DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, 15th March, 1861.
The President submits to me the following question --
namely: "Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort Sumter,
under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt it?"
If it were possible to peacefully provision Fort Sumter, of
course I should answer that it would be both unwise and inhuman not
to attempt it. But the facts of the case are known to be that the
attempt must be made with the employment of military and marine
force, which would provoke combat, and probably initiate a civil war,
which the government of the United States would be committed to
maintain through all changes to some definite conclusion.
History must record that a sectional party practically
constituting a majority of the people of the fifteen slave States,
excited to a high state of jealous apprehension for the safety of
life and property, by impassioned, though groundless, appeals went
into the late election with a predetermined purpose, if unsuccessful
at the polls, to raise the standard of secession immediately
afterward, and to separate the slave States, or so many of them as
could be detached from the Union, and to organize them in a new,
distinct, and independent Confederacy. That party was unsuccessful at
the polls. In the frenzy which followed the announcement of their
defeat, they put the machinery of the State legislatures and
conventions into motion, and within the period of three months they
have succeeded in obtaining ordinances of secession by which seven of
the slave States have seceded and organized a new Confederacy under
the name of the Confederate States of America. These States, finding
a large number of the mints, custom-houses, forts, and arsenals of
the United States situate within their limits, unoccupied,
undefended, and virtually abandoned by the late administration, have
seized and appropriated them to their own use, and under the same
circumstances have seized and appropriated to their own use large
amounts of money and other public property of the United States,
found within their limits. The people of the other slave States,
divided and balancing between sympathy with the seceding slave States
and loyalty to the Union, have been intensely excited, but, at the
present moment, indicate a disposition to adhere to the Union, if
nothing extraordinary shall occur to renew excitement and produce
popular exasperation. This is the stage in this premeditated
revolution at which we now stand.
The opening of this painful controversy at once raised the
question whether it would be for the interest of the country to admit
the projected dismemberment, with its consequent evils, or whether
patriotism and humanity require that it shall be prevented. As a
citizen, my own decision on this subject was promptly made-- namely,
that the Union is inestimable and even indispensable to the welfare
and happiness of the whole country, and to the best interests of
mankind. As a statesman in the public service, I have not hesitated
to assume that the Federal Government is committed to maintain,
preserve, and defend the Union -- peaceably if it can, forcibly if it
must - to every extremity. Next to disunion itself, I regard civil
war as the most disastrous and deplorable of national calamities, and
as the most uncertain and fearful of all remedies for political
disorders. I have, therefore, made it the study and labor of the
hour, how to save the Union from dismemberment by peaceful policy and
without civil war.
Influenced by these sentiments, I have felt that it is
exceedingly fortunate that, to a great extent, the Federal Government
occupies, thus far, not an aggressive attitude, but practically a
defensive one, while the necessity for action, if civil war is to be
initiated, falls on those who seek to dismember and subvert this
Union.
It has seemed to me equally fortunate that the disunionists
are absolutely without any justification for their rash and desperate
designs. The administration of the government had been for a long
time virtually in their own hands, and controlled and directed by
themselves, when they began the work of revolution. They had,
therefore, no other excuse than apprehensions of oppression from the
new and adverse administration which was about to come into
power.
It seems to me, further, to be a matter of good fortune that
the new and adverse administration must come in with both Houses of
Congress containing majorities opposite to its policy, so that, even
if it would, it could commit no wrong or injustice against the
States which were being madly goaded into revolution. Under these
circumstances, disunion could have no better basis to stand upon than
a blind, unreasoning popular excitement, arising out of a simple and
harmless disappointment in a Presidential election. That excitement,
if it should find no new ailment, must soon subside and leave
disunion without any real support. On the other hand, I have believed
firmly that everywhere, even in South Carolina, devotion to the Union
is a profound and permanent national sentiment, which, although it
may be suppressed and silenced by terror for a time, could, if
encouraged, be ultimately relied upon to rally the people of the
seceding States to reverse, upon due deliberation, all the popular
acts of legislatures and conventions by which they were hastily and
violently committed to disunion. The policy of the time,
therefore, has seemed to me to consist in conciliation, which should
deny to disunionists any new provocation or apparent offense, while
it would enable the unionists in the slave States to maintain, with
truth and with effect, that the claims and apprehensions put forth by
the disunionists are groundless and false.
I have not been ignorant of the objection that the
administration was elected through the activity of the Republican
party, that it must continue to deserve and retain the confidence of
that party, while conciliation toward the slave States tends to
demoralize the Republican party itself, on which party the main
responsibility of maintaining the Union must rest. But it has
seemed to me a sufficient answer, first, that the administration
could not demoralize the Republican party without making some
sacrifice of its essential principles when no such sacrifice is
necessary or is anywhere authoritatively proposed; and, secondly, if
it be indeed true that pacification is necessary to prevent
dismemberment of the Union and civil war, or either of them, no
patriot and lover of humanity could hesitate to surrender party for
the higher interests of country and humanity.
Partly by design, partly by chance, this policy has been
hitherto pursued by the last administration of the Federal
Government, and by the Republican party in its corporate action. It
is by this policy thus pursued, I think, that the progress of
dismemberment has been arrested after the seven Gulf States had
seceded, and the border States yet remain, although they do so
uneasily, in the Union.
It is to a perseverance in this policy for a short time
longer that I look as the only peaceful means of assuring the
continuance of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, or most of those States, in the
Union. It is through their good and patriotic offices that I look to
see the Union sentiment revived and brought once more into activity
in the seceding States, and through this agency those States
themselves returning into the Union.
I am not unaware that I am conceding more than can
reasonably be demanded by the people of the border States. They
could, speaking justly, demand nothing. They are bound by the Federal
obligation to adhere to the Union without concession or conciliation,
just as much as the people of the free States are. But in
administration we must deal with men, facts, and circumstances, not
as they ought to be, but as they are.
The fact, then, is that while the people of the border
States desire to be loyal, they are at the same time sadly, though
temporarily, demoralized by a sympathy for the slave States which
makes them forget their loyalty whenever there are any grounds for
apprehending that the Federal Government will resort to military
coercion against the seceding States, even though such coercion
should be necessary to maintain the authority, or even the integrity,
of the Union. This sympathy is unreasonable, unwise, and dangerous,
and therefore cannot, if left undisturbed, be permanent. It can be
banished, however, only in one way, and that is by giving time for it
to wear out and for reason to resume its sway. Time will do this, if
it be not hindered by new alarms and provocations.
South Carolina opened the revolution. Apprehending
chastisement by the military arm of the United States, she seized all
the forts of the United States in the harbor of Charleston, except
Fort Sumter, which, garrisoned by less than a hundred men, stands
practically in a state of siege, but at the same time defying South
Carolina and, as the seceding States imagine, menacing her with
conquest. Every one knows, first, that even if Sumter were adequately
reinforced, it would still be practically useless to the government,
because the administration in no case could attempt to subjugate
Charleston or the State of South Carolina.
It is held now only because it is the property of the United
States, and is a monument of their authority and sovereignty. I would
so continue to hold it as long as it can be done without involving
some danger or evil greater than the advantage of continued
possession. The highest military authority tells us that without
supplies the garrison must yield in a few days to starvation, that
its numbers are so small that it must yield in a few days to attack
by the assailants Lying around it, and that the case in this respect
would remain the same even if it were supplied but not rein forced.
All the military and naval authorities tell us that any attempt at
supplies would be unavailing without the employment of armed military
and naval force. If we employ armed force for the purpose of
supplying the fort, we give all the provocation that could be offered
by combining reinforcement with supply. The question submitted to me,
then, practically is: Supposing it to be possible to reinforce and
supply Fort Sumter, is it wise now to attempt it instead of
withdrawing the garrison? The most that could be done by any means
now in our hands, would be to throw two hundred and fifty to four
hundred men into the garrison, with provisions for supplying it for
six months. In this active and enlightened country, in this season of
excitement, with a daily press, daily mails, and an incessantly
operating telegraph, the design to reinforce and supply the garrison
must become known to the opposite party at Charleston as soon, at
least, as preparation for it should begin. The garrison would then
almost certainly fall by assault before the expedition could reach
the harbor of Charleston. But supposing the secret kept, the
expedition must engage in conflict on entering the harbor of
Charleston. Suppose it be overpowered and destroyed, is that new
outrage to be avenged, or are we then to return to our attitude of
immobility? Shall we be allowed to do so? Moreover, in that event,
what becomes of the garrison?
Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a garrison
in Fort Sumter that can defy assault for six months. What is it to do
then? Is it to make war by opening its batteries and attempting to
demolish the defenses of the Carolinians? Can it demolish them if it
tries? If it cannot, what is the advantage we shall have gained? If
it can, how will it serve to check or prevent disunion? In either
case it seems to me that we will have inaugurated a civil war by our
own act, without an adequate object, after which reunion will be
hopeless, at least under this administration, or in any other way
than by a popular disavowal both of the war and of the administration
which unnecessarily commenced it. Fraternity is the element of union;
war, the very element of disunion. Fraternity, if practised by this
administration, will rescue the Union from all its dangers. If this
administration, on the other hand, takes up the sword, then an
opposite party will offer the olive-branch, and will, as it ought,
profit by the restoration of peace and union.
I may be asked whether I would in no case, and at no time,
advise force -- whether I propose to give up everything? I reply, no.
I would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position
on the soil of the seceding States. I would not provoke war in any
way now. I would resort to force to protect the collection of the
revenue, because this is a necessary as well as a legitimate minor
object. Even then it should be only a naval force that I would employ
for that necessary purpose, while I would defer military action on
land until a case should arise when we would hold the defense. In
that case we should have the spirit of the country and the approval
of mankind on our side. In the other, we should imperil peace and
union, because we had not the courage to practise prudence and
moderation at the cost of temporary misapprehension. If this counsel
seems to be impassive and even unpatriotic, I console myself by the
reflection that it is such as Chatham gave to his country under
circumstances not widely different.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD
