the President talked of "repossessing" the stolen forts,
arsenals, and custom-houses, yet close upon this declaration followed
the disheartening intelligence that the cabinet were discussing the
propriety of evacuating not only Fort Sumter, which was of no strategic
importance, but Fort Pickens, which was the key to the Gulf of Mexico,
and to abandon which was almost to acknowledge the independence of the
Rebel States. Thus far the Free States had waited with commendable
patience for some symptom of vitality in the new Administration,
something that should distinguish it from the piteous helplessness of
its predecessor. But now their pride was too deeply outraged for
endurance; indignant remonstrances were heard from all quarters, and
the Government seemed for the first time fairly to comprehend that it
had twenty millions of freemen at its back, and that forts might be
taken and held by honest men as well as by knaves and traitors. The
nettle had been stroked long enough; it was time to try a firm grip.
Still the Administration seemed inclined to temporize, so thoroughly
was it possessed by the notion of conciliating the Border States. In
point of fact, the side which those States might take in the struggle
between Law and Anarchy was of vastly more import to them than to us.
They could bring no considerable reinforcement of money, credit, or
arms to the rebels; they could at best but add so many mouths to an
army whose commissariat was already dangerously embarrassed. They could
not even, except temporarily, keep the war away from the territory of
the seceding States, every one of which had a sea-door open to the
invasion of an enemy who controlled the entire navy and shipping of the
country. The position assumed by Eastern Virginia and Maryland was of
consequence only so far as it might facilitate a sudden raid on
Washington, and the policy of both these States was to amuse the
Government by imaginary negotiations till the plans of the conspirators
were ripe. In both States men were actively recruited and enrolled to
assist in attacking the capital. With them, as with the more openly
rebellious States, the new theory of "Coercion" was ingeniously
arranged like a valve, yielding at the slightest impulse to the passage
of forces for the subversion of legitimate authority, closing
imperviously, so that no drop of power could ooze through in the
opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards,
would