Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, said that if he understood the meaning of the Message on the subject of secession, it was this:-"South Carolina has just cause for seceding from the Union; that is the first proposition. The second is, that she has no right to secede. The third is, that we have no right to prevent her from seceding. He goes on to represent this as a great and powerful country, and that no State has a right to secede from it : but the power of the country, if I understand the President, consists in what Dickens makes the English constitution to be—a power to do anything at all. Now I think it was incumbent on the President of the United States to point out definitely and to recommend to Congress some rule of action, and to tell us what he recommended us to do. But, in my judgment, he has entirely avoided it. He has failed to look the thing in the face. He has acted like the ostrich, which hides her head, and thereby thinks to escape danger."

So thought the people, who perceived that no reliance could be placed upon the arm of the Executive in defending the integrity of the Union. Had they then comprehended the fearful proportions of the imminent danger, they would have almost despaired. Patriotic men wrote to their representatives in Congress, asking them to be firm, yet conciliatory; and clergymen of every sect exhorted their people to be "firm in faith, patient in hope, careful in conduct, and trustful in God. More than forty of the leading clergymen of various denominations in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, united in sending forth a Circular Letter on New Year's day, 1861, making an appeal to the Churches. "We cannot doubt," they said, "that a spirit of candor and forbearance, such as our religion prompts, and the exigencies of the times demand, would render the speedy adjustment of our difficulties possible, consistently with every Constitutional right. Unswerving fealty to the Constitution justly interpreted, and a prompt return to its spirit and requirements whenever these may have been divergent from either, would seem to be the first duty of citizens and legislators. It is our firm, and, we think, intelligent conviction, that only a very inconsiderable fraction of the people of the North will hesitate in the discharge of their Constitutional obligations; and that whatever enactments are found to be in conflict therewith, will be annulled." This well-meant missive operated only as the mildest soothing-syrup; the disease was too malignant and widespread to be touched by anything but the probe and cautery.

While the National Legislature were tossing upon the suddenly raised surges of disunion, and the people of the free-labor States were listening with breathless anxiety to the roar of the tempest at the Capitol, the noise of the storm in the far South was like the portentous bellowing of distant

CHAP. IV. DECLARATION OF SOUTH CAROLINA INDEPENDENCE.

1437 thunder. It was raging vehemently in South Carolina. The Convention at Charleston, after passing the Ordinance of Secession, appointed commissioners to proceed to Washington to treat for the possession of public property within the limits of South Carolina. They also issued an Address to the people of the other slave-labor States, and a Declaration of the causes which impelled South Carolina to leave the Union. In the former, they said: "South Carolina desires no destiny separate from yours. To be one of a great slave-holding Confederacy, stretching its arms over territory larger than any power in Europe possesses, with a population four times. greater than that of the whole United States when they achieved their independence of the British empire; with productions which make our existence more important to the world than that of any other people inhabiting it; with common institutions to defend and common dangers to encounter, we ask your sympathy and confederation. All we demand of other

people, is to be let alone to work out our own high destinies. United, we must be a great, free and prosperous people, whose renown must spread throughout the civilized world, and pass down, we trust, to the remotest ages. We ask you to join in forming a Confederacy of Slaveholding States." In their declaration of causes for the separation, they failed to point out a single act of wrong on the part of the Government they were intending to destroy, and it consisted chiefly of complaints that the Northern people did not look upon slavery with favor; were opposed to the FugitiveSlave Law, and did not believe a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States was superior in authority to the Divine Law.

On the day when that Declaration was adopted, the governor of South Carolina (Pickens) issued a proclamation declaring the sovereignty, freedom and independence of that State, and that it was vested with national functions. The proclamation closed with the words “Given under my hand, the 24th of December, 1860, and in the eighty-fifth year of the sovereignty and independence of South Carolina." Then, with perfect consistency, the Charleston newspapers published intelligence from the other States of the Union, under the head of "Foreign News." A small medal was struck to commemorate the secession of the State, and a banner for the new empire was adopted, composed of red silk, bearing a blue silk cross with fifteen white stars, the number of the slave-labor States. The Convention appointed one commissioner to each of the States to invite the politicians to send delegates to meet those of South Carolina at Montgomery, Alabama, to form a Southern Confederacy; authorized Governor Pickens, as chief magistrate of the new nation, to receive ambassadors, consuls, etc., from foreign countries, and took other measures for organizing a national govern

ment. The governor chose cabinet ministers, and the South Carolina nation began its brief career.

"A nationality!" exclaimed the London Morning Star, when commenting upon this Declaration of the sovereignty of South Carolina. "Was there ever, since the world began, a nation constituted of such materials-a commonwealth founded on such a basis? The greatest empire of antiquity is said to have grown up from a group of huts, built in a convenient location by fugitive slaves and robber huntsmen. But history nowhere chronicles the establishment of a community of slaveholders solely upon the alleged right of maintaining and enlarging their property in man. Paganism at least protected the Old World from so monstrous a scandal upon free commonwealths, by shutting out the idea of a common humanity, and of individual rights derivable from inalienable duties."

Charleston harbor now became the theatre of stirring events. John B. Floyd of Virginia, one of the leading conspirators, was then Secretary of War, and was secretly weakening the physical power of the Government by stripping the arsenals of the North of their arms and ammunition, and strengthening the Secessionists by filling the arsenals of the South with an abundance of weapons. Of course he paid no attention to the words of General Winfield Scott, the chief of the army, when, so early as the close of October, he observed signs of incipient insurrection in South Carolina, and recommended the strengthening of the forts near Charleston. And when, at the close of the same month, Colonel Gardiner, in command of the fortifications near that city, attempted to increase his supply of ammunition, Floyd removed him, and in November placed Major Robert Anderson, a meritorious officer in the war with Mexico, in his place. That loyal Kentuckian at once perceived, by various acts, the designs of the Secessionists to seize the fortifications in the harbor, and he urged his Government to strengthen them with men and munitions of war, especially Fort Moultrie, in which he was placed with a feeble garrison. But his constant warnings were unheeded, even when he wrote: "The clouds are threatening, and the storm may burst at any moment. I need not say to you how anxious I am, indeed determined, as far as honor will permit, to avoid collision with the people of South Carolina. Nothing will, however, be better calculated to prevent bloodshed, than our being found in such an attitude that it would be madness and folly to attack us." He continually begged the War Department to give him more strength, and send him explicit instructions; and when he found his warnings treated with contemptuous silence, he wrote: "Unless otherwise directed, I shall make future communications through the regular channel-the General-in-Chief."

CHAP. IV.

TREACHERY AND FIDELITY.

1439

Anderson did not know that he was addressing an enemy and not a protector of his Government, who was working with all his might to destroy the Republic. On the very day when the patriotic Major wrote to Floyd, the treacherous Secretary sold ten thousand Government muskets to an agent of the Secessionists of Georgia. Eight days before he had sold five thousand to the State of Virginia; and vast numbers were sent to other slave-labor States. The Mobile Advertiser, the organ of the Secessionists in Alabama, exultingly declared that within twelve months one hundred and thirty-five thousand muskets had been quietly transferred from the Northern Arsenal at Springfield (Mass.) alone, to those in the Southern States. "We are much obliged to Mr. Floyd," said the Advertiser, "for the foresight he has thus displayed in disarming the North and equipping the South for this emergency. There is no telling the quantity of arms and munitions which were sent South from other arsenals. There is no doubt but that every man in the South who can carry a gun can now be supplied from private or public sources." Floyd also attempted to supply the Secessionists with heavy guns, but loyal men prevented the outrage.

Secretary Floyd found Anderson too loyal for his purpose, but it was too late to displace him, so he left him to his own feeble resources, satisfied that the military companies then in process of organization in South Carolina, would be able to seize the forts in Charleston harbor in good time. Moultrie was weak, and many of the little garrison in Sumter were known to be disloyal. The latter fort was by far the stronger and more important work; and as evidence hourly increased, especially after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, that the South Carolinians intended to seize Fort Sumter, Anderson, being commander of all the forts in the harbor, resolved to transfer the garrison in Fort Moultrie into that of Sumter, and abandon the former. It was a delicate undertaking, for the Secessionists had watchboats out upon the waters.

Anderson revealed his secret to only three or four of his most trusted officers. Then he resorted to stratagem to get the women and children first into Fort Sumter. They were taken in a vessel, with ample provisions, to Fort Johnson on James Island, where, under pretext of difficulty in finding quarters for them, they were detained on board until evening. Three guns fired at Fort Moultrie was to be the signal for consigning them immediately to Fort Sumter. The movement was regarded by the people of Charleston as a natural and prudent measure of Anderson, who, they knew, believed they were about to attack Fort Moultrie, and so all suspicion was allayed.

At the close of that evening, while the almost full-orbed moon was shining brightly, the greater portion of the little garrison at Moultrie embarked for

Sumter. The three guns were fired; the women and children were quickly taken from before Fort Johnson to Sumter, and the movement was successful. Two or three officers remained at Fort Moultrie to spike the cannon, to destroy the gun-carriages, and to cut down the flag-staff, that no secession banner might float from the peak from which the National flag had so long fluttered. When the soldiers and their families and many weeks' provision were safely within the granite walls of Fort Sumter, Major Anderson wrote to the Secretary of War-"I have the honor to report that I have just completed, by the blessing of God, the removal to this fort, of all my garrison except the surgeon, four North Carolina officers, and seven men."

The telegraph conveyed from the Secessionists to Floyd the astounding intelligence long before Anderson's despatch reached him. It flashed back the angry words of the dismayed and foiled conspirator: "Intelligence has reached here this morning [December 27] that you have abandoned Fort Moultrie, spiked your guns, burnt the carriages, and gone to Fort Sumter. It is not believed, because there is no order for any such movement. Explain the meaning of this report." Anderson calmly replied by telegraph: "The telegram is correct. I abandoned Fort Moultrie because I was certain that if attacked my men must have been sacrificed, and the command of the harbor lost. I spiked the guns and destroyed the carriages to keep the guns from being turned against us. If attacked, the garrison would never have surrendered without a fight."

The soldiers in Sumter wished to fling out the National ensign defiantly before the dawn next morning; but Anderson, who was a devout man, wishing to impress upon his followers the lesson that upon God alone they were to rely in the great trial that was evidently before them, would not consent to the act until the return of the absent chaplain. He came at noonday, when the whole company in the fort gathered around the flagstaff, not far from a huge cannon. The commander, with the halyards in his hand, knelt at the foot of the staff, when the chaplain earnestly invoked the sustaining power of the Almighty. A loud Amen! fell from the lips of many; and then the brave Major hoisted the flag to the top of the staff. It was greeted with hearty cheers, and the band saluted it with the air of "Hail Columbia."

A boat now approached the fort from Charleston. It conveyed a messenger who bore to Major Anderson a demand from Governor Pickens, that the former should immediately leave Fort Sumter, and return to Fort Moultrie. The demand was courteously refused; and Anderson was denounced as a "traitor to the South," he being a native of Kentucky, a slavelabor State. The conspirators in Charleston and Washington were enraged.