party in order to render the election of the Republican candidate certain, so that they might found on his election the cri de guerre of a “sectional triumph” over the South, so they “coerced” the Southern people into the adoption of a war-policy.  We have more than once heard Mr. Lincoln blamed for “precipitating matters” in April, 1861.  He should have temporized, it has been said, and so have preserved peace; but when he called for seventy-five thousand volunteers, he made war unavoidable.  The truth is, that Mr. Lincoln did not begin the war.  It was begun by the South.  His call for volunteers was the consequence of war being made on the nation, and not the cause of war being made either on the South or by the South.  The enemy fired upon and took Fort Sumter before the first call for volunteers was issued; and that proceeding must be admitted to have been an act of war, unless we are prepared to admit that there is a right of Secession.  And Fort Sumter was fired upon and taken through the influence of the violent party at the South, who were resolved that there should be war.  They knew that it was beyond the power of the Federal Government to send supplies to the doomed fort, and that in a few days it would pass into the hands of the Confederates; and this they determined to prevent, because they knew also that the mere surrender of the garrison, when it had eaten its last rations, would not suffice to “fire the Northern heart.”  They carried their point, and hence it was that war was begun the middle of April, 1861.  But for the triumph of the violent Southern party, the contest might have been postponed, and even a peace patched up for the time, and the inevitable struggle put off to a future day.  As it was, Government had no choice, and was compelled to fight; and it would have been compelled to fight, had it been composed entirely of Quakers.

War being unavoidable, and it being clear that slavery was the cause of it as well as its occasion, and that it would be the main support of our enemy, it ought to have followed that our first blow should be directed against that institution.  Nothing of the kind happened.  Whatever Government may have thought on the subject, it did nothing to injure slavery.  But for this forbearance, which now appears so astonishing, we are not disposed to blame the President.  He acted as the representative of the country, which was not then prepared to act vigorously against the root of the evil that afflicted it.  A moral blindness prevailed, which proved most injurious to the Union cause, and from the effect of which it may never recover.  It was supposed that it was yet possible to “conciliate” the South, and that that section could be induced to “come back” into the Union, provided nothing should be done to hurt its feelings or injure its interests!  Looking back to the summer of 1861, it is with difficulty that we can believe that men were then in possession of their senses, so inconsistent