It presents the question whether discontented
individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to
organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretences made in this
case, or on any other pretences, or arbitrarily without any pretence,
break up their Government, and thus practically put an end to free
government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: 'Is there in all
republics, this inherent and fatal weakness?' 'Must a Government of
necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak
to maintain its own existence?'

"So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the War power
of the Government; and so to resist force, employed for its destruction,
by force, for its preservation."

The Call for Troops was made, as we have seen, on the 15th day of April.
On the evening of the following day several companies of a Pennsylvania
Regiment reported for duty in Washington. On the 18th, more
Pennsylvania Volunteers, including a company of Artillery, arrived
there.

On the 19th of April, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment--whose progress
through New York city had been triumphal-was suddenly and unexpectedly
assailed, in its passage through Baltimore, to the defense of the
National Capital, by a howling mob of Maryland Secessionists--worked up
to a pitch of States-rights frenzy by Confederate emissaries and
influential Baltimore Secession-sympathizers, by news of the sudden
evacuation of the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and other exciting
tidings--and had to fight its way through, leaving three soldiers of
that regiment dead, and a number wounded, behind it.

[At a meeting of the "National Volunteer Association," at Monument
Square, Baltimore, the previous evening, says Greeley's History of
the American Conflict, page 462, "None of the speakers directly
advocated attacks on the Northern troops about to pass through the
city; but each was open in his hostility to 'Coercion,' and
ardently exhorted his hearers to organize, arm and drill, for the
Conflict now inevitable. Carr (Wilson C. N. Carr) said: 'I do not
care how many Federal troops are sent to Washington; they will soon
find themselves surrounded by such an army from Virginia and
Maryland, that escape to their homes will be impossible; and when
the 75,000 who are intended to invade the South shall have polluted
that soil with their touch, the South will ex