SUMTER, NORTH AND SOUTH. 5 While Charleston resumed and intensified her exulting revels, and the telegraph invited all 'Dixie' to share the rapture of her triumph, the weary garrison extinguished the fire still raging, and lay down to rest for the night. The steamboat Isabel came down next morning to take them off; but delay occurred in their removal by tug to her deck, until it was too late to go out by that day's tide. When the baggage had all been removed, a part of the garrison was told off as gunners to salute their flag with fifty guns; the Stars and Stripes being lowered with cheers at the firing of the last gun. Unhappily, there was at that fire a premature explosion, whereby one of the gunners was killed, and three more or less seriously wounded. The men were then formed and marched out, preceded by their band, playing inspiring airs, and taken on board the Isabel, whereby 449 they were transferred to the Federal steamship Baltic, awaiting them off the bar, which brought them directly to New York, whence Maj. Anderson dispatched to his Government this brief and manly report : "STEAMSHIP BALTIC, OFF SANDY HOOK, April 18, 1861. "The Honorable S. CAMERON, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.: thirty-four hours, until the quarters were "SIR: Having defended Fort Sumter for entirely burned, the main gates destroyed, the gorge-wall seriously injured, the magaclosed from the effects of the heat, four barzine surrounded by flames, and its door rels and three cartridges of powder only being available, and no provisions but pork remaining, I accepted terms of evacuation offered by Gen. Beauregard (being the same offered by him on the 11th instant, prior to the commencement of hostilities), and marched out of the fort on Sunday afternoon, the 14th instant, with colors flying and drums beating, bringing away company and private property, and saluting my flag with fifty guns. "ROBERT ANDERSON, "Major First Artillery." XXIX. THE CALL TO ARMS. section was deeply in debt to the merchants and manufacturers of the Northern cities, as well as to the slave-breeders and slave-traders of the Border States; and, while many creditors were naturally urgent for their pay, few desired or consented to extend their credits in that quarter. Secession had been almost everywhere followed, if not preceded, by through every section of South Carolina, that the movement in which the people were engaged was begun by them in the deepest conviction of duty to God; and God had signally blessed their dependence on Him. If there is a war, it will be purely a war of self-defense."-New York Tri bune, April 16. Secession, as we have seen, had been initiated by the aid of the most positive assurances that, once fairly in progress, every Slave State would speedily and surely unite in it; yet, up to this time, but seven of the fif teen Slave States, having a decided minority of the population, and a still more decided minority of the white inhabitants, of that 'section,' had justified the sanguine promise. On the contrary, the so-called 'Bor a suspension of specie payments by the Banks; and, though the lawyers in most places patriotically refused to receive Northern claims for collection, a load of debt weighed heavily on the planting' and trading classes of the entire South, of whom thousands had rushed into political convulsion for relief from the intolerable Industry, save on the pressure. plantations, was nearly at a stand; never before were there so many whites vainly seeking employment. | der States,' with Tennessee and ArThe North, of course, sympathized with these embarrassments through the falling off in its trade, especially with the South, and through the paucity of remittances; but our currency was still sound, while Southern debts had always been slow, and paid substantially at the convenience of the debtors, when paid at all. Still, the feeling that the existing suspense and apprehension were intolerable, and that almost any change would be an improvement, was by no means confined to the South. 1 The following private letter from a South❘ Carolina planter to an old friend settled in Texas, gives a fair idea of the situation: “ABBEVILLE C. H., S. C., Jan. 24,1861. "DEAR SIR:-I desire you to procure for me, and send by mail, a Texas Almanac. Six months since, I felt perfectly willing to remain in South Carolina; but I can remain here no longer. At the election of Lincoln, we all felt that we must resist. In this move, I placed myself among the foremost, and am yet determined to resist him to the bitter end. I had my misgivings, at first, of the idea of separate Secession; but thought it would be but for a short time, and at small cost. In this manner, together with thousands of other Carolinians, we have been mistaken. Everything is in the wildest commotion. My bottom land on Long Cone, for which I could have gotten thirty dollars per acre, I now cannot sell at any price. All our young men, nearly, are in and around Charleston. Thither we have sent many hundreds of our kansas, had voted not to secede, and most of them by overwhelming majorities; save that Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, had scarcely deigned to take the matter into consideration. And, despite Vice-President Stephens's glowing rhetoric, it was plain that the seceded States did not and could not suffice to form a nation. Already, the talk in their aristocratic circles of Protectorates and imported Princes betrayed their own consciousness of this. Either to attack the Union, and thus provoke 2 are running here and there, with and without the negroes (I have sent twenty) to work. Crops long, one-third of the wealth of South Carolina were very short last year; and it does now seem that nothing will be planted this coming season. All are excited to the highest pitch, and not a thought of the future is taken. Messengers are will be in the West. I desire you to look around "Wm. H. Russell, of The London Times, in his HESITATION OF THE BORDER STATES. cion.' 451 a war, or to sink gradually but surely | poses, that there should be 'coërout of existence beneath a general appreciation of weakness, insecurity, and intolerable burdens, was the only choice left to the plotters and upholders of Secession. And, though signally beaten in the recent elections of the non-seceded Slave States, they had yet a very strong party in most of those States -stronger in wealth, in social standing, and in political activity and influence, than in numbers. A majority of these had been able to bring the Conventions or the Legislatures of their respective States to say, with tolerable unanimity, "If the Black Republicans attempt to coërce the seceded States, we will join them in armed resistance." It was indispensable, therefore, to their mutual pur "Diary, North and South," writing at Charleston, April 18, 1861, says: "These tall, thin, fine-faced Carolinians are great materialists. Slavery, perhaps, has aggravated the tendency to look at all the world through parapets of cotton-bales and rice-bags; and, though more stately and less vulgar, the worshipers here are not less prostrate before the almighty dollar' than the Northerners. Again, cropping out of the dead level of hate to the Yankee, grows its climax in the profession, from nearly every one of the guests, that he would prefer a return to British rule to any reunion with New England. *** They affect the agricultural faith and the belief of a landed gentry. It is not only over the wine-glass-why call it cup?--that they ask for a Prince to reign over them. I have heard the wish repeatedly expressed within the last two days that we could spare them one of our young Princes, but never in jest or in any frivolous manner.' Mr. Russell's letters from Charleston to The Times are to the same effect, but more explicit and circumstantial, 3 The Richmond Whig of November 9, 1860, had the following: "Because the Union was created by the voluntary consent of the original States, it does not follow that such consent can be withdrawn at will by any single party to the compact, and its obligations and duties, its burdens and demands, be avoided. A government resting on such a basis would be as unstable as the ever-shifting So late as April 4th-a month after the return of her 'Commissioners' from the abortive Peace Conference -Virginia, through her Convention, by the decisive vote of 89 to 45, refused to pass an Ordinance of Secession. Still, her conspirators worked on, like those of the other 'Border States,' and claimed, not without plausible grounds, that they were making headway. Richmond was the focus of their intrigues, as it was of her Slave-trade; but it was boasted that, whereas two of her three delegates to the Convention were chosen. as Unionists, she would now give a decided majority for Secession. The Richmond Whig, the time-honored organ of her Whig 'Conservatives,' sands. The sport of every popular excitement, the victim of every conflicting interest, of plotting ambition or momentary impulse, it would afford no guarantee of perpetuity, while the hours bring round the circuit of a single year. To suppose that a single State could withdraw at will, is to brand the statesmen of the Revolution, convinced of the weakness and certain destruction of the old Confederation of States, of laboring to perpetuate the evil they attempted to remedy. The work, which has been the marvel of the world, would be no government at all; the oaths taken to support and maintain it would be bitter mockery of serious obligations; and nothing would exist to invite the confidence of citizens or strangers in its protection. partnership of limited time. From this, neither "Less strong would it be than a business party who has entered into it can escape, except by due course of law. Withdrawal of one member carries no rights of possession of property or control of the affairs of the partnership, unless the injunctions of legal tribunals are invoked to restrain all action until the matter in dispute is settled. A State seceding knows no law to maintain its interest nor vindicate its rights. The right to secede, on the other hand, places the Government more at the mercy of popular whim than the business interest of the least mercantile establishment in the country is placed, by the law of the land." Such were the just and forcibly stated convictions of a leading journal, which soon after became, and has since remained, a noisy oracle of Secession. who had secured her vote for Bell | Address. I commend a careful consideration and Everett, had been changed-by purchase, it was said—and was now as zealous for Secession as hitherto against it. Finally, her Convention resolved, on the 4th aforesaid, to send new Commissioners to wait on President Lincoln, and appointed Messrs. William Ballard Preston, Alex. H. H. Stuart, and George W. Randolph (of whom the last only was formerly a Democrat, and was chosen as a Secessionist), to proceed to Washington on this errand. They did not obtain their formal audience until the 13th-the day of Fort Sumter's surrender-when its bombardment, if not its capture also, was already known in that city-and there was a grim jocosity in their appearance at such an hour to set before the harassed President such a missive as this: "Whereas, in the opinion of the Convention, the uncertainty which prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue toward the seceded States is extremely injurious to the industrial and commercial interests of the country, tends to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to the adjustment of the pending difficulties, and threatens a disturbance of the public peace: therefore, "Resolved, That a Committee of three delegates be appointed to wait on the President of the United States, present to him this preämble, and respectfully ask him to communicate to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States." To this overture, after duly acknowledging its reception, Mr. Lincoln replied as follows: I "In answer, I have to say that, having, at the beginning of my official term, expressed my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is with deep regret and mortification now learn that there is a great and injurious uncertainty in the public mind as to what that policy is, and what course I intend to pursue. Not having, as yet, seen occasion to change, it is now my purpose to pursue the course marked out in that Inaugural of the document as the best expression I can give to my purposes. As I then and therein said, I now repeat, 'The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess, property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties on imports; but, beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.' By the words 'property and places belonging to the Government,' I property which were in possession of the chiefly allude to the military posts and Government when it came into my hands. But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive the United States authority from these places, an unprovoked assault has been made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess it, if I can, like places which had been seized before the Government was devolved upon me; and, in any event, I shall, to the best of my ability, repel force by force. In case it proves true that Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is reported, I shall, perhaps, cause the United States mails to be withdrawn from all the States which claim to have se ceded, believing that the commencement of actual war against the Government justifies and, possibly, demands it. I scarcely need to say that I consider the military posts and property, situated within the States which claim to have seceded, as yet belonging to the United States as much as they did before the supposed secession. Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt to collect the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of the country; not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a force deemed necessary to relieve a fort on the border of the country. From the fact that I have quoted a portion of the Inaugural Address, it must not be inferred that I repudiate any other part, the whole of which I reäffirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails may be regarded as a modification." With this answer, the Commissioners retired; and the next important news from Virginia reached Washington via Montgomery and New Orleans, which cities had been exhilarated to the point of cheering and cannon-firing, by dispatches from Richmond, announcing the fact that the Convention had, in secret, taken their State out of the Union, and united her fortunes with those of the |