Year: 1861

wv 0"oS oo la HUN ihSculouo oopnlotIy
so that the world should not misunder-
stand it. BY the affair at Fort Sumter
with its surrounding circumstances their
point was reached then, and thereby the
assailants of the government began the
conflict of arms, without gun in sight
or expectance to return their fire, save
only the few in the fort sent to that har-
Dor years before for their own protection,
and still ready to give that protection
and whatever was lawful. In this act,
discarding all else, they have forced
upon the country, the distinct issue of
immediate dissolution, or blood, and this
issue EN- braces more than the fate of these
United States. 1t presents to the whole
family of man the question whether a
Constitutional Republic or Democracy, a
government of the people can or cannot
maintain its territorial integrity against
its domestic foes. 1t presents the ques-
tion whether discontented individuals, too
few in number to CONTROL the administra-
ton according to the organic law in any
case can always upon the pretences made
in the case, or any other pretense, or ar
hitrarily, without any pretence, break up
their government and thus practically put
an end to free government on the earth.
1t forces us to ask, is there in all repub-
lies that inherent and fatal weakness p
Must government of necessity be too
strong for the liberties of it, own people,
or too weak to maintain it's own existence ?
So viewing the issue, no choice was left
but to call out the war power of the Gov
ernment, and SO resist the force employed
for its destruction by force for its preser-
vation.


The call was made and the response Of
the country was most gratifying, surpass.
ing in unanimity and spirit the most san.
guine expectation, yet none of the States
commonly called the Slave States, except
Delaware, gave regiment, through the
regular State organization. A few regi


ments have been organized within some
other of these States. by individual enter


prise and received into the Government
service. OF course the seeded States Sc
called, and to which Texas had beer
Joined about the time Of the inauguration


gave no troops to the cause of the Union


The Border States. so called, were no


uniform in their action, some of them be


ing almost for the Union while in others
as in Virginia and North Carolina, ant
Tennessee and Arkansas, the Union senti


ment was nearly rcpressed and slenced


The course taken in Virginia was the mos


remarkable, perhaps the most important


A Convention elected by the people o


that state to consider this very question
of disruption, was in session at the Capi


tai of Virginia when Fort Sumter fell


In this body the people had chosen a larg


majority of professcd Union men. Almos


Immediately after the fall of Sumter
many members of that majority went owe
to the original disunion minority, anc
with them adopted an ordinance for with


drawing the State from the Union


Whether this change was wrought BY
their just approval of the assault on Sum


ter and their just resentment at the Gov
ernment's resistance to that, is not def


nitely known. Although they submitted
the ordinance for ratification to vote o
the people to be taken on day thel
somewhat moie than a month distant, tn
Convention and Legislature which wa


also in session at the same time and plac
with leading men of the State, not mem
bers Of either, Immediately commences
, acting as if the State was already out
the Union. They pushed military prep
arations vigorously forward all over tn
State. They seized the U. s. Armory a
, Harper's Ferry and Navy Yard at Gospor'
| near Norfolk. They received, perhap
invited large bodies of troops with thei
/ warlike appointments from the SO calle
seeded States They formally cntcrc
into treaty of temporary alliance wit
the so-called Confederate States, and ser
| members to their Congress at Montgomery
: and finally they permitted the insured
. tionaly government to be. transferred