y the summer season was at hand, so that
these makeshifts were serviceable for many months, during which better
craft were rapidly got together by alteration and building. Three
thousand miles of coast and many harbors were included within the
blockade limits, and were distributed into departments under different
commanders. Each commander was instructed to declare his blockade in
force as soon as he felt able to make it tolerably effective, with the
expectation of rapidly improving its efficiency. The beginning was,
therefore, ragged, and was naturally criticised in a very jealous and
hostile spirit by those foreign nations who suffered by it. Dangerous
disputes threatened to arise, but were fortunately escaped, and in a
surprisingly short time "Yankee" enterprise made the blockade too
thorough for question.

Amid the first haste and pressure it was ingeniously suggested that,
since the government claimed jurisdiction over the whole country and
recognized only a rebellion strictly so called, therefore the President
could by proclamation simply _close_ ports at will. Secretary Welles
favored this course, and in the extra session of the summer of 1861
Congress passed a bill giving authority to Mr. Lincoln to pursue it, in
his discretion. Mr. Seward, with better judgment, said that it might be
legal, but would certainly be unwise. The position probably could have
been successfully maintained by lawyers before a bench of judges; but
to have relied upon it in the teeth of the commercial interests and
unfriendly sentiment of England and France would have been a fatal
blunder. Happily it was avoided; and the President had the shrewdness to
keep within a line which shut out technical discussion. Already he saw
that, so far as relations with foreigners were concerned, the domestic
theory of a rebellion, pure and simple, must be very greatly modified.
In a word, that which began as rebellion soon developed into civil war;
the two were closely akin, but with some important differences.

Nice points of domestic constitutional law also arose with the first
necessity for action, opening the broad question as to what course
should be pursued in doubtful cases, and worse still in those cases
where the government could not fairly claim the benefit of a real doubt.
The plain truth was that, in a condition faintly contemplated in the
Constitution, many things not permitted by the Constitution must be done
to preserve the Constitution. T