ainst the
government; how the navy had been "scattered in distant seas,
leaving but a small part of it within immediate reach of the
government;" how seven States had seceded from the Union, and formed
"a separate government, which is already invoking recognition, aid,
and intervention from foreign powers." With this critical situation
he was compelled to deal at once, and the policy which he had chosen
when he entered upon his office looked to the exhaustion of all
peaceful measures before a resort to stronger ones.

In pursuing the policy of peace, the President had "sought only to
hold the public places and property not already wrested from the
government, and to collect the revenue--relying for the rest on
time, discussion, and the ballot-box." He had even gone so far as
"to promise a continuance of the mails at government expense to
the very people who were resisting the government;" and he had
given "repeated pledges" that every thing should be "forborne
without which it was believed possible to keep the government on
foot;" that there should be no "disturbances to any of the people,
or to any of their rights." He had gone in the direction of
conciliation as far as it was possible to go, without consenting
to a disruption of the government.

The President gave in detail the events which led to the assault
on Sumter. He declared that the reduction of the fort "was in no
sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants."
They well knew "that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility
commit an aggression upon them;" they were expressly notified that
"the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison
was all which would be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting
so much, should provoke more." They knew that the National Government
desired to keep the garrison in the fort, "not to assail them, but
merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the
Union from actual and immediate dissolution." The Confederate
Government had "assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the
reverse object--to drive out the visible authority of the Federal
Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution."

"In this act," said Mr. Lincoln, "discarding all else, they have
forced upon the country the distinct issue--immediate dissolution
or blood; and this issue embraces more than the fate of these United
States. It presents to the whole family of man the question,
whether a C