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Chapter 13:
- A pause and a review -- attitude of the two parties -- sophistry exposed and shams torn away -- forbearance of the Confederate Government -- who was the Aggressor? -- Major Anderson's view, and that of a naval officer -- Horace Greeley on the Fort Sumter case -- the bombardment and surrender -- gallant action of ex-senator Wigfall -- Lincoln's statement of the case.
Here, in the brief hour immediately before the outburst of the long-gathering storm, although it can hardly be necessary for the reader who has carefully considered what has already been written, we may pause for a moment to contemplate the attitude of the parties to the contest and the grounds on which they respectively stand. I do not now refer to the original causes of controversy—to the comparative claims of statehood and union, or to the question of the right or the wrong of secession —but to the proximate and immediate causes of conflict. The fact that South Carolina was a state—whatever her relations may have been to the other states—is not and cannot be denied. It is equally undeniable that the ground on which Fort Sumter was built was ceded by South Carolina to the United States in trust for the defense of her own soil and her own chief harbor. This has been shown, by ample evidence, to have been the principle governing all cessions by the states of sites for military purposes, but it applies with special force to the case of Charleston. The streams flowing into that harbor, from source to mouth, lie entirely within the limits of the state of South Carolina. No other state or combination of states could have any distinct interest or concern in the maintenance of a fortress at that point, unless as a means of aggression against South Carolina herself. The practical view of the case was correctly stated by Douglas, when he said: “I take it for granted that whoever permanently holds Charleston and South Carolina is entitled to the possession of Fort Sumter. Whoever permanently holds Pensacola and Florida is entitled to the possession of Fort Pickens. Whoever holds the States in whose limits those forts are placed is entitled to the forts themselves, unless there is something peculiar in the location of some particular fort that makes it important for us to hold it for the general defense of the whole country, its commerce and interests, instead of being useful only for the defense of a particular city or locality.” No such necessity could be alleged with regard to Fort Sumter. The
