less than Washington, had passed through a period of
disillusion. The assumption upon which its chief politicians had built
so confidently had collapsed. The South was not really a unit. It was
not true that the secession of any one State, on any sort of issue,
would compel automatically the secession of all the Southern States.
North Carolina had exploded this illusion. Virginia had exploded it.
The South could not be united on the issue of slavery; it could not be
united on the issue of sectional dread. It could be united on but
one issue-State sovereignty, the denial of the right of the Federal
Government to coerce a State. The time had come to decide whether the
cannon at Charleston should fire. As Seward had foreseen, Montgomery
held the trumps; but had Montgomery the courage to play them? There
was a momentous debate in the Confederate Cabinet. Robert Toombs, the
Secretary of State, whose rapid growth in comprehension since December
formed a parallel to Lincoln's growth, threw his influence on the side
of further delay. He would not invoke that "final argument of kings,"
the shotted cannon. "Mr. President," he exclaimed, "at this time, it is
suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will
instantly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean,
and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is
unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal." But Toombs stood
alone in the Cabinet. Orders were sent to Charleston to reduce Fort
Sumter. Before dawn, April twelfth, the first shot was fired. The flag
of the United States was hauled down on the afternoon of the thirteenth.
Meanwhile the relieving fleet had arrived--without the Powhatan. Bereft
of its great ship, it could not pass the harbor batteries and assist the
fort. Its only service was to take off the garrison which by the terms
of surrender was allowed to withdraw. On the fourteenth, Sumter was
evacuated and the inglorious fleet sailed back to the northward.

Lincoln at once accepted the gage of battle. On the fifteenth
appeared his proclamation calling for an army of seventy-five thousand
volunteers. Automatically, the upper South fulfilled its unhappy
destiny. Challenged at last, on the irreconcilable issue, Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, seceded. The final argument of
kings was the only one remaining.

XVI "ON TO RICHMOND!"

It has been truly said that the Americans are an unmilitar