The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-04-12
HOMER GREENE'S SPEECH.
Continued from Page Four)

(COnJl0ueQ from rage FOur)
striction and on the ether hand for
the extension of the power of the
slave-holding states. On the plat
form adopted by the Republican
party at the Chicago convention Lin
coin had been nominated and elect
ed. He and the platform on which
he stood had been bitterly assaied
by the slave-holding power, and af-
ter the election the storm of the
campaign grew into the tempest of
rebellion. The South would not
concede the right of the majority
of the states to control the policy of
the United States, and one after the
other, the Southern States, by action
of their state conventions, seeded
from the Union. At the time of the
Inauguration of Lincoln seven of
those states had already gone out,
a confederate Congress had conven-
ed and Jefferson Davis had been
elected President of the Southern
Confederacy. Rebellion had been
fully determined on. Secession was
an accomplished fact. Even then,
by the declarations made in his first
inaugural, Lincoln sought in a con-
ciliatory way, but with a firmness of
which he was always capable, to stay
the destroying hand of the South.
He said:
in your hands, my dissatis-
fled fellow countrymen, and not
in mine is the momentous issue
of civil war. The government
will not assail you. You can
have no conflict without being
yourselves the aggressors. You
have no oath registered in heav-
en- to destroy the government,
while l shall have the most sol
emn one to preserve, protect
and defend it! | am
loath to close. We are not
enemies but friends. Though
passion may have strained it
must not break our bonds of af-
fection. The mystic chords of
memory stretching from every
battlefield and patriot grave to
every living heart and hearth
stone all over this broad land,
will yet swell the chorus of the
Union when again touched, as
surely they will be by the bet
ter angels of our nature"
First Act of Rebellion.
But it was all without avail. Lin
coins broadminded and conciliatory
words were accepted by the South
as the gage of battle thrown down to
them. Indeed, as a matter of fact,
the first overt act against the fed
eral government had already occur
red. In Charleston harbor on the
South Carolina coast were three fed
eral forts, Moultrie, Sumter and
10 10, I
Major Robert Anderson, himself a
Southerner, but finely loyal to his
government. The hostile attitude of
the South Carolinians so admonished
him that on the night of December
26, 1860, he spiked the guns of
Moultrie and transferred his force
to Sumter which could be more cas-
lily defended. The uproar through
out the South was tremendous. They
declared that Anderson should re-
ceiVe neither reinforcements nor
supplies. Buchanan, vacillating and
temporizing, was finally prevailed on
by those who desired to preserve the
integrity of the Union, to come to the
relief of the garrison at Sumter, and
a vessel, the Star of the West" was
sent with supplies. AS the ship ap-
plOuIhCu Nlldl lSoIOu DOI Sue WdS
fired on by the South Carolinians and
compelled to withdraw. Had there
been man in the presidential chair
at that time with a spine in his back
and red blood n his veins, war would
have begun at once. The entire
strength of the government would
have been put forth to relieve Fort
Sumter. But Buchanan, temporizing
uit
as the fort remained free from at
tack he would make no further ef-
fort to provision or reinforce it.
Things were in this condition when
Lincoln took the reins of govern
ment on March 4th. 1t was apparent
that matters could not go on in this
way. Lincoln was in quandry He
could not relieve Anderson without
inaugurating civil war with all it's
burdens and it's horrors. He could
not withdraw Anderson from Sumter
without breaking faith with the peo-
pie who had elected him and Violat-
ing his conscience and his oath. He
decided to provision Sumter. On
March 29th he called his Cabinet to-
gether and presented the situation to
them. All the members agreed with
iiiill CASCPI OCM al u anu anu
Immediately orders went out to pre-
pare an expedition to sail on April
9th for the relief of Anderson. The
governor of South Carolina received
notice from the federal government
on April Sth that an effort would be
made to supply Fort Sumter with
provisions only. On April 9Th the re-
lief expedition sailed from New York,
and on April 18th the bombardment
of Fort Sumter began. The con-
federate states having seeded from
the union and Fort Sumter being
in their territory Lney determined to
oust the federal forces and take
possession by force of arms. Major
Anderson refusing to withdraw or
surrender, they bombarded the fort.
They fired ON the soldiers of the
United States. They shot down the
American flag from the ramparts.
They began one of the most tre-
mendous and terrible wars in all
history. With his little garrison of
half-starved men exhausted, the flag
down, the fort on fire, he was COM
PEELED to succumb. So the war was
on The South was jubilant because