For this purpose, a number of vessels, with a quantity of stores on board, accompanied by two men-of-war, sailed from New York, intending to rendezvous in Charleston harbour, on the 12th of April. A storm, however, dispersed the fleet; only one vessel reached the roadstead at the appointed time. In the meantime, the South Carolina Government, hearing of the intended movement, resolved to anticipate it by active measures. On the 11th, General Beauregard, who commanded the Confederate troops, summoned Major Anderson to surrender, and, on his refusal, from "a sense of honour," opened fire on the fort the next morning. This may be said to have been the commencement of the civil war. The fort replied vigorously to the attack, but the means at Major Anderson's command were wholly inadequate. A breach was made in the works, and the officers' quarters were set on fire by the cannonade of the Confederates. As effectual resistance was hopeless, and there was no prospect of succour, the garrison surrendered at discretion on the afternoon of the 13th, and the Confederate flag waved in triumph over Fort Sumpter.

On the 15th of April, President Lincoln issued the following proclamation:

"Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past, and now are, opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in

the marshals by law; now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order to suppress the said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favour, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the power, the integrity, and the existence of our national Union and the perpetuity of popular Government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country; and I hereby command the persons composing the combinations afore-. said to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within 20 days from this date."

The proclamation then summoned both Houses of Congress to meet on the 4th of July. Two days afterwards, Mr. Davis, President of the Confederate States, published a counter proclamation, authorizing the issue of letters of marque and reprisal.

to add, that the national highway thus selected by the LieutenantGeneral has been chosen by him upon consultation with prominent magistrates and citizens of Maryland, as the one which, while a route is absolutely necessary, is further removed from the populous cities of the State, and with the expectation that it would, therefore, be the least objectionable one.

"The President cannot but remember that there has been a time in the history of the American Union when forces designed for the defence of its capital were not unwelcome anywhere in the State of Maryland, and certainly not at Annapolis-then, as now, the capital of that patriotic State, and then also one of the capitals of the Union."

On the 28th of April, the Confederate Congress passed an Act to authorize the President to borrow fifteen millions of dollars on the credit of the Confederate States, by the issue of bonds at eight per cent., the principal and interest being secured by an export duty on cotton of one-eighth of one cent per pound.

On the 29th of April, Mr. Jefferson Davis sent a Message to the Provisional Congress at Montgomery, in which he thus summed up the causes which led to the secession of the Confederate States:

"During the war waged against Great Britain by her colonies on this continent, a common danger impelled them to a close alliance, and to the formation of a Confederation, by the terms of which the colonies, styling themselves States, entered severally into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common de

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The Articles of Confederation contained a clause whereby all alterations were prohibited, unless confirmed by the Legislatures of every State, after being agreed to by the Congress; and, in obedience to this provision, under the resolution of Congress of the 21st of February, 1787, the several States appointed delegates, who attended a Convention, for | the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union.'

"It was by the lelegates chosen

by the several States, under the resolution just quoted, that the Constitution of the United States was framed in 1787, and submitted to the several States for ratification, as shown by the 7th Article, which is in these words:

"The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.'

"The Constitution of 1787 having, however, omitted the clause already recited from the Articles of Confederation, which provided in explicit terms that each State retained its sovereignty and independence, some alarm was felt in the States when invited to ratify the Constitution, lest this omission should be construed into an abandonment of their cherished principle; and they refused to be satisfied until amendments were added to the Constitution, placing beyond any pretence of doubt the reservation by the States of all their sovereign rights and powers, not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution.

"I have italicized certain words in the quotations just made, for the purpose of attracting attention to the singular and marked caution with which the States endeavoured, in every possible form, to exclude the idea that the separate and independent sovereignty of each State was merged into one common Government and nation, and the earnest desire they evinced to impress on the Constitution its true characterthat of a compact between independent States.

"Strange indeed must it appear to the impartial observer,

but it is none the less true, that all these carefully-worded clauses proved unavailing to prevent the rise and growth in the Northern States of a political school which has persistently claimed that the Government thus formed was not a compact between States, but was, in effect, a national Government, set up above and over the States. An organization, created by the States to secure the blessings of liberty and independence against foreign aggression, has been gradually perverted into a machine for their control in their domestic affairs; the creature had been exalted above its creators; the principals have been made subordinate to the agent appointed by themselves.

The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common Government subservient to their own purposes by imposing burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversy grew out of these attempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other; and the danger of disruption arising from this cause was enhanced by the fact, that the Northern population was increasing, by immigration and other causes, in a greater ratio than the population of the South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained preponderance in the National Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control: they learned to listen with

impatience to the suggestion of any constitutional impediment to the exercise of their will; and so utterly have the principles of the Constitution been corrupted in the Northern mind, that in the inaugural address delivered by President Lincoln in March last, he asserts as an axiom, which he plainly deems to be undeniable, that the theory of the Constitution requires that in all cases the majority shall govern; and, in another memorable instance, the same Chief Magistrate did not hesitate to liken the relations between a State and the United States to those which exist be tween a county and the State in which it is situated, and by which it was created. This is the lamentable and fundamental error on which rests the policy that has culminated in his declaration of war against these Confederate States.

In addition to the long-continued and deep-seated resentment felt by the Southern States at the persistent abuse of the powers they had delegated to the Congress for the purpose of enriching the manufacturing and shipping classes of the North at the expense of the South, there has existed for nearly half a century another subject of discord, involving interests of such transcendent magnitude as at all times to create the apprehension in the minds of many devoted lovers of the Union that its permanence was impossible.

"When the several States delegated certain powers to the United States Congress a large portion of the labouring population consisted of African slaves imported into colonies by the mother-country. In 12 out of

the 13 States, negro slavery existed, and the right of property in slaves was protected by law. This property was recognized in the Constitution, and provision was made against its loss by the escape of the slave. The increase in the number of slaves by further importation from Africa was also secured by a clause forbidding Congress to prohibit the slave trade anterior to a certain date; and in no clause can there be found any delegation of power to the Congress authorizing it in any manner to legislate to the prejudice, detriment, or discouragement of the owners of that species of property, or excluding it from the protection of the Government.

"The climate and soil of the Northern States soon proved unpropitious to the continuance of slave labour, while the converse was the case at the South. Under the unrestricted, free intercourse between the two sections, the Northern States consulted their own interest by selling their slaves to the South, and prohibiting slavery within their limits. The South were willing purchasers of a property suitable to their wants, and paid the price of the acquisition without harbouring a suspicion that their quiet possession was to be disturbed by those who were inhibited, not only by want of constitutional authority, but by good faith as vendors, from disquieting a title emanating from themselves.

"As soon, however, as the Northern States, that prohibited African Slavery within their limits, had reached a number sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in the Congress,