use the
term traitors for men like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all unnatural
that with their understanding of the government of the States in which
they had been born, and with their belief that these States had a right
to take action for themselves, they should have decided that their
obligation lay to the State rather than to what they had persisted in
thinking of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. We may rather
believe that Lee was as honest in his way as Thomas and Farragut in
theirs, but the view that the United States is a nation has been
maintained through the loyal services of the men who held with Thomas
and with Farragut.

V

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR

On April 12, 1861, came with the bombardment of Fort Sumter the actual
beginning of the War. The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted
all suggestions for any such immediate action on the part of the
government as would place upon the North the responsibility for the
opening of hostilities. Shortly after the fall of Sumter, a despatch was
drafted by Seward for the guidance of American ministers abroad. The
first reports in regard to the probable action of European governments
gave the impression that the sympathy of these governments was largely
with the South. In France and England, expressions had been used by
leading officials which appeared to foreshadow an early recognition of
the Confederacy. Seward's despatch as first drafted was unwisely angry
and truculent in tone. If brought into publication, it would probably
have increased the antagonism of the men who were ruling England. It
appeared in fact to foreshadow war with England. Seward had assumed that
England was going to take active part with the South and was at once
throwing down the gauntlet of defiance. It was Lincoln who insisted that
this was no time, whatever might be the provocation, for the United
States to be shaking its fist at Europe. The despatch was reworded and
the harsh and angry expressions were eliminated. The right claimed by
the United States, in common with all nations, to maintain its own
existence was set forth with full force, while it was also made clear
that the nation was strong enough to maintain its rights against all
foes whether within or without its boundaries. It is rather strange to
recall that throughout the relations of the two men, it was the trained
and scholarly statesman of the East who had to be repressed for unwise
trucule