A POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE
STATE OF NEW YORK
CHAPTER I
THE UPRISING OF THE NORTH
1861
While politicians indecently clamoured for office, as indicated in the concluding chapter of the preceding volume, President Lincoln, whenever escape from the patronage hunters permitted, was considering the wisdom of provisioning Fort Sumter. Grave doubt obtained as to the government's physical ability to succour the fort, but, assuming it possible, was it wise as a political measure? The majority of the Cabinet, including Seward, voted in the negative, giving rise to the report that Sumter would be abandoned. Union people generally, wishing to support the brave and loyal action of Major Anderson and his little band, vigorously protested against such an exhibition of weakness, and the longer the Government hesitated the more vigorously the popular will resented such a policy. Finally, on March 29, in spite of General Scott's advice and Secretary Seward's opinion, the President, guided by public sentiment, directed a relief expedition to be ready to sail as early as April 6.
Meanwhile a Confederate constitution had been adopted, a Confederate flag raised over the capitol at Montgomery, and a Confederate Congress assembled, which had authorised the enlistment of 100,000 volunteers, the issue of $1,000,000 in treasury notes, and the organisation of a navy. To take charge of military operations at Charleston, the Confederate government commissioned Pierre T. Beauregard a brigadier-general and placed him in command of South Carolina.
Beauregard quickly learned of Lincoln's decision to relieve Sumter, and upon the Confederate authorities devolved the grave responsibility of reducing the fort before the relief expedition arrived. In discussing this serious question Robert Toombs, the Confederate secretary of state, did not hesitate to declare that "the firing upon it at this time is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[1]