UNITED STATES. 



705 



New York, had belonged to the army in the 

 war of 1812, was subsequently a Senator in Con- 

 gress, and at the time of his appointment held 

 the office of post-master at New York City. 

 Subsequently, on the 16th of May, he was made 

 a major-general in the army, and commanded a 

 force stationed at Baltimore. 



The views entertained by the Government 

 from this period until the 4th of March, were 

 stated explicitly by Secretary Dix in his speech 

 at the great meeting at Union Square in New 

 York City on the 20th of April ensuing. Com- 

 ing from a member of the Cabinet during the 

 time of which he speaks, they are entitled to 

 unreserved credit. His words were these : 



" And here, fellow-citizens, it is important 

 that we should clearly understand the position 

 of the late Administration on this question. It 

 is due to this Administration, as well as the 

 last, that we should all understand it. I shall 

 be very brief, but I must ask your close atten- 

 tion for the few moments that will be needed. 

 On the 3d of December last, in his annual 

 Message to Congress, the late President made a 

 strong and unanswerable argument aginst the 

 right of secession. He also indicated his pur- 

 pose to collect the revenue and defend the forts 

 in South Carolina. In a special Message to 

 Congress, on the 8th of January, he declared (I 

 use the language of the Message) l The right 

 and the duty to use military force defensively 

 against those who resist the Federal officers in 

 the execution of their legal functions, and 

 against those who assail the property of the 

 Federal Government, are clear and undeniable.' 

 The authorities of South Carolina were repeat- 

 edly warned that, if they assailed Fort Sumter, 

 it would be the commencement of civil war, 

 and they would be responsible for the conse- 

 quences. The last and most emphatic of these 

 warnings is contained in the admirable answer 

 of Mr. Holt, Secretary of War, to Mr. Hayne, 

 the commissioner from South Carolina, on the 

 6th of February. It is in these words : ' If, 

 with all the multiplied proof which exists of the 

 President's anxiety for peace, and of the ear- 

 nestness with which he has pursued it, the au- 

 thorities of that State shall assault Fort Sum- 

 ter, and peril the lives of the handful of brave 

 and loyal men shut up within its walls, and 

 thus plunge our common country into the hor- 

 rors of civil war, then upon them and those 

 they represent must rest the responsibility.' 

 I believe the letter from which I have read this 

 extract has never been published, for I, as a 

 member of the Administration at the time it 

 was written, have a right to say that it had the 

 cordial approval of the late President and all 

 his constitutional advisers. And this brings 

 me to the point I wish to make. I violate no 

 confidence in making it. It is this: if South 

 Carolina had tendered war to the late Adminis- 

 tration as she has to this I mean by a hostile 

 and deadly assault it would have been unani- 

 mously accepted." 



The President states, in his letter accepting 

 45 



the resignation of Secretary Thompson, that on 

 the 2d of January, in Cabinet meeting, it wa? 

 decided to reenforce Fort Sumter. On the 5th 

 the steamer Star of the West left New York 

 with men, arms, and ammunition on board, and 

 arrived off Charleston on the 9th. (see STAR OF 

 THE WEST,) was fired upon, and returned. Thir 

 proceeding was consistent with the position 

 taken by the President in his Message of Janu- 

 ary 8, and his correspondence with the retiring 

 secretaries. 



Meantime, on the 4th of January, an order 

 was issued to all the available troops at Leaven- 

 worth, Kansas, to be ready to march to Fort 

 McHenry at Baltimore. The order to march 

 was given on the Tth. On the 7th a small force 

 was sent to Harper's Ferry armory. A regi- 

 ment of volunteers had been offered from West- 

 chester, Penn., on the 5th. On the same day a 

 salute in honor of Major Anderson was fired at 

 Schenectady, N. Y. On the 10th the steamer 

 Joseph Whitney left Boston with stores and 

 troops for the Tortugas and other forts in Flor- 

 ida. 



The occupation of Fort Sumter by a little 

 garrison of Federal troops, and the waving of 

 the Stars and Stripes daily over its walls in the 

 harbor of Charleston, gave great annoyance to 

 the authorities of South Carolina. The sover- 

 eignty and independence of South Carolina was 

 not an accomplished fact, while that emblem of 

 another power floated without her consent over 

 a portion of the State territory. Accordingly, 

 on the llth of January, a demand for the sur- 

 render of the fort was made by Gov. Pickens 

 on Major Anderson, who declined to comply, 

 from want of authority. (See SUMTEB.) On 

 the same day I. W. Hayne, Attorney-General 

 of South Carolina, was despatched as an envoy 

 of the State to Washington, to demand the sur- 

 render of the fort by the President of the 

 United States. On his arrival in Washington, 

 ten Senators in Congress from seceding States 

 advised him to delay action until those States 

 should have formed a Confederacy. They 

 offered to propose to the President that Fort 

 Sumter should not be reenforced in the mean 

 time. On this condition he acceded to their 

 request. Those Senators, through Messrs. Fitz- 

 patrick, Mallory, and Slidell, having laid the 

 correspondence before the President, received 

 through Secretary Holt a reply dated on the 

 22d of January. 



Mr. Holt stated that the President had con- 

 sidered that correspondence, in which it ap- 

 peared that their suggestions to Mr. Hayne to 

 withhold his demand on the President, had re- 

 ceived a clear and explicit answer from Mr. 

 Hayne himself, in these words : 



I am not clothed with power to make the arrange- 

 ments you suggest ; but provided you can get assur- 

 ances, with which you are entirely satisfied, that no 

 reinforcements will" be sent to Fort Sumter in the in- 

 terval, and that the public peace will not be disturbed 

 by any act of hostility towards South Carolina, I will 

 refer "your communication to the authorities of South 

 Carolina, and, withholding the communication with 



