In his inaugural, Lincoln had announced his policy-to recover and hold the forts, arsenals and other property of the United States. But this problem proved even more serious than he anticipated. The fate of the Union must depend upon the action of the people and especially of them in the border States. Lincoln determined to hold the border States to the Union, and yet, at the same time, carry out his national policy. It was a programme which only a man of the sagacity of a political genius could hope to carry out. To strike a blow against slavery in a State would at once cause every slaveholding State to swing into line in arms against the national government, and if the border slave States joined the Confederacy, the supremacy of the national authority must be yet more doubtful. Already the Confederate government had taken the initiative and had acted as if the inclusion of the border slave States within the Confederacy was beyond doubt. The Confederate Congress passed many acts favoring these States-exempting them from the payment of duties; formally voting them into the Confederacy, and appealing to them as sister States whose destiny was bound up with those already united at Montgomery. It seemed for a time a nice game between the National government and the Confederacy which should win the border States. Lincoln exhausted information about Fort Sumter and all pertaining to the question its reinforcement involved. As the result of much negotiation and many interviews Justice Campbell, of Alabama, of the United States Supreme Court, reinforced by Nelson, of New York, also of the Supreme Court, strongly advised the secretary of state against any attempt at coercion. Lincoln consented that Sumter should be evacuated, also Fort Pickens, and publication of the decision was made. South Carolina was now convinced that it would acquire its forts without fighting. General Scott advised that both forts should be given up. This was the political situation on March 28, 1861.

News of the president's decision amazed the North; the Cabinet divided in opinion; Lincoln himself was not satisfied

and on the following day ordered that a relief expedition should be gotten under way for Fort Sumter and on April 8th, Governor Pickens received intelligence from Lincoln by personal messenger, that an attempt would be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions; that if it was unresisted, the government would not send military supplies without further notice, or unless the fort was attacked. In truth, the promise to evacuate Sumter had been made by Secretary Seward without Lincoln's authority or knowledge. The secretary, however astute as a politician, misconstrued the signs of the times, and at this stage of his official relations with Lincoln, underestimated his chief and was inclined to take matters into his own hand. It was at this time that he submitted his extraordinary "Thoughts for the president's consideration," which raised the question, as Nicolay and Hay express it-whether Seward should be "President or Premier." Lincoln quietly ignored the intrusion into the ethics of responsibility and continued president, also continuing Seward as secretary of state-which a less sagacious president might have omitted to do.

The issue had reached the point when the future must be peace, with secession and the recognition of the Confederacy, or war, with the suppression of insurrection and rebellion and the supremacy of National authority. This fateful decision rested on the conduct of the administration toward Major Anderson and the relief and support, or the abandonment and evacuation, of Fort Sumter. And essentially, for this reason, the American mind associates Fort Sumter with the existence of the Union. The fort itself. was a fragile structure, even in 1861, before the destructive arms of modern warfare were devised-and could not hope to stand out against a formidable bombardment: but this quadrangular pile of stone and brick stood for an idea: the supremacy of the Union; the existence of the Nation; and its fall or evacuation must mean the triumph of all those ideas for which the Confederacy stood-ideas elaborated by its vice-president, Alexander H. Stephens. It is not strange

therefore that Lincoln and his Cabinet should ponder carefully over the situation. The course of thought and discussion at their early Cabinet meetings are sufficiently well known now to warrant the statement that hesitation to urge immediate reinforcement of Sumter, by some members, grew out of the horror of precipitating civil war. And at this critical moment, Virginia, assembled in Convention, was debating secession: Should it join the Confederacy, or remain in the Union? The decision might determine the fate of the Union, for Virginia, Mother of Presidents, and one of the largest, and, as it had been, most influential, of the members of the Union, would be affected by the decision of the administration as to Fort Sumter; to attempt to coerce South Carolina, as not a few supporters of the administration were urging, meant, as Lincoln clearly understood, the conjunction of Virginia with the Confederacy, and doubtless other border States would follow her. Thus the question of Fort Sumter involved vast political as it involved vast military consequences: and the national government once advanced, I could not take back the foot.

Now by "coercion" the South understood what Lincoln in his inaugural called "the execution of the laws." It was impossible for the national government to pursue any other policy. With vision perfectly clear and with a profound conviction of the responsibility and the immediate consequences of his decision, Lincoln, on the 6th April, resolved that both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens should be reinforced. Already Lincoln was experiencing the infirmity of a divided North, and he experienced it to the end of his life. As against a Southern Confederacy the North was a unit, but as against any policy which the administration might take to execute the laws of the United States within the domain claimed by that Confederacy, the North was divided. A strong peace party existed North, in sentiment essentially provincial and selfish, indifferent to national obligations, and essentially, though perhaps unknowingly, supporters of the ideas on which Vice-President Stephens had

This peace

declared that the Confederacy was founded. party, early in 1861, was of that vain order which holds its critics and opponents in contempt and conceives itself as the true and proper nucleus for social and civil organization.

Lincoln's decision to reinforce Sumter was soon known to the Montgomery government. Robert Toombs, the Confederate secretary of state, shrinking from civil war, dissuaded Davis from allowing the secessionists to fire on Sumter, but the Southern Confederacy also had its existence at stake; the Southern mind was made up, it would brook no further compromise, it would hear no more of negotiation. South Carolina could not sear its eyeballs at the sight of a fort within its own coast-waters in possession of the enemy. Whatever Davis may have really believed was the wisest thing to do, there is no evidence that he had any thought of offending South Carolina. He gave the order to General Beauregard to demand Sumter's surrender, which if refused, he should proceed to compel by bombardment. Anderson refused to evacuate the fort. Davis, intent on the acquisition of the fort, through Walker, his secretary of war, demanded that Anderson should name the time when he would evacuate. Anderson fixed the 15th, at noon, unless sooner attacked, or reinforced. Beauregard refused the that his batteries would

terms and gave Anderson notice open fire on the fort in an hour. At half-past four, on the morning of April 13th, a shell from the shore battery burst over Fort Sumter: it was a signal and the bombardment at once began and continued without cessation, all the Confederate batteries engaged, till the afternoon following, when, "with colors flying and drums beating, bringing away company and private property" and saluting his flag with fifty guns, Anderson marched out of the fort. An explosion within the fort injured several of the garrison, but no one, on either side, was killed during the engagement. Charleston, South Carolina and the Confederacy exulted, and Virginia determined to throw her fortunes with the Confederacy.

But the Confederacy had struck the first blow.

The shot which rose from the Cummings Point battery, signalling the opening of civil war, was fired by Edmund Ruffin, an aged secessionist, who had come from Virginia and asked the privilege, and the first shot from Fort Sumter was fired by Captain Abner Doubleday. Just before the war closed, convinced that the Confederate cause was lost, Ruffin committed suicide. Doubleday won great distinction in the war and became a major-general.

The fall of Fort Sumter was of slight military importance but of tremendous significance politically. It awoke the North to the conviction that debate and compromise and threatenings were things of the past; that war had come and that the Nation must arouse and defend itself against insurrection and rebellion. On April 15th, Lincoln called for 75,000 militia to aid in the execution of the laws, under authority of the act of 1795: he could call for no greater number under the act, nor for a longer period than thirty days after the commencement of the next session of Congress, and he summoned Congress to meet in extra session on the 4th of July. On the Ist of that month there were 310,000 men at the command of the government-so instant and effective was the response of the loyal States. Indeed, volunteers came on faster than the government could receive and equip them. On April 19th, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, while passing through Baltimore, on the way to Washington, was attacked by a mob. Four soldiers were killed, several of the mob, and a citizen who was watching the affray. A thousand Pennsylvania volunteers, unarmed, who had arrived on the train with the Massachusetts troops, were sent back, by the advice of the governor, to the Susquehanna River. To avoid further bloodshed through the transit of troops through the city, the local authorities caused the bridges to be burned on the railroads connecting with Harrisburg and the North-the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore, and the Northern Central. The National and State governments then agreed that troops should be taken