548 The Fall of the Confederacy. 
Yet the Northern Administration as zealously affirmed, as 
the Confederate Administration positively denied, that the 
South began the war. It did so because even after the 
war commenced the small peace minority of the North 
would have been materially increased if it could have been 
shown that the Federal Government began the war. On 
the other hand, if the South began the war then in the 
eyes of all union men the Confederate Administration was 
guilty, not only of secession, but of the attempt to 
set up a rival government. If the South began the 
war, the Southern people could not but charge the Confede- 
rate Administration with throwing away the opportunity 
of a peaceful solution of the difficulty, and also with rushing 
into a conflict without adequate preparation. And there can 
be no dispute that the South began the war. We take it 
that no one will pretend that the attempt to reinforce Fort 
Sumter, was under the circumstances, an act of hostility 
demanding reprisals at any cost. 
The precipitate war was a military as well as a political 
blunder. The North was unprepared, but so was the South, 
and the peculiarity is this, that so long as the status quo con- 
tinued the North could not prepare for war and the South 
could do so. The North was watched by a host of Southern 
friends and any preparation for war would have raised a 
storm that would have been destructive of the Federal Ad- 
ministration. Now, the South might in a few weeks have 
made important preparations for war. Cotton might have 
been shipped to Europe. Stores, not technically war-stores 
though necessary for waging war, such as medicines, clothing, 
and iron for the railroads, might have been imported. Every 
hour’s delay would have found the South in a better posi- 
tion for defence, while the North would have been unable 
to venture on any preparations for a conflict. But we must 
not be surprised that the Administration which threw away 
a rare chance of victory without fighting, disregarded the 
military advantages of delaying an appeal to arms. 
Possibly some may be of opinion that the Revolution 
was not untimely, but surely no candid inquirer can deny 
that the wat was = peecipitate 
(To be continued. ) 
