Discouraging and even insulting as were most of these replies, the responses of the Governors of the Free States were, on the other hand, full of the ring of true martial Patriotism evoked by the fall of Sumter and the President's first call for troops. Twenty millions of Northern hearts were stirred by that Call, as they had never before been stirred. Party and faction became for the moment, a thing of the past.
The Governors of the Free States made instant proclamation for volunteers, and the People responded not by thousands but by hundreds of thousands. New York, the Empire State, by her Governor and her Legislature placed all her tremendous resources at the service of the Union; and the great State of Pennsylvania, through Governor Curtin, did the same. Nor were the other States at all behind.
The Loyal North felt that Law, Order, Liberty, the existence of the Nation itself was in peril, and must be both saved and vindicated. Over half a million of men—from the prairies of the West and the hills and cities of the East—from farms and counting houses, from factories and mines and workshops—sprang to arms at the Call, and begged to be enrolled. The merchants and capitalists throughout the North proffered to the Government their wealth and influence and best services. The press and the people responded as only the press and people of a Free land can respond—with all their heart and soul. "Fort Sumter," said one of the journals, "is lost, but Freedom is saved. Henceforth, the Loyal States are a unit in uncompromising hostility to Treason, wherever plotted, however justified. Fort Sumter is temporarily lost, but the Country is saved. Live the Republic!"
This, in a nutshell, was the feeling everywhere expressed, whether by the great crowds that marched through the streets of Northern cities with drums beating and banners flying—cheering wildly for the Union, singing Union songs, and compelling those of doubtful loyalty to throw out to the breeze from their homes the glorified Stars and Stripes—by the great majority of newspapers—by the pulpit, by the rostrum, by the bench, by all of whatever profession or calling in Northern life. For the moment, the voice of the Rebel-sympathizer was hushed in the land, or so tremendously overborne that it seemed as if there was an absolute unanimity of love for the Union.
Of course, in Border-States, bound to the South by ties of lineage and intermarriage and politics and business association, the feeling could not be the same as elsewhere. There, they were, so to speak, drawn both ways at once, by the beckoning hands of kindred on the one side, and Country on the other! Thus they long waited and hesitated, praying that something might yet happen to save the Union of their fathers, and prevent the shedding of brothers' blood, by brothers—hoping against hope-waited, in the belief that a position of armed neutrality might be permitted to them; and grieved, when they found this could not be.
Each side to the great Conflict-at-arms naturally enough believed itself right, and that the other side was the first aggressor; but the judgment of Mankind has placed the blame where it properly belonged—on the shoulders of the Rebels. The calm, clear statement of President Lincoln, in his July Message to Congress, touching the assault and its preceding history—together with his conclusions—states the whole matter in such authentic and convincing manner that it may be said to have settled the point beyond further controversy. After stating that it "was resolved to notify the Governor of South Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be made to provision the Fort; and that if the attempt should not be resisted there would be no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or in case of an attack on the Fort," Mr. Lincoln continues: "This notice was accordingly given; whereupon the Fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition."
The President then proceeds: "It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was, in no sense, a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the Fort could, by no possibility, commit aggression upon them. They knew—they were expressly notified—that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke more. They knew that this Government desired to keep the garrison in the Fort —not to assail them—but merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate dissolution—trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion, and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they assailed and reduced the Fort for precisely the reverse object—to drive out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution.
"That this was their object, the Executive well understood; and, having said to them, in the Inaugural Address, 'you can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors,' he took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the World should not be able to misunderstand it.
"By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the Government began the Conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the Fort sent to that harbor years before for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the Country, the distinct issue: 'Immediate dissolution or blood.'
"And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of Man the question whether a Constitutional Republic or Democracy—a government of the People by the same People—can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretences made in this case, or on any other pretences, or arbitrarily without any pretence, break up their Government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: 'Is there in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness?' 'Must a Government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?'