounded the made their way through the city and proceeded to washington but a regiment just behind it was handled by the mob and constrained to take the back track to philadelphia ranged herself on the side of stopping the trains and cutting the wires that connected washington with the still loyal states the at s being was fired and abandoned the navy yard at was deserted leaving two thousand cannon and large supplies of to the a camp was established near st louis under the of governor and men openly and there for the work in prospect the south was closed to northern travel and commerce and everything a formidable bloody war yet president persisted in what seems to me his second grave mistake � that of the spirit and power of the rebellion he had called for but men when that fort had fallen he called for no more when assured that virginia and north had been swept into the of by that open � lie recollections of a busy life defiance of the national authority and assault on the national int that and were on the point of following their bad example and that even and were at least for the moment in the hands of those who shared the and with the of the it was now plain that the slave power was the nation s and that its motto was war to the knife i think the president should have changed his in view of the added gravity of the public i think he should have invited the people to on a early day in their several wards and then and there to solemnly swear to the government and union and to themselves as for the war subject to be called out at his discretion each man s age as well as name should have been recorded and then he should have called them out in classes as they should be wanted � say first those of to years old secondly those between and and so on i judge that not less than one million able men would have thus themselves that the first two calls would have provided a force of not less than two hundred thousand men and that subsequent calls though less productive would have supplied all the men from time to time required without cost and without material delay the had met at held a brief and to at on the th of july i hold that it should not have been allowed so to meet but that a union army one hundred thousand strong 