April 6, 1861; The New York Herald
Civil War, like the sword of Damocles, hangs suspended over this country as by a single hair. As we predicted, the anti-slavery radicals of our new administration have gained the control of it, and rebels and traitors’ of the seceded States are to be whipped into submission. The formidable military preparations of Mr. Lincoln, his mustering of ships-of-war, and transports, and troops, for active operations on the sea and on the land, remove all doubts as to the policy which he intends to pursue. To the extent of his resources, his policy will be the maintenance of the authority of the United States over the seceded States by force of arms.
The precise plan of operations projected is of course undisclosed to the world; but we have reason to believe that it comprehends, first, the reinforcement and continued occupation of Fort Pickens, at all hazards, and in the face of an inevitable collision with a besieging army of the Confederate or seceded States of from five to ten thousand fighting men; and, secondly, the collection of our federal revenues from the customs at or near the ports of the seceded States, by means of a blockade. Several ships-of-war, for example, are to be stationed at the outlet of Charleston harbor, to collect the duties upon imports at that point; another blockading squadron is to guard the several mouths of the Mississippi, and so on. Such appears to be the practical interpretation resolved upon of Mr. Lincoln’s inaugural, wherein he promised to hold the forts still under our federal flag in the seceded States, and to execute in said States our revenue laws.
Now we think it can be no longer disputed that Fort Pickens must be peaceably evacuated by the United States, or that between their military forces and those of the seceded States there will be a bloody collision for the occupation of said fortress. We are semi-officially assured that it will not be peaceably evacuated, and therefore a bloody collision at that point seems to be inevitable. In the event of such a collision we know what will immediately follow. Virginia will lead off the border slave States into the Southern confederacy, and an alliance offensive and defensive, among all the slave States, will be the next act in the drama. And what next? The movement, perhaps, of a Southern army of twenty, thirty or fifty thousand men upon Washington, largely collected from the revolutionary secession elements of Virginia and Maryland.
In discussing the fearful chances of a civil war, it is not necessary to go beyond Fort Pickens. But the revenue policy of our administration is also a policy of war. Has our executive government any constitutional authority to blockade any of the ports of the United States, assuming, with Mr. Lincoln, that the seceded States are still in the Union? We are not aware of the existence of any such authority. Has our President any legal right or legal means for the collection on board ship, in the manner proposed, of our federal duties upon imports? None that we are aware of. A blockade, of itself, is an act of war; and the war making power belongs, not to the President, but to Congress. Thus, in usurping powers not to be found of our federal constitution, Mr. Lincoln will cease to have any further claims upon the loyalty of the border slave States, and they will unquestionable transfer their allegiance from Washington to Montgomery.
Our readers will thus perceive that we are standing upon the threshold of house divided against itself in battle array; that we are upon the verge of a civil war, in which all the slave States will be combined against the government at Washington; and that there is at least some manifest danger of that Southern armed invasion of Washington which, it is thought, only General Scott’s formidable warlike precautions prevented on the occasion of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration. Civil war! Our people have no actual knowledge of the terrible import of these two dreadful words–civil war! We read of its horrors in France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain and Mexico, and we shudder at its desolating and brutal atrocities. But at length we are suddenly arrested in our brilliant career of national prosperity, happiness and power, by this horrid apparition of civil war. There appears to be no hope of escape.
We must then prepare for the worst. The civil wars of the Roses, and of Cromwell, and of La Vendee, will serve to warn us of coming events in our midst–fire and sword, confiscations, forced contributions, terrorism, anarchy and a military despotism. Our merchants, manufacturers, banks, corporations and industrial classes, our men of property and our children of poverty, would do well to prepare at once for these overshadowing and appalling calamities. We may soon expect a change in the specie tide which has been flowing in upon us for some time past, till it has gorged our banks, not only from California, but from Europe. It will flow back to England for safety; for the strongest doors of our banks will not be safe against the casualties of civil war. Nothing is safe where all laws and all rights are torn down by the strong hand of violence.
Then our Northern people will begin to comprehend the meaning of this conflict, concocted forty years ago for the abolition of Southern slavery. Then our Northern anti-slavery agitating politicians will begin to realize their folly, and thinking men will begin to see that it would have been better to have granted every concession demanded by the South than to have risked this fearful ordeal of civil war. We recur to the reckless demagoguism, the imbecilities and corruptions of poor Pierce; to the vacillations, demoralizations and Cabinet treacheries and debaucheries of Mr. Buchanan’s administration; to the incompetent, ignorant and desperate ‘Honest Abe Lincoln,’ and we understand it all. Our unscrupulous, scheming, spoils-and-plunder politicians, through Pierce, Buchanan and Lincoln, have brought the country–its good name, its prosperity and its hopes–to the dust. We can only deplore its humiliation and downfall, and admonish our fellow citizens, high and low, rich and poor, North and South, to prepare for the cruel extremities of civil war.