American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1851-1863, 1861-07-13

Ishonld provoke more. They knew that tli
= Government desired to keep the garrison i
the fort not to assal them. but to merel
maintain visible possession, and thus I
: preserve The Union from actual and imme
: date dissolution, trusting, as hereinbefor
: stated, time, discussion and the ballot-bo.
: for final adjustment, and they assaiIed am,
r reduced the fort for precisely the revers
! object, to drive out the visible authority o
the Federal Union and thus force it to i'm
D mediate dissolution. That this was ii eli
(, object the executive well understood. Ant
: having said TO them in the inaugural address
] f-.tYou can have no conflict without being
: yourselves the aggressors," he took pain
: not only to keep this declaration good, bu
also kept the use so free from power Of in
genous sophistry as that the world should
not be able to misunderstood it. By thu
affair at Fort Sumter, with the surrounding
circumstances, that point was reached. Their
and there, by the assailants OF tie Govern
ment, began the conflict of arms, without a
gun in sight, or in expectancy TO return the
fire, save the few in the fort sent to that
harbor years before, for their own protec-
ton, and are still ready to give that protec-
ton in whatever is lawful. In this act, dis
cardins all else, they have forced upon the
country the destructive issue, immediate
dissolution or blood; and this issue embraces
more than the fate of. these United States.
1t presents to the whole family of man the
1 question, whether constitutional republic
or democracy, government of the people,
by the same people, can or cannot maintain
its territorial integrity against its own do
mestlc foes. 1t presents the question wheth-
er discontinued individuals, too few in num-
Der to control the Administration according
to organic law in any case, and always upon
the pretenses made in this case or any other
pretense, or arbitrarily without any pre-
/ tense, break up their government, and thus
/ practically put an end to free government
upon the earth. 1t forces us to ask, " is
there in all republics this inherent and fatal
weakness2 Must government of necessity
be too strong for the liberties of its own
people, or too weak to maintain its own ex-
istence z"
So viewing the issue, no choice was left
but to call out the war power of the Gov
eminent, and so to resist the force employed
for its destruction by force for its preserva-
ton. The call was made, and the response
OF the country was most gratifying, surpass-
ing in unanimity and spirit the most san
guine expectations. Yet none of the States
commonly called Slave States, except Della
ware, gave regiment through the regular
State organization. A few regiments have
been organized within some others of those
into the Government service. OF course,
the Seeded States, so called, and to which
Texas had been joined about the time of the
Inauguration, gave no troops TO the cause of
the Union. The Border States, SO called,
were not uniform in their action, some of
them being almost for the Union, while in
others, as Virginia, North Carolina, Tennes-
see and Arkansas, the Union sentiment was
nearly repressed and silenced.
The course taken in Virginia was the most
remarkable and perhaps the most important;
convention elected by the people of the
State to consider this very question of dis
rupting the Federal Union, was in session at
the capital of Virginia when Fort Sumter
fell. To this body the people had chosen
large majority of protested Union men,. AL
most Immediately after the fall of Sumter,
many members of that majority went over
to the original diiunion minority, and with
them adopted an ordinance for withdrawing
the State from the Union. Whether this
change was wrought by their great approval
of the assault upon Sumter, the great re-
sentiment at the Governments resistance to
that assault, is not definitely known. AL
though they submitted the ordinance for
ratification to a vote of the people, to be /
taken on a day then somewhat more than
month distant, the convention, and the leg
stature which was also in session at the |
same time and place, with leading men of
the State not members of either, immedi- I
ately commenced acting as if the State was
already out of the Union. They pushed /
military preparations vigorously forward all /
over the State; they seized the United /
States armory at Harper's Ferry, and the
navy yard at Gosport, near Norfolk. They /
invited-into their State
large bodies of armed troops, with their
warlike appointments, from the so called
Seeded States. They formally entered into
a treaty of temporary alliance and oo-opera-
ton with the so called Confederate States,
and sent members to their Congress at
Montgomery, and finally they permitted the
government to be transferred
to their capital at Richmond.
The people of Virginia have thus allowed
this giant instruction to make nest with Il
in her borders, and this government has no
choice left but to deal with it where it finds
it, and it has the less regret as the loyal :
citizens have in due form claimed its pro-
lection. Those loyal citizens this govern
ment is bonds to recognize and protect as {
being in Virginia, as one Of the border I
States, SO Called in fact in the Middle States {
there are those who favor policy which ,
hey call armed neutrality, that is, an arm {
ng of those States to prevent the union {
orces passing one way, or the disunion {
orces the other, over their soil. This would I
BE disunion completed; fguratively speak s
ng it would be the building of an impassa- |
Die wall along the line of separation, and I
ret not quite an impossible one, for, under |
he guise of neutrality, it would tie the (
hands of the Union men and freely pass sup {
plies from among them to the insurection- a
SITS, which it could not do as an open enc S
ny. At stroke it would take all the |
,roubIe off the hands Of accession, except
Il. Ill A. =.
.de: it would do Cor the disunionists that t
which of all things they most desire, feed /
hem well and give them disunron without G
4 struggle of their own 1t recognizes no ! !
idelity to tue constitution, no obligation to
naintaia the Union; and while very many :
yho haze favored it are doubtless loyal, it is :
nevertheless very injurious in effect. Re- :
CURING TO the action of the government, it :
nay be stated that at first call was made /
or IS, 900 militia, and rapidly following this j
proclamation was issued for closing the \
ports of the insurrectionary district by pro- q