[1861 A.D.] Much as there was among these changes that was thoroughly worth trying, it was of course impossible to test anything fairly amidst the furious storms of civil war. One of the most interesting of them -the permission to introduce the heads of the executive departments into congress - had actually been practised under the provisional government of 1861; but under the formal constitution the houses, as was to have been expected, never took any steps towards putting it into practice.

The congress was inclined from time to time to utter some very stinging criticisms upon the executive conduct of affairs. It could have uttered them with more dignity and effect in the presence of the officers concerned, who were in direct contact with the difficulties of administration. It might then, perhaps, have hoped in some sort to assist in the guidance of administration. As it was, it could only criticise, and then yield without being satisfied.b

LAST MONTHS OF BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION

The position of President Buchanan in the months intervening between Lincoln's election and inauguration was a difficult and delicate one. The situation demanded tact, decision of character, statesmanship of the highest order. And none of these did Buchanan possess. Although honest at heart and desirous of preserving the Union, his sympathies were and always had been strongly with the South. To this sentiment he gave expression in his message to congress in December, 1860. This message gave hope to the Southern leaders: for although he deprecated and advised against secession as not being called for by Lincoln's election, he at the same time denied the power of either president or congress to prevent secession. This the South justly took to be an intimation that they would be allowed to withdraw unmolested as far as Buchanan was concerned. By the North the message was received with mingled anger and astonishment. General Cass, the secretary of state, at once resigned his portfolio and was succeeded by Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, then attorney-general, a man of greater ability and decision of character. The secession of South Carolina brought out the strong points in Black's character, and he took at once a determined stand for the Union, in which he was ably seconded by Edwin M. Stanton, who now became attorney-general, and Joseph Holt, who supplanted Floyd as secretary of war. Their influence led Buchanan to refuse to receive the commissioners sent by South Carolina to treat with the federal authorities concerning the surrender of the forts in Charleston harbour. The pro-Union members of the cabinet received a powerful addition to their strength in January by the appointment of John A. Dix of New York to the secretaryship of the treasury; and his ringing despatch to the revenue officers at New Orleans, "If any man attempts to haul down the American flag shoot him on the spot," aroused the greatest enthusiasm at the North. The new influences at work on Buchanan showed themselves in his special message of January 8th, in which he declared it the duty of the president to use force if necessary to collect the public revenues or protect the national property.

Meanwhile in congress and out of it measures were undertaken looking toward compromise. As early as December 18th John J. Crittenden of Kentucky had introduced into the senate the measure which goes by the name of the Crittenden Compromise. This was considered by a committee including Seward, Wade, Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and Toombs. The compromise consisted of a proposed constitutional amendment restoring the old line of 36° 30′ as a limit south of which congress should have no power to interfere

[1861 A.D.]

with slavery in any state or territory. But the Northern republican senators refused to accept it and the amendment was lost. In the house a series of resolutions embodying a similar plan of compromise failed of passage.

The failure of the compromise measures was followed, as state after state seceded, by the withdrawal of the senators and representatives from those states, thus leaving the republicans strongly intrenched in both houses. Several conciliatory measures were now passed by the majority in futile and even cringing endeavour to avert the crisis. One provided for a constitutional amendment forever forbidding congress to meddle with slavery in any state where it already existed, without the consent of that state. Other measures organised the territories of Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota without a word about the prohibition of slavery. But all such overtures were too late.

Already the seceding states had given evidence of their intention to cut every tie that bound them to the Union, by seizing the government property, consisting of custom houses, forts, and arsenals, within their borders. Before the close of Buchanan's administration every fort, navy yard, or federal building within the seven seceding states had been seized, with the exception of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour, Fort Pickens, Key West, and the Dry Tortugas. The eyes of the nation were centred on Charleston harbour, where Major Robert Anderson had removed his handful of troops from Fort Moultrie on the mainland to the stronger position of Fort Sumter. The move was an intimation that the fort was not to be given up without a struggle. The determination of both parties was further emphasised when on January 9th the steamship Star of the West, which Buchanan had at length been prevailed upon to send to relieve the fort with supplies, was fired upon by the South Carolina shore batteries, and compelled to return with its mission unaccomplished. The first shot of the Civil War had been fired.

THE INAUGURATION OF LINCOLN; FORT SUMTER

Never was a presidential inauguration awaited with such intense interest as that of Abraham Lincoln, March 4th, 1861. Seven states had left the Union and set up a government of their own. Would the new president, the country asked, attempt compromise where congress had failed, or would he proceed vigorously to assert the rights and enforce the laws of the Union with the almost certain result of driving several border states to join their Southern neighbours.

Lincoln's inaugural address was moderate, even conciliatory. He declared that he had neither the intention nor the right of interfering with slavery where it existed. He even expressed his willingness to accept the Fugitive Slave Law. Not a word was said as to the restriction of slavery extension. But with the question of the preservation of the Union he was more explicit. "No state upon its own mere motion," he declared, "can lawfully get out of the Union." Any ordinance that attempted to bring about such a dissolution was, he held, null and void. He would, he declared unequivocally, execute the laws of the Union and defend and maintain its authority in every state. To such an expression of his purposes there could be but one meaning-civil war. And the president's choice of advisers, including such men as Seward for secretary of state and Chase for secretary of the treasury, was taken to mean that the North stood behind him.

The immediate attention of the country remained centred in Charleston

[1861 A.D.]

harbour, where Major Anderson still held Fort Sumter. His provisions were running low, and unless relieved he must soon surrender. South Carolina sent a new set of commissioners to Washington to attempt an adjustment of the difficulties. The cabinet hesitated and tried to dissuade the president from acting. At last, however, a decision was reached and notice was sent both to Major Anderson and to Governor Pickens of South Carolina (April 8th) that a vessel was under way to carry provisions to the fort. President Davis called his cabinet together to decide what should be done. Despite the impassioned opposition of Toombs, the Confederate secretary of state, who declared that the first shot fired by the South would "strike a hornet's nest" from which legions would swarm out and sting them to death, General Beauregard was authorised to demand the fort's surrender, and in case of refusal to reduce it.a

With telegrams from the Davis government directing him to proceed, Beauregard at two in the afternoon of April 11th demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter, and after some vain parleying with Major Anderson, which lasted through the night, opened his cannonade by early dawn of the 12th. Startling was the spectacle for this continent, and in scope and consequences unparalleled in the world's history. Throngs of Southern soldiers and civilians poured into Charleston on every train, and the wharves and housetops swarmed with eager gazers. But surrounding the fight in imaginary presence were the millions of anxious inhabitants, North and South, dilating with various emotions, as the telegraph and bulletins of the daily press spread details of the combat through the amphitheatre of a nation. As the ensign of the Union on that slender staff waved its folds, more in reproof than defiance, from the brick ramparts of the little island midway down this harbour, the target of disloyal batteries from three different directions, hearts hardened towards one another with each fratricidal shot. And through the thickening smoke, as the roar of artillery went on, might be dimly discerned now and then a vessel of the provisioning fleet, defining the coast horizon with its spectral hull, watching, but unable to succour. The result of such an unequal duel was not long doubtful. Anderson's brave little garrison, a mere handful for such a contest, and a force barely sufficient to keep a few of the answering guns active, had already exhausted their rations of bread. On the morning of the 13th the barracks of the fort caught fire, and while officers and men were engaged for hours in getting the flames under control so as to save the powder magazine from exploding, the flagstaff fell, struck for the tenth time by hostile shot. Senator Louis T. Wigfall, who was now serving on Beauregard's staff, crossed over in a boat and volunteered honourable terms of surrender, which Beauregard confirmed after Anderson had accepted them. On Sunday, the 14th, Anderson and his command marched out with their property and all the honours of war, saluting the flag they had so gallantly defended; after which they were transferred to the Baltic (one of the vessels of the relief squadron), which waited outside, to sail for New York. The captured fort passed simultaneously into the formal custody of a Confederate garrison.

The curtain dropped upon this lurid drama, and sickened hearts at the North knew what next must follow. The same Monday morning's paper on

[Reprinted from James Schouler's History of the United States, by permission of Dodd, Mead & Co. Copyright, 1899, by James Schouler.]

[1861 A.D.]

the 15th of April, which described Sumter's last tableau, published the president's proclamation, bearing that date, but made and signed Sunday, which called at once into service seventy-five thousand militia for three months, and summoned congress to convene in extra session on the coming July 4th. The phraseology of that proclamation scrupulously observed requirements of the old and imperfect act of 1795, which afforded the only legislative warrant for this new emergency. There was no heart certainly at the North to cavil or criticise when that sober appeal, following the Sumter spectacle, made men at last realise that the loved Union was in danger, and that nothing but heroic sacrifice, as in the days of old, could save it from destruction. This was eloquence enough; and the document inspired pen and tongue like a Pentecost wherever through the rich and populous North the news travelled that Fort Sumter had fallen.

At once the great Union party of the nation sprang to its feet; not, indeed, with all the border allies hoped for, but, throughout the vast and populous region of free states, rallying the loyal in every city, town, and hamlet, and mustering tens and hundreds of thousands among the inhabitants, where thousands alone had been looked for. Party presses, some of them but lately protesting against coercion of the South, vied with one another in eagerness to sustain the president's summons, while the few that hung back were silenced by an indignant community or made to recant. The steamer that bore Anderson and his men into New York harbour, on the 18th of April, brought the flags of Moultrie and Sumter, and enthusiasm was wild to welcome those gallant defenders. All hearts at the free North beat in patriotic unison. Honest democrats and conservatives forgot their old antipathies and fraternised with republicans of every stripe for the old union of states, "one and inseparable." The inspiring utterances of Jackson and Daniel Webster were a thousand times repeated. The surviving ex-presidents of the North, Buchanan among them, gave encouragement. Among Northern statesmen once recreant to freedom, Cass, from his final retirement in Michigan, sent God-speed; while Douglas, for the few brief weeks left to him, threw aside his late sophistries, and, whole-souled in the new cause of upholding the Union, died illustrious. Everett, whose palmy years of eloquence had been given to maintaining, were it possible, a Union of compromise and smothered animosities, now flamed into a pillar of guiding strength by his splendid example.

The strong, sanguine enthusiasm of this first genuine uprising gave token that the republic would not, should not, perish. In public halls, on the village green, or wherever else a united gathering might impress its strongest force, citizens met in mass to be stirred to fervency as at some religious revival. Spokesmen of varying political antecedents occupied the platform together to bear their testimony as honest patriots. Boston rocked thus in old Faneuil Hall; at New York City was held an immense mass-meeting in Union Square, on the 20th of April, under the shadow of Washington's monument, and the ablest leaders of parties hitherto opposing addressed the crowd from three several stands. At a Chicago gathering, where the speaker raised his hand to take the oath of allegiance, the whole audience solemnly rose and repeated the words with him. There were flag-raisings, moreover, at which the national colours, red, white, and blue, were hoisted. One deep-rooted sentiment pervaded old and young throughout these free states to serve, to sacrifice, but never to surrender. Only two sides of the question were possible at such a crisis-for the Union or against it; only two classes of citizens-patriots or traitors. "Fort Sumter is lost,'

[1861 A.D.] said the New York Tribune "but freedom is saved." If there were a few men doubtful or disposed to palliate, they were swallowed into the resistless torrent of sympathy with the administration.j

John Codman Ropes,k in his remarkable study of the Civil War, unhappily left unfinished, has expressed perhaps better than any other writer the underlying elements of strength and weakness in the North and South. We are fortunate in being able to quote the following: a

Thus the lines were finally drawn. Twenty-two states remained united. These states were preparing to assert their sovereignty by force of arms over the whole length and breadth of the land. Opposed to them stood the eleven states which had seceded, now constituting the Confederate States of America, equally resolute to maintain by the sword their claim to independence.

Population and Material Resources

The parties to this conflict were in many respects unequally matched. The populations of the twenty-two states which adhered to the Union aggregated upwards of twenty-two millions, of whom less than half a million were slaves. The populations of the eleven states which had left the Union numbered together but little over nine millions, of whom about three millions and a half were slaves. There were thus about four times as many free white people on the Union side as there were on the Confederate side. The slaves, however, instead of being a source of anxiety and apprehension, as many in the North confidently predicted would be the case, proved perfectly subordinate. They were trusted to take care of the families where the able-bodied white men had gone to the war, and they never betrayed their trust. They were largely employed in building fortifications. They raised the crops on which the entire South subsisted during the whole

war.

In material prosperity the North was far in advance of the South. In accumulated capital there was no comparison between the two sections. The immigration from Europe had kept the labour market of the North well stocked, while no immigrants from Ireland or Germany were willing to enter into a competition with negro slaves. The North was full of manufactories of all kinds; the South had very few of any kind. The railroad systems of the North were far more perfect and extensive, and the roads were much better supplied with rolling-stock and all needed apparatus. The North was infinitely richer than the South in the production of grain and of meat, and the boasted value of the South's great staple, cotton, sank out of sight when the blockade closed the Southern ports to all commerce.

Accompanying these greater material resources there existed in the North a much larger measure of business capacity than was to be found in the South. This was of course to be expected, for the life of the plantation was not calculated to familiarise one with business methods, or to create an aptitude for dealing with affairs on a large scale. The great merchants and managers of large railroads and other similar enterprises in the North were able to render valuable assistance to the men who administered the state and national governments, and their aid was most generously given. ['Reprinted from J. C. Ropes' Story of the Civil War, by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons. Copyright, 1898, by John Codman Ropes.]